Przemysl concert: working on the sound

1. Compression

All three tracks were compressed in a very similar way. To make the concert sound more natural and to transfer the live feel of the event fully onto the record, I kept the compression to minimum. The threshold is therefore set just below the RMS value of the loudest passages, making the compressor act only on couple of occasions. Even such minor compression enabled me to raise the overall loudness of all channels.

2. Processing the stereo track

Because the internal microphones were set to 110 degrees and the recorder was not too far away from the performers, the stereo track sounded a bit too spread. I compensated for it using the Direction Mixer.

EQ: Although the sound was quite good, I still applied some corrections, mainly to remove messy resonation from the lute and from the vocal.

3. Other editing comments

Both lute and vocal tracks were treated with gentle EQs, mainly to cut off any noise and to clear out the sound. Adaptive limiter was applied to the main output to make sure that no samples will be clipped, especially during applause.

I discovered a minor time difference (3ms) between close mics and the stereo track. I compensated for it by applying a sample delay on the stereo track. It cleared the spatial feel of the record quite a lot.

Arrange window of a sample track

Mixer arrangement

Compressor and EQ on the stereo track

Direction mixer

Compressor and EQ on the lute track

Compressor and EQ on the vocal track

New material to work on

2 weeks ago, I recorded a concert given by my dad, my sister and their friend. My dad plays lute, my sister sings and their friend plays violin.

Although I'm very busy at both jobs, in spare time I want to have this concert edited and burned in fair quality. I don't expect this to take longer than a couple of sessions, as the material (although lengthy) is very simple.

My sister having a quiet moment before the concert

Set-up

I used a Zoom H4n recorder with two microphones attached to it. Zoom's stereo array was set to 120 degrees. I used my preferable quality settings: 24 bits, 48 kHz sample rate.

One of the external microphones was set up with the lute (the AKG C214) and the other one (a vocal dynamic AKG, sorry for no model number) with the vocalist.

Microphone setup

My dad's session

Introduction

On Christmas 2009, I visited my father (who is professional lute player) in Wysoka, Poland. I brought with myself a brand new Zoom H4n together with an AKG C214 condenser microphone, which my father bought with my help to enable him to record at home.

Set-up

The recording was done in his manor house, in the room that functions as the library.

I used Zoom's built-in microphones to capture natural room reverberation, and placed C214 close to the instrument to get the details.

The Zoom was actually facing the other way during this recording.

Zoom was set-up to record in 24 bit resolution at 48 kHz sampling rate.

Result

I was extremely pleased with the quality of the recording. C214 produced crystal-clear, full-range lute sound, and Zoom's microphones (set for a 120 degrees coincident pair) captured the space of the room perfectly.

Processing: Session 0

Unfortunately, Zoom has no option for recording 3 channels at the time, so the only option was to record 4 channels. In this mode, Zoom outputs 2 stereo files - 2 for built-in microphones and 2 for external microphones. Because I only had 1 external microphone, its output was recorded onto the left channel of one of the 2 stereo files. Therefore, after importing them to Logic, I had to first split the file and use only one channel from the external microphone file.

This, plus a minor adjustment of output levels, concluded Session 0.

Session 1:

Fader on AKG was set to 0, and the stereo fader turned down so that it provided slight but clear spatial cues to the listener.

Using EQ, I reduced the metallic sounding of the lute by placing a dip at 1440 Hz on the output. Some more EQ adjustments were done on the stereo track to get rid of slightly bathroom-like sounding reverb.

Mixer set-up and processors used

No dynamic processors were used, to show the original dynamic range of this delicate instrument. The only exception was limiter set on the output, just in case there was any moments above 0 throughout the recording.

At this point I was fairly happy with the sound I got, so I bounced a chosen part of the session into WAV and MP3 file.

Arrange window for the part I chose to bounce

Session 1 part 2: Playing around

I saved the natural sounding file separately and continued on with the piece I chose before for bouncing.

First, I muted the stereo track and added Space Designer to the AKG track. The effect I was looking for was more space and atmosphere in the sound of lute, so I used fairly long reverb - 1.7s 'Nice Hall' preset.

Effects used on AKG track

On louder bits of the piece, I reduced the reverb volume in Space Designer from -13.5 dB to -24 dB, which made the loud parts more striking and more contrasting to the quiet ones.

I kept the same EQ as in natural version, but added some compression to reduce dramatic dynamic difference between quiet and loud parts.

Automation used

Then, I set up a bus with an Overdrive effect on it set up in a way that made the lute sound a bit like a dirty electric guitar. I used automation to fade it in and out only when I wanted the sound to go really dirty and distorted.

Mixer set-up and other processors

This is pretty much everything that was done during this session. The result, especially the edited version, is full of differences and variations, which I reckon are quite unusual for the traditional sound of the lute :)

First post

Hello and welcome :)

This is only to fill in void that prevents me from making a nice blog layout. I most sincerely hope that this will not be the last post here!

Yours forever

Karol