Classical Trio Recordings (Violin, Cello, and Piano)

[ChuckS]

I recently recorded a friend’s classical trio (piano, violin, and cello). The recordings were made during one of their rehearsals in an empty church. The quality level of the channels varied quite a bit; the piano tail pair and organ omni mics, preamps, and converters, were of lessor quality compared to the violin and cello mics. The configuration of the group changed several times over the course of the recordings.

I’ve included a one-drive link to six of the songs, which should be playable from the cloud or downloadable. Each song is a different solo / duet / trio configuration, and each has slightly different mic setup.

Wondrous Love: This is the trio playing. An omni tail pair was used on the piano. The violin and cello were mic’d using a modified Faulkner 4 mic array, with the omnis as the primary.

Prelude from Suite No 2 in d minor: This is a cello solo. The cello was mic’d using a Straus Paket spaced pair, with the omnis as the primary.

Sicilienne: This was cello and piano. An omni tail pair was used on the piano. The cello was mic’d using a Straus Paket spaced pair, with the omnis as the primary.

Comfort: This was a piano solo. An omni spaced pair out in front from the well was used.

Invocation: This was the violin and piano. An omni tail pair was used on the piano. The violin was mic’d using a Straus Paket spaced pair, with the omnis as the primary.

Elegy: This was the violin and organ. An omni spaced pair was used on the piano. The violin was mic’d using a Straus Paket spaced pair, with the omnis as the primary.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!ArPFBNX3leKChBp-...HdrqE?e=NgazJ6

Thanks in advance for any time you could take to listen and comment.

[runamuck]

Take my comment here as a matter of personal taste but I'd like all three instruments to have more presence. Another way to say that is that I think there's too much room tone.

[ChuckS]

Originally Posted by runamuck

Take my comment here as a matter of personal taste but I'd like all three instruments to have more presence. Another way to say that is that I think there's too much room tone.

Thanks for taking a listen and providing feedback. I'd appreciate if you could tell me what type of playback system, and room, you used to listen to these recordings.

I have some flexibility in mixing because of the mic arrays I used. In the mixes I originally provided the omnis were the primary pair. During mixing, I did try the cardioids as my primary pair as well; they did have less room in the mix, but to me they were a bit too forward sounding and maybe less accurate tonally. But based on your feedback I'll relisten with other monitors in a different room.

However, on one of the songs (Pavanne) I did chose to use the cardioids as the primary mics for the violin and cello. I've added Pavanne to the one-drive directory.

Thanks!

[AcousticDreams]

Originally Posted by runamuck

Take my comment here as a matter of personal taste but I'd like all three instruments to have more presence. Another way to say that is that I think there's too much room tone.

Originally Posted by ChuckS

Thanks for taking a listen and providing feedback. I'd appreciate if you could tell me what type of playback system, and room, you used to listen to these recordings.

I have some flexibility in mixing because of the mic arrays I used. In the mixes I originally provided the omnis were the primary pair. During mixing, I did try the cardioids as my primary pair as well; they did have less room in the mix, but to me they were a bit too forward sounding and maybe less accurate tonally. But based on your feedback I'll relisten with other monitors in a different room.

However, on one of the songs (Pavanne) I did chose to use the cardioids as the primary mics for the violin and cello. I've added Pavanne to the one-drive directory.

Thanks!

Thank you so much ChuckS for providing these recording samples. As always...I learn so much on AGF recording from sound samples like these.

While I had heard of the Faulkner array...I did not know how that worked so I looked it up. I had not heard the term Straus packet before. However I did see a picture of one of you previous mic set ups piggy backing microphones which caught my attention. Always fun to learn about microphone set ups.

At first listen, I would agree with runamuck's basic assessment of possibility of too much room ambience in many of the recordings. Regardless of micing techniques and positions, there are some rooms that the acoustics might just be too overwhelming. Possibly in this particular environment less use of omni's and figure 8 might benefit.

However, what I hear, might be confused and due to the piano used? What this an upright? And if so, was the lid open or closed? Basically I feel that the piano sounded like I was hearing too reflections instead of the fundamentals. If it was a grand, then I do believe we are hearing the reflections in the room too much. It might not have been possible but closer miked might have help bring the piano to fundamentals over the reflections.

