dlogan
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How would you set up this recording?
On Sunday I'm doing some recording for a friend and his daughter. He will be playing acoustic and singing. She will be singing and playing violin. I want to capture as much of this "live" as possible. She's moving off to college and we want to get a recording of them together before she does. So it doesn't need to be perfect, but I'd of course like it to be the best it can. They're probably just going to do about 5 songs over a couple of hours, doing 2-3 takes of each one.
I have a set-up for stereo recording of his acoustic with a couple of Rode mics. I will then put another LDC mic for his vocals (hoping to avoid phasing issues, will have to experiment a little with mic placement...). I plan on setting her up to where she is facing him with a LDC mic on her vocals. With the mics facing opposite directions, I thought this would give the most separation. I'm going to have her overdub any violin that she adds. They want me to play bass on at least one song, too, and I think I'll overdub that as well.
Any suggestions on changes for this set-up?
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Randy P
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Re:How would you set up this recording?
2010/07/14 11:49:12
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I like the call on doing the violin later. You should know after the first song whether your vocals and guitar setup are working or not. You may want to limit the guitar to one mic, to eliminate bleed from the vocals.
Put it up when you're done. Could be pretty cool stuff.
Randy
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edentowers
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Re:How would you set up this recording?
2010/07/14 11:52:48
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I'd be tempted to go for a 'live' recording and include the violin parts. It's likely that they'll be more comfortable doing that.
Getting a good level should be straightforward with a little effort spent on placement for the violin and guitar. Giving the pair a good comfortable headphone feed deserves a little extra effort.
Get all the tracks down like this and then consider if they might like to double track some parts.
Good luck.
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dlogan
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Re:How would you set up this recording?
2010/07/14 12:19:56
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My main reason for wanting to do the violin separate is I've only recorded violin once and found it very tricky with mic position. Plus I only have 4 condensor mics and preamp inputs, so it would have to share a mic with the vocals.
I will definitely post some stuff after I've got it tracked and mixed. It's mainly going to be bluegrass and gospel stuff, btw...
Thanks guys
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AT
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Re:How would you set up this recording?
2010/07/14 13:17:42
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If you can do a couple of takes w/ and w/o violin. Or violin and no vox. You'll quickly find out their most comfortable way of playing. And that, esp. for non-session players, is usually the best method rather than the "correct" recording method.
Stay loose, try a couple of different ways. If you discover a best method, go with it, otherwise just do takes w/ the different methods. It ain't nothing but time.
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Jeff Evans
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Re:How would you set up this recording?
2010/07/14 18:27:01
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Even there are only two people I would record a few tracks at a time. (6) Setting them up facing each other and a reasonable distance apart is a good starting point. I would close mike both vocals and the guitar. The violin is recorded high over the top of the instrument looking down. A warmer microphone there often works well. You will get three close miked signals and the violin. It will have a little guitar in at as well.
Or decde to overdub violin. Just get a reasonable distance away eg 2 feet or 3 feet. Quality of the violin part depends on the instrument and the player. (it is just such a hard instrument to play realy well)
If you can set up a stereo pair on the side of them looking at them so image wise they would be left and right. You could do an MS setup or XY etc. A little back to get an ambience version of their performance.
Mixing wise you will have lots of options. If you put a nice convolution reverb here and there on the mixdown, it will sound great.
Overdubbing too much (at the time of tracking) extends the time required for each piece so it might be good to approach the recording with lots of live takes with room for some key overdubs etc.
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jhughs
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Re:How would you set up this recording?
2010/07/14 21:31:46
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My daughter plays violin, but the most we've done beyond just her is violin and piano. One thing with violins is that they are louder than you think (at least louder than I thought). So at the very least check for bleed-over if you're concerned about it. If it helps with mic placement, here's a shot of April Verch during a recording session (to give you a visual of what Jeff wrote). 
post edited by jhughs - 2010/07/14 21:36:55
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mattplaysguitar
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Re:How would you set up this recording?
2010/07/14 22:00:04
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I love those diffusers in the background! Wish I could afford to make some walls like that... Yummy. They would be great for violin recording. I can imagine them giving a really smooth top end.
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Guitarhacker
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Re:How would you set up this recording?
2010/07/15 07:57:24
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Dave.... you have 4 sources.... 2 vox, violin, and guitar. I would try first, setting up mics for all. I think you will have too much bleed in that situation. So I don't know how well that would work. but give it a try because as I see it, that is the only way to get a truly "live" experience.
The better option is multitracking one thing at a time. Let them record the songs first as in the first paragraph...... that can be their scratch track... then have them multitrack it one at a time. Hopefully the live feel will translate into the individual tracks and the mixing will be so much easier with the individual tracks......
The better they know the songs, the faster the process will go.
have fun.
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dlogan
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Re:How would you set up this recording?
2010/07/15 08:42:31
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Thanks for the info on mic'ing the violin. Hopefully that will give me better results than last time!
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