AA3A wk3

Thinking outside the box



To get myself thinking outside the square in terms of recording, I decided to record an instrument I was unfamiliar with. I managed to get my hands on my friends baby harp. I was very pleased with what we came up with.

After deciding that the harp sounded best with a large space behind it and half the curtains shut, we then experimented with where to place mic's. The harp produced sound from a resonant chamber at the back, which had two holes. After listening to the sound from the holes, we found that the bottom hole produced the most bass and the top the treble. We then decided on a couple of u89's (the sound did not have enough bass to warrant a larger diaphragm) at the optimum position (chasing the flame) from each hole and set them to cardioid. We were then able to pan these left and right and get a great stereo spread.

u89 stereo spread

From here we just added mics to experiment with capturing different attributes of the instrument.

First a U87 set to omni as a room mic. This added a bit more presence to the sound, but is a bit airy in the mix. Perhaps should of tried moving the harp to have something behind it.

U89 stereo spread plus U87 room

Next an NT5 on the strings to get more plucking sounds. Although it adds realism, its not what the audience would hear and so I don't like it.

U89 stereo spread plus NT5 strings

Finally we tried putting a mic inside the bottom hole to get the sound of the resonant space. It sounds very full and I like it. But I'm not sure I would actually use it.

U89 stereo spread plus NT5 hole