AAwk6

Special thanks to Anna on the cello

We decided on placing the cello in front of the window into studio 1 because we found it had the fullest sound.

We positioned the AKG BUL lower to the ground angled towards the left 'f' hole of the instrument to pick up the bulk of its tonal color. As something different we used the NT4 stereo mic angled down from above to get a nice stereo split sound of the cello. This worked really well. It picked up the range of the instrument and didn't loose much bottom end at all. Combined with the AKG it gave a nice 'warm' sound.

We spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out a good placement for the km-84. To begin with we started with it facing the fingerboard, but then after discussing how ... felt that she didn't like too much of the fingerboard in the mix, we moved it to the right and slightly behind her and faced it down the fingerboard more directed at the body of the cello. This worked well in my opinion. It picked up some of the upper frequencies to accentuate the sound a bit, without hollowing it out with to much 'air.'

We used both the U87 and the u89 for room mic's. Dave and I both preferred the U87 as we thought it had more body but Matt seemed to enjoy the sound of the U89 more. In the end we recorded with both to create a comparison. They worked well as a pair, but I think my favorite is still the U87. We had all the curtains closed to begin with and I thought this created a very intimate setting but the rest of the group seemed to prefer opening up the windows on one side of the room to add some reflections and increase the room noise. The first recording we did had the room mic's near the window which sounded a bit flat. Once The mic's were moved close to the cello I must admit it still retained a lot of intimacy and body but was actually improved from when the curtains were all shut as there was a bit more 'space' to the sound.

U87 & U89 near the window

U89 near the window

U87 near the window

U87 & U89 near to the cello

U89 near the cello

U87 near the cello

References

Grice, David. "AAwk6 Recording Strings." Lecture presented at University Adelaide 3 April 2007.