I have had a similar past experience with this sort of thing. A client wanted me to track some piano pieces they had. Now I don't have a baby grand or anything so I was looking at options for where to do this. He refused an upright piano and I wasn't keen on using one either. Turned out he found a nice Steinway grand that a local University music program would let him use for the day since he was an alumni. Problem was, it was situated right in the middle of a rehearsal hall. The hall had great sound - for an orchestra or full group - but so much open space and reverb that it made the piano sound pretty washy from a distance. It took a lot of time with mic placement but I was stunned to find how close I actually had to mic the piano to get it to sound right. You'd be surprised how much room ambience actually still gets in the mics even having them 2-5" off the strings and under the top. I added one room mic and found I didnt even have to use it at all in the mix. I would see the key for you is to take time with the placement. Close mic'ing and using maybe one room mic is probably the way to go. If you have baffles you can use, make good use of them. I had none and it sucked.

Xspringe wrote: Hello everyone!

I have a large quite live and nicely sounding room available (~12m x 30m x 4.5m) which is quite live sounding and want to experiment a bit with recording there to take advantage of the natural reverb, as opposed to always using those very dead recording rooms.

Is it possible to achieve good recordings under such circumstances? And how would I go about best capturing the sound of such a large live sounding room?

Thanks in advance!

With mics on all instruments as you would in your dry room, and a couple (or more) ambience mics in the room, you can control your sound after the event. Room mics alone will give you a result that lacks focus. Miking up the instruments individually as well will give you the control to bring back that focus.

Just check for phasing problems as you go.

It's also possible to create "dry zones" with gobos (partitions) and wall & floor treatments. Is the room rectangular/flat ceiling? The thing to watch for would be low end standing waves and bass buildup in the corners. My room in my project studio is larger and livelier than most rooms.......all clients are happy so far. It's always been interesting to me how so many folks strive to make a room completely dead, then add artificial delay and reverb.

jonyoung wrote: It's also possible to create "dry zones" with gobos (partitions) and wall & floor treatments. Is the room rectangular/flat ceiling? The thing to watch for would be low end standing waves and bass buildup in the corners. My room in my project studio is larger and livelier than most rooms.......all clients are happy so far. It's always been interesting to me how so many folks strive to make a room completely dead, then add artificial delay and reverb.

you stole the words from my mouth... GOBOS!

Man we used to make some great recordings in the old warehouse back in the day... you could really get those huge Bonham drums going.. but you had to keep your finger on things and be careful of mic placement etc... pretty much summed up above.

It can be done though. :)