Before I had read the replies in this thread, I listened to all of the tracks. I had found that on some of the recordings the Violin to be a bit...peaky? Cutting into my ears a little too sharply in some instances. Whether this is from microphone choice or other I could not say.

However in Pavane I found the violin to be smoother. Be it from the more cardiod focus, or the blending with the cello, or microphone use would be the question.

But then again...I found Wondrous love to be the most pleasantly recorded of the group. The Violins and Cellos were balanced and smooth. Possible the biggest tell is that the piano part was simpler in that the notes and chords were fewer and more spaces between. Thus the reverberation-reflections of the piano were less bothersome.

Not knowing what type of piano, or what mics you used, and how far away you placed the mics for the piano...my best guess might be to use closer micing on the piano to get less reflections - ambience and more fundamentals = might give a more balanced result for your next adventure in recording.

Again, thank you so much for sharing. I look forward to hearing your reply on type of piano, type of mics used, and distance for the piano.

[runamuck]

Originally Posted by ChuckS

Thanks for taking a listen and providing feedback. I'd appreciate if you could tell me what type of playback system, and room, you used to listen to these recordings.
Thanks!

I didn't listen on my monitors. I listened on 2 sets of headphones - Sony 7506s and Sennheiser 650s. And I'm certain that the ambience I'm hearing would be just as noticeable on my monitors and maybe more so.

[ChuckS]

Originally Posted by ChuckS

Thanks for taking a listen and providing feedback. I'd appreciate if you could tell me what type of playback system, and room, you used to listen to these recordings.

I have some flexibility in mixing because of the mic arrays I used. In the mixes I originally provided the omnis were the primary pair. During mixing, I did try the cardioids as my primary pair as well; they did have less room in the mix, but to me they were a bit too forward sounding and maybe less accurate tonally. But based on your feedback I'll relisten with other monitors in a different room.

However, on one of the songs (Pavanne) I did chose to use the cardioids as the primary mics for the violin and cello. I've added Pavanne to the one-drive directory.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by runamuck

I didn't listen on my monitors. I listened on 2 sets of headphones - Sony 7506s and Sennheiser 650s. And I'm certain that the ambience I'm hearing would be just as noticeable on my monitors and maybe more so.

I appreciate the follow-up with this additional info. Thanks again for listening and for the feedback.

[ChuckS]

Originally Posted by Knives&Guitars

... [snip} ...
At first listen, I would agree with runamuck's basic assessment of possibility of too much room ambience in many of the recordings. Regardless of micing techniques and positions, there are some rooms that the acoustics might just be too overwhelming. Possibly in this particular environment less use of omni's and figure 8 might benefit.

However, what I hear, might be confused and due to the piano used? What this an upright? And if so, was the lid open or closed? Basically I feel that the piano sounded like I was hearing too reflections instead of the fundamentals. If it was a grand, then I do believe we are hearing the reflections in the room too much. It might not have been possible but closer miked might have help bring the piano to fundamentals over the reflections.

... [snip] ...

Not knowing what type of piano, or what mics you used, and how far away you placed the mics for the piano...my best guess might be to use closer micing on the piano to get less reflections - ambience and more fundamentals = might give a more balanced result for your next adventure in recording.

Hey Victor,
Thanks for all your time listening and responding.

It was a grand piano, on full stick. As far as how the recording of each instrument turned out, I was least satisfied with the piano. With the exception of the piano solo (Comfort), the mics were about 4-5' out from the tail of the piano and were fairly high so they were somewhat parallel to the top so as to minimize how much top reflections were picked up. Your comments / thoughts about the piano did get me to think more about how it was picked up. Even though this was not a concert with an audience, the musicians did not want to be positioned too different from concert position. So, I wasn't able to isolate the piano much from the mic array used for the violin / cello. There was a lot of off axis pickup of the piano, and the overall sound wasn't balanced so it needed some piano from the mic pair at the piano tail. When I selected the omnis for the violin / cello I maybe placed too much priority on their tonality (when I made this decision I was listening without the piano tail mics mixed in). I think what's going on is when I mixed in all the mics, (the piano pickup from the omni tail pair and the omnis for the violin / cello), the level of piano in the violin / cello mic array was high and when combined with the other pair probably had phase / combing issues (and more of an issue since the levels of the piano in each mic were of similar amplitudes).

