I recorded these with two AT4050’s in the Blumlein array.
Would like to know what you think.
They all sound very good. 
It’s quite revealing and refreshing for me to hear the real thing after spending so much time working with orchestral libraries in the past. 
NIce! “Tango” and "La Campanella have a lot of “room” in the sound. A little tighter mic’ing would have been nice (not always possible with a location recording…most of what I do is location recording so I know what it’s like).
Blumlein array is nice but prone to get a lot of room sound. You might find this VERY interesting. It’s an AES paper that describes a very flexible stereo micing proceedure. I use it all the time. It’s great for location recording. Allows you get a fantastic stereo image, avoid “hole in the middle” syndrome, achieve very accurate spatial placement when recordings are played back on standard (equilateral triangle) speaker setup and can be used with various microphone types (cardioid, hypo and hyper cardioid).
I carry the paper around with my mobile recording rig…use it all the time.
All the best,
Karl
Thank you for the paper. I will read it and do my best to understand it.
Do you think this recording has a hole in the middle?
Not at all…sorry if I left that impression. I mentioned the hole in the middle thing only in regards to discussing one of the advantages of the stereophonic zoom approach. Had nothing to do with your recordings.
As I said, on “Tango” and “La Campanella” my only critique would be one that I’ve made of several of my own recordings…a bit too far back. The sound has too much of the “room” in it. Not knowing anything about the place you recorded them, or what restrictions you had to work within (there are always restrictions in doing location recording), I certainly dont fault you on this. I’ve done quite a few recordings in which I couldn’t (or wasn’t allowed to) get mic’s close enough. I knew I wouldn’t get an ideal recording (to much room). Sometimes there’s no way around it.
No, your recordings are quite good. I suggested the paper because you mention that you used Blumlien pairs. Not sure if you use that all the time but one of the problems I’ve found with the Blumlien array is that, in a hard/reverberant environment (or one where you have an audience), I often find that this stereo config gives me far too much of the room and needs to be placed much closer. This often creates a secondary problem…if I place it closer, and I’m trying to mic a larger ensemble, who do I place it closer too? In other words, if I try to address the additional room sound by getting closer, I then create a problem of trying to maintain balance between instruments.
This led me to suggest the Stereo zoom paper to you. It lays out an approach that lends itself very well to stereo micing using directional mics (cardioid, hypo and hyper card’s etc…). I’ve found that having a well detailed procedure and method that you can use to configure directional mic’s to get a reliable and repeatable stereo recording has been extremely helpful. I just thought you might find it a helpful addition to your location recording toolbag.
Thank you very much for the help. You know how it is when you’ve listened to something a billion times and you’re not sure whether you’re hearing things correctly or not.
The pieces you referred to were indeed recorded at an odd angle. This room was good: high vaulted ceiling, wide, BUT there was a giant wooden beam right in front of the players positions where the mic should be and the producer did not want the mics to look too obtrusive.
I’d like to hear if you’ve had similar experiences. I like that these sorts of issues demand some quick thinking, improvisation and can lead to an interesting result one may not have necessarily anticipated. The downside is it can be a bit nerve-wracking and a pain in the ass.
As I’m just getting started in the chicago-area, and there are many great local musicians to be recorded, can you give me any tips on promoting my remote recording business?
Thanks again!