Paul,

I never thought this was so important in a close space like mine either. But looking at the wave, even 8 ' away from the DPA's there was a difference in the alignment, and TheJackAttack heard it. I never until he pointed that out. I thought the delay was room and a natural picture of how it sounds to me from the audience position. But when I shifted the track, he heard it improved to his liking and so did I!
The obvious answer to this is, my ears cannot be where the performer is so tracking it all together like this creates an un realistic sound. Thus, aligning the mics and pulling the U87 back in volume until you just hear it, makes a really full, natural sound. This is very smart, I like it!

Classical recording is a whole new world / way of thinking to me. Loving it. thumb

Gottcha. I don't do a ton of classical stuff, some, but not a ton. I will take a look at this a little more in my future recordings. I also tend to be a bit of a minimalist when it comes to micing.

I do a lot of recording that is live chamber music. If there is a piano and you don't close mic it, it always sounds like crap in the
"wash" of the main mic's. On the other hand you do NOT want to hear the piano as if it were recorded in another room. The Band of Brothers soundtrack is like this. To my ear whomever did that soundtrack did it a disservice by allowing whomever made it to track the "soloist" or "concerto" away form the "grosso." And of course this is impossible anyway in a live performance.

John,

Now that I get the magic here. I'm assuming this applies to anything you are close micing in conjunction/sync with main mics and flanks?
Also, when you are aligning everything, I'm assuming rule of thumb is to align all tracks as tight as possible or do you ever play with it like piano tuning ( inharmonicity) / chorus effect < fattening... ?

John, to set the record straight: Classical recordings should be mixed from the audiences perspective which is completely opposite to my modern style of close micing pop music, correct? Its all about the audiences perspective yes?

When you are recording a Symphony, would you simply align the Mains and Flanks to all the stage mics? Thus, stage mic volumes mixed so you can just hear them like the U87 in my example ? Do I have this right?

audiokid, post: 381622 wrote: John,

Now that I get the magic here. I'm assuming this applies to anything you are close micing in conjunction/sync with main mics and flanks?
Also, when you are aligning everything, I'm assuming rule of thumb is to align all tracks as tight as possible or do you ever play with it like piano tuning ( inharmonicity) / chorus effect < fattening... ?

I do align the spots always as close as possible to the mains. If I spot mic a tympani it still has to sound like it's part of the group. It's the same idea. If the wing mic's are significantly in front of the mains you have the same problem. Often they are on right on the edge of the stage picking up immediate sound where the main pair is 10-14 feet back and centered. That is at least triple the distance of what you are doing in your own house. To those not aware of it, it can really interfere with clarity et alia. If I am utilizing different types of mics-ie ribbon vs condenser-I will sometimes play with it as the phase is a bit different anyway. One of my favorite tricks is to use two main stereo pairs, one the SF12 passive ribbon and a pair of either LDC or SDC in ORTF or as spaced omni's. This gives a very robust sound that is often a bit un-classical. Spot mic'ing a piano can also allow one to apply judicious compression ala the George Massenburg youtube vid to enhance a chamber performance or even a solo recording.

audiokid, post: 381624 wrote: John, to set the record straight: Classical recordings should be mixed from the audiences perspective which is completely opposite to my modern style of close micing pop music, correct? Its all about the audiences perspective yes?

When you are recording a Symphony, would you simply align the Mains and Flanks to all the stage mics? Thus, stage mic volumes mixed so you can just hear them like the U87 in my example ? Do I have this right?

Yes. Nearly always from the audience perspective. This took a bit of adjustment for me as well as I was used to being in the middle of all that glorious sound. Even now when I use Etymotic ER9 plugs it is still wonderous when the ensemble is in tune and musically tight. I won't say always because even one of those recordings I linked to is from the keyboard perspective. That is however a statistically unimportant percentage to appease Bob. :-)

I missed part of that first question. Spot mic's in a symphonic performance/recording are brought in subtly as a significant solo is performed and then removed. Rarely is a section mic'd in a continuous manner. In a bad hall I guess you might but here again, the room is 70% of the sound just like in mixing. More to the point, the stage perspective of the sound as the audience end of it can be filled in by appropriate plugs or a Bricasti or similar. Unless you are a horn player, the best seat in the house should be about where the conductor stands.

I moved the spot more in the middle and it really warmed things up. Much better yet!

I found a few more option for aligning tracks in Sequoia. For those finding this and wondering other methods: track options (right click on track title bar in VIP) see fields for applying positive & negative delay.
Use the free Sound Delay plugin from Voxengo for this purpose or the one John suggested.

Thanks John and everyone. I thoroughly enjoyed sharing this and greatly benefited the help on this one !

Cheers!

Also, Reaper has free plugins which include a delay VST. ReaPlugs can be downloaded as standalone and these are excellent. They have surplanted my GVST plugs.

Can we get a semi-final version to listen to? Please please?

Couldn't get her to play the same songs so this will have to do.

Thoughts?

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For fun last night I tried Melodyne . Its a pretty impressive program. I corrected the pitch 60% without hearing any degradation but it didn't like the high notes as much. Anyone try it on piano? Is there a trick to it on those three string notes? I'll have to play with it some more.

This is getting really very close for position and alignment. Most likely the correction didn't like the high end because it is further out than the mid range. Now you have all the ideas and tools to work with you need to tune that bi-otch up!!!

TheJackAttack, post: 381665 wrote: This is getting really very close for position and alignment. Most likely the correction didn't like the high end because it is further out than the mid range. Now you have all the ideas and tools to work with you need to tune that bi-otch up!!!

Do you mean the correction before or what I just did last?

Chris, I thought mic position was about as good as it is going to get with the last takes your did. The accuracy I was referring to was your statement regarding autotune. Because a piano is a stretched tuning and not a theoretical tuning, auto-tune sometimes has trouble resolving the puzzle.

Additionally, when a piano becomes out of tune by more than a little, each section of the piano goes out at differing rates. For example the low end might sag a little bit at first but the top third has already fallen by a 1/4 step. Sometimes the ends stay fairly true and it is the middle that goes wacky. That's also why it is nearly impossible to touch up a piano tuning that is more than a couple hours old or at best more than a couple of days. Best and traditional practice for a piano tuner is to not even try and just tune from scratch. Any notes that didn't move very far are considered a gift from the tuning gods.

Of course, makes perfect sence. Thanks again!