Ideally, if I could have positioned the musicians differently I could have better isolated the violin / cello from the piano. Or, if I would have had a pair of figure-8 mics I could have positioned them so the piano was in the mic's null. Or if I would have used cardioids for the piano tail pair. Those things can't be changed now, however, I can simply change how I mix in the violin / cello mic array (use primarily the cardioids instead of the omnis). That doesn't give the tone I prefer for the violin and cello but it does reduce the room sound and it does reduce amount of piano in the violin / cello mic array.

Originally Posted by Knives&Guitars

... [snip} ...

Before I had read the replies in this thread, I listened to all of the tracks. I had found that on some of the recordings the Violin to be a bit...peaky? Cutting into my ears a little too sharply in some instances. Whether this is from microphone choice or other I could not say.

However in Pavane I found the violin to be smoother. Be it from the more cardiod focus, or the blending with the cello, or microphone use would be the question.

But then again...I found Wondrous love to be the most pleasantly recorded of the group. The Violins and Cellos were balanced and smooth. Possible the biggest tell is that the piano part was simpler in that the notes and chords were fewer and more spaces between. Thus the reverberation-reflections of the piano were less bothersome.

As far as the violin being "peaky", well maybe that's because I didn't use any compression or volume envelope on anything. The dynamics were in the hands of the musicians. The purpose of the recordings is primarily for the musicians. I don't think the mics would be the reason, as both my omnis and cardioids have very flat responses, and if anything I would think the omni's top end transients would be a little bit more rounded off.

Again, thanks so much for your time.

[ChuckS]

I updated the mixes that I provided earlier (primarily the piano in the mix). Hopefully this is an improvement:

https://1drv.ms/u/s!ArPFBNX3leKChDVX...UAoXp?e=HzKFTp

[AcousticDreams]

Originally Posted by ChuckS

I updated the mixes that I provided earlier (primarily the piano in the mix). Hopefully this is an improvement:

https://1drv.ms/u/s!ArPFBNX3leKChDVX...UAoXp?e=HzKFTp

Going from memory,(as the original mixes are no longer available) I do believe this is quite an improvement. The Piano sounds less ambient, less reverby. And as such, stands out with a bit more clarity.

What did you do differently to this mix?

You have clearly demonstrates the importance of a good mix. As the piano balance, tone and ambience is improved.

At the same time...it also clearly demonstrates the importance of recording in relation to mixing. They are equality as important when trying to achieve the perfect outcome. As, I would still like to have heard the piano with even less reflections, which would let the fundamentals and the tone shine through even more. This I believe can only be achieved in the recording process. While there may be many fixes in mixing process, I have heard it said it is harder to bring back what is not there in the first place.

[ChuckS]

Originally Posted by Knives&Guitars

Going from memory,(as the original mixes are no longer available) I do believe this is quite an improvement. The Piano sounds less ambient, less reverby. And as such, stands out with a bit more clarity.

What did you do differently to this mix?

You have clearly demonstrates the importance of a good mix. As the piano balance, tone and ambience is improved.

At the same time...it also clearly demonstrates the importance of recording in relation to mixing. They are equality as important when trying to achieve the perfect outcome. As, I would still like to have heard the piano with even less reflections, which would let the fundamentals and the tone shine through even more. This I believe can only be achieved in the recording process. While there may be many fixes in mixing process, I have heard it said it is harder to bring back what is not there in the first place.

For the solo piano song I now used the near coincident pair of cardioid mics in the mic array (instead of the omni spaced pair in the array).

For the other songs I increased the level of the omni tail pair on the piano quite a bit. In the earlier mixes I believe the level of piano picked up by the violin / cello mic array was nearly the same amplitude as the piano level from the tail pair, so there was probably phasing issues going on between the two mic arrays, and what was picked up by the violin / cello mic array was also pretty distant and quite off axis.

I do think I should have had the piano mics located closer, getting more direct sound. I'm definitely least satisfied with the recorded sound of the piano.