AA3 Week 7 - Location Recording

To put it nicely, the Marantz recorder is not worth its weight in plastic. Each recording we did today was filled with hiss. I was considering trying to use plugins to mask the artifacts, but since that is not part of this week’s exercise I didn't think it was worth my time.

This week Jake, Luke and I recorded a piano in the Hartley Concert Room. We tried six different microphone configurations. Our pianist was Ben Bamford.

The first spaced pair was a typical A-B setup with each microphone 1.5 meters apart. I think this technique worked quite well. The sound was full and the frequencies picked were complimenting the piano’s tone. My only criticism is that there’s hardly any reverb in the recording.

The second spaced pair was set up two meters apart with one microphone pointing up towards the ceiling. I also like this tone and the room sound was captured quite well.

The third spaced pair was the same as the second but with both microphones pointing down. They were positioned higher than the first one. The sound is full with some good reverb but I still prefer the second spaced pair.

We then tried recording the resonate sounds from one piano through playing another piano. This sounded interesting and I commend Jake for his imagination.

Finally, the final two recordings are experimenting with recording from outside the door. I think with a better quality recording it could sound much better. It’s still an interesting idea.


preparing the setup during our audio arts class. . .


AUDIO
Spaced Pair I [788KB]
Spaced Pair II [872KB]
Spaced Pair III [664KB]
Inside Another Piano [616KB]
One Mic Outside [856KB]
Two Mics Outside [1.8MB]


[1] David Grice & Christian Haines. "Audio Arts: Semester 1 - Week 7 Location Recording". Lecture presented at Elder Hall, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 29th April 2008

[2] Robjohns, Hugh 1999, The Choir Masters: Recording A Choir On Location: Part 1, Sound on Sound, http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep99/articles/location.htm (Accessed Sunday 4th May)

[3] Robjohns, Hugh 1999, The Choir Masters: Recording A Choir On Location: Part 2, Sound on Sound, http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct99/articles/location.htm (Accessed Sunday 4th May)

[4] Robjohns, Hugh 2003, Recording A Jazz Band On Location, Sound on Sound, http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Jul03/articles/recordingjazz.asp?print=yes (Accessed Sunday 4th May)

[5] White, Paul 2003, Recording Bands on Location, Sound on Sound, viewed 21/2 2007, http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Mar03/articles/recordingbands.asp (Accessed Sunday 4th May)