Old 10-28-2018, 09:12 PM   #1
jerome_oneil
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Default Violin Recording

I've been recording bluegrass jam circles for years and just recently started taking violin lessons. I've also been recording my guitar practice sessions for years, and am doing the same for the violin. Right now I've just got an SM-81 hanging about 8 inches over the fiddle, and it's suitable for my needs, but I'm curious how others might do it.

Resonant instruments usually sound best in resonant spaces, and I'm not in one.
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Old 10-29-2018, 01:22 AM   #2
RobertP
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If you were to take fiddle lessons would that be different?

(a bit tongue in cheek here )
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Old 10-29-2018, 05:37 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jerome_oneil View Post
I've been recording bluegrass jam circles for years and just recently started taking violin lessons. I've also been recording my guitar practice sessions for years, and am doing the same for the violin. Right now I've just got an SM-81 hanging about 8 inches over the fiddle, and it's suitable for my needs, but I'm curious how others might do it.

Resonant instruments usually sound best in resonant spaces, and I'm not in one.
I'd prefer to record it with stereo condenser mics, but if your room is really bad, then you're kind of left with experimenting.

Have you tried recording with the mic pointed right at the bridge at different distances. Also at different angles, maybe start at 90 degrees to the violin, then maybe closer to 180 degrees.

I recorded a few fiddle players back in the 70s and 80s and it always took a little experimenting, but if I remember correctly, some where off the bridge seemed to work well, although I had a pretty good room so I usually recorded in stereo.
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Old 10-29-2018, 05:49 PM   #4
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https://reaperblog.net/2018/10/recor...iolin-at-home/
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Old 10-30-2018, 10:50 PM   #5
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Being a fiddle as well as mandolin player myself and having worked with a number of engineers as a player, any number of things can work. A LOT depends on

1 skill of player
2 quality of instrument
3 room
4 mic
5 pre

If 1 2 and 3 are good, many things work well. If 1 and/or 2 is bad, then almost nothing will be good.

My PERSONAL fav for fiddle is a good neutral ribbon. I use a Royer SF12 and place it over the headstock of my fiddle with the Royer logo pointed right between my eyes. I use this for when the fiddle will be used as a single fiddle in a mix of 2 to 4 other instruments, like a standard 5 piece bluegrass band. If I overdub a twin part, I will back the mic off a foot or so.

One of my favorite recordings I've done was in a great room in a studio in the 90s. This was before I had done any recording myself so I didnt know how to help the engineer, was for a commercial jingle. They didnt like the sound they were getting, so I started walking around the room playing while they were doing something in the control room. I ended up playing about a foot above the mic when the door opened and they said, "stay there". They pointed the mic right at the middle of the back of the fiddle and had me play all my takes that way. That is what went on the commercial. I believe it was a single KM84.

That commercial sounded pretty good on TV.

I just placed an order for the new AEA mic, the KU5A to try on fiddle, based on how it sounded in demo videos on solo violin. You can see this demo on AEAs website.
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Old 10-31-2018, 03:39 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Petimar View Post
Being a fiddle as well as mandolin player myself and having worked with a number of engineers as a player, any number of things can work. A LOT depends on

1 skill of player
2 quality of instrument
3 room
4 mic
5 pre

If 1 2 and 3 are good, many things work well. If 1 and/or 2 is bad, then almost nothing will be good.

My PERSONAL fav for fiddle is a good neutral ribbon. I use a Royer SF12 and place it over the headstock of my fiddle with the Royer logo pointed right between my eyes. I use this for when the fiddle will be used as a single fiddle in a mix of 2 to 4 other instruments, like a standard 5 piece bluegrass band. If I overdub a twin part, I will back the mic off a foot or so.

One of my favorite recordings I've done was in a great room in a studio in the 90s. This was before I had done any recording myself so I didnt know how to help the engineer, was for a commercial jingle. They didnt like the sound they were getting, so I started walking around the room playing while they were doing something in the control room. I ended up playing about a foot above the mic when the door opened and they said, "stay there". They pointed the mic right at the middle of the back of the fiddle and had me play all my takes that way. That is what went on the commercial. I believe it was a single KM84.

That commercial sounded pretty good on TV.

I just placed an order for the new AEA mic, the KU5A to try on fiddle, based on how it sounded in demo videos on solo violin. You can see this demo on AEAs website.
That's good stuff there. Many thanks for it.

Steps 1 through 5 are applicable to pretty much any live recording ever made, though. I'm still working through "Bunny Ballads" so nothing I'm doing is going to matter. I always record practice sessions though, so I can refer back to them later and gauge progress.
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