Recording Cello

I was going to suggest a decent warm sounding condenser about 2 feet away, this video sort of