Your best bet with the equipment you describe is to use an XY pattern. Remember these are side address. You will want to put the stand about six feet behind the conductor and send it all the way up to 15'. Point the microphones down into the orchestra towards the last stands of violas and 2nd violins. If you aim at the winds and brass they will overbalance the strings in the recordings. It would be better to aim closer to the middle of the strings than too far to the bones. They're in the back for a reason. If you're lucky they will be so far into their crosswords they'll forget to play. As to the XY, if you have a stereo bar you can flip one of the mics so it hangs upside down almost tip to tip. Strictly speaking XY is 90 degrees coincident but you can be a little liberal if the orchestra is spread wide or is real narrow. It is always better to track a little soft than have the preamps clip on a field recorder. You can always import the cda or wav into an editor and normalize it. Another benefit to tracking a little quiet is that it benefits the noise floor of the microphones. If the audience is too close to the microphones I often select the applause within the DAW and limit/compress it down to the RMS prior to normalizing. You may also want to consider a high pass filter around 100hz to get rid of the heat/air conditioning and traffic outside.

TheJackAttack, post: 344144 wrote: It would be better to aim closer to the middle of the strings than too far to the bones. They're in the back for a reason. If you're lucky they will be so far into their crosswords they'll forget to play.

Now THAT is funny!!!

How do you get the trombone player off your porch?

Pay for the pizza.

That was true in Chicago too. Even in the big orchestra. Of course Pokorny and Kleinhammer never missed an entrance but the hi jinx were real. Sometimes they bought the pizza........

Thanks for the very helpful information. Exactly what I was looking for. I see now I was too far - about 10 feet behind the conductor, so I'll try to move it up a bit. PS: I play the trombone in the orchestra, so I understand your point about overbalancing the strings. One other very important detail I forgot to mention - we'll have a pianist there. So right behind the conductor is a piano and I will be 6 feet from the piano, right? So I should not face the piano because that will be way too loud compared to the strings since it is close and a brittle instrument? The XY pattern means the mics should face away from each other or towards each other?

Thanks.

Microphone practice - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia…

Yes, to include the piano you will have to have your mic's on the audience side of the piano. It is unusual to have the conductor's back to the piano. In a pro orchestra of course you'd have a couple of spot microphones hanging near the piano to pick up detail and you'd still use the main stereo pair in the hall as primary sound source.

It is a balancing act between being far enough back to get a blend of all the instruments after the bloom of sound and being close enough to not have everything be a watercolor sound. The issues with trombones and trumpets (other than being constantly late to the ictus and the malarky-check my sig, I'm right back there with you) is that they are directional sound sources and strings and winds are not generally half as directional. Throw in the fact that the trombone is the most efficient producer of sound in the group and your up on a riser which of course points you even more at the mic and you only get trouble.

.....Nobody knows.....the treble I've seen.......

You might also try the website called Innocent Ear. This is very good information that ANYONE learning to record orchestras
can use. BTW, I have a pair of AT4047s, they are a very good mic, yu'll just have to learn how to position them.

I would encourage anyone recording an orchestra to consider approaches other than XY, which results in a narrow stereo image.

Related link: Recording the Wren Organ · TechDeck: XY and MS http://recordingthe…
This recording below was done with just two mics. Well, almost... spots were used on the oboe and flute, but only when needed.

NorseHorse,

Your recording sounds great! Please give me more details on the equipment - mics/preamps? How high and far from the orchestra were they? Was this an MS setup? I'll try that at our next concert.

Here are my samples recorded with two microphones in ORTF configuration:
‪LADRSymphony's Channel‬‏
https://www.youtube…

The mics are close to the conductor because he likes that "close" sound rather than the room sound.

While recording the Cleveland Orchestra with a fellow engineer a number of years ago, we used 2 AKG C-47's in the European "X" pattern with great success. They were hung to 25' from the floor and center stage behind the conductor. Spots (KLM 24's) were used for the piano and the flute. With the "X" pattern you will need to most likely reverse phase on one of the mics for better frequency response and stereo imaging.

kazam, post: 373158 wrote: Please give me more details on the equipment - mics/preamps?

Thank you! Spaced omnis in an NOS-like arrangement. More details via email...

hi NorseHorse, thats a great recording. Was it XY, spaced pair or other and how far from the orchestra? also, what mics did you use? Bob

Bob, the post you are referring to is almost three years old now... just saying you may or may not get a response from the original poster, it depends on whether they are still around or not.

For future reference, it may help to point out that the original date of the posts appear at the top of the post, on the left side of the colored (blue) bar, above the member's name.

I see you are a new member, so I just thought I'd point that out to you.

Welcome to the forum. ;)