Miking Mr. Silverman | Stereophile.com

The Sauder Concert Hall is modeled after New York's Carnegie hall, but on a smaller scale. It has a deliciously warm reverberant signature, so I decided to mike the piano closer than usual, in order to get an optimum balance between that ambience and the direct sound of the Steinway. I used 3 pairs of mikes: an ORTF pair of DPA cardioids; a close spaced pair of DPA 4003 high-voltage omnis; and a more distant pair of DAP 4006 omnis mounted on a Jecklin disc (not in photo). By judicious time alignment and mixing of the three pairs of signals in post-production, I hope to get a sound on CD that will accurately reflect what a listener in row 3 of the hall would have heard.

Miking Mr. Silverman

By John Atkinson • Posted: Jun 24, 2008

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Filed Under: Live Music Events

Comments

Submitted by DUP on June 26, 2008 - 6:39am.

Would putting the mics in row 3, give you what you hear in row 3?, rather than doing it with processing etc? This seems so contrary to what is preahed in Sterophile, about the playback should be so natural, not this or that, yet, here the first stage of the home playback is already contrived, false reality? No? Would minimal micing, give teh most lifelike, un altered based recording...didn't they push that back when DD recordings where supposed to be the end all. It's nice to see that you do record in DIGITAL, not playing up nonsense about analog blah blah blah.....21st century cool. But no DSD?

Submitted by John_Atkinson on June 26, 2008 - 6:59am.

>Would putting the mics in row 3, give you what you hear in row 3?, rather than doing it with processing etc?<

Microphones do not behave like the ear/brain, Carl, which will suppress ambient information in favor of what is seen. The art of recordings is to place the mikes so that what they capture creates the correct illusion. What is most important to to place the mikes within the "critical distance," which is where the direct and ambient soundfields from the live source are equal.