EQ Magazine - March 2008 - (Page 36)

KEY ISSUES IN SEARCH OF THE LOST (HARPSI) CHORD by Craig Anderton You’ve probably figured out that if this had just been a regular harpsichord recording session, it wouldn’t have made the pages of EQ. But we’ll be talking about a very different take on the “classical harpsichord CD,” and a lot of what I learned applies to all kinds of music. Such as. . . . IF YOU WANT TO LOOK GOOD, WORK WITH AN ANTI-DIVA The harpsichordist, Kathleen McIntosh, has zero attitude, great technique, and is a total workhorse. While a renowned veteran of recording and live performance (she’s appeared as a soloist with the Solistas de La Habana in Havana, Chamber Orchestra Kremlin in Moscow, National Symphony Orchestra of Vietnam in Hanoi, Sinfonica de Santiago in Santiago de Cuba, New American Chamber Orchestra in Spain, Camerata de la Casa del Lago in Mexico City . . . and the list goes on), she was open to experimentation to get the best possible sound. For example, we started the sessions (at Maricam Studio in Santa Fe, NM) using some classic Telefunken mics and completed all the tracks. But then a stereo pair of Microtech Gefell M-930s (personally tuned by the venerable Jochem Kuhnast) became part of Maricam’s mic locker, and when we checked them out, there was no question that the high end was better suited to harpsichord. Kathleen was willing to re-record all her tracks— with not one word of complaint. These mics had the side benefit of sounding so “right” I needed EQ later on only to solve some specific problems related to the harpsichord itself. PERFORMER VS. AUDIENCE PERSPECTIVE I prefer miking so that the final result sounds like you’re the performer playing the instrument, not someone sitting in the audience. Both Kathleen and Pete Sheehey, the producer, were willing to give it a try. So instead of doing traditional miking, I set up one M-930 close to the Miking the harpsichord with two Gefell M-930 mics. performer, pointing toward the higher strings. Due to the length of the harpsichord, I was able to set up the second M-930 toward the bass strings end of the instrument, yet have it far enough away from the “treble” M-930 that there were no phase issues when checking in mono. The resulting sound was very present, recalling the sound of an FM synthesis plucked string algorithm: Metallic, bright, and defined. But I was concerned that it might sound too synthetic, so we set up two Dirk Brauner Phantom V room mics to provide a “softer” element (Maricam is designed exclusively for recording classical music; the room sound tends to be warm instead of hard due to having Brazilian rosewood panels). The main mics went through Great River MP-2NV Mercenary Edition preamps, and the room mics through Millennia STT-1 preamps. TRACKING AND EDITING Maricam’s Scott Irving and I split up the tracking duties. Due to Scott’s background with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (and a Masters in music from the Royal Conservatory in Madrid, Spain), he was comfortable tracking by himself, although about half the time we worked on the project together. He tracked with Digidesign’s Pro Tools HD3 at 96kHz but when I was tracking, I used MOTU’s Digital Performer, again at 96kHz (the studio is Mac-based). Ultimately, though, these DAWs were solely about capturing the sound as cleanly as possible, as I took the audio files back to my studio to edit and mix in Sonar, in large part because of its 64-bit audio engine. Although I remain unconvinced that this matters for most music, with delicate, dynamic acoustic recordings, the 64-bit engine does seem to make a difference. ARTIFACT PROBLEMS Harpsichords are noisy instruments, what with string releases and such. But the body of Kathleen’s harpsichord has a wicked resonance at around 50Hz, and because of the close-miking, the main mics dutifully picked it up as a booming, distracting “bump.” Ultimately, I found that the only solution was to “master” each track individually prior to mixing; I used Har-Bal to zero in on these phantom artifacts, and cut them out. As this was mostly below the “real” range of the harpsichord, I could cut pretty drastically without affecting the tone. Furthermore, 36 EQ MARCH 2008 www.eqmag.com http://www.eqmag.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of EQ Magazine - March 2008

EQ Magazine - March 2008 Contents Talk Box Sounding Board Punch In Tool Box Dream Theater Nick Drake LO-FI Recording Tricks Guitar Trax Bass Managment Key Issues Drum Heads Vocal Cords Mix Bus Cheat Sheet Tascam Gigastudio 4 Cakewalk Sonar 7 Crane Song Avocet Cad Signature Series Mic Packs Waves GTR3 Kjaerhus MPL-1 Pro SE Ableton Live 7 Centrance Micport Pro, Tapco LINK.midi 4x4, Multi-Gigabyte USB 2.0 Memory Sticks Digital Redux Electrotech, Nine Volt Audio Action Drums, Big Fish Audio Hadeeth 2 Room with a VU

EQ Magazine - March 2008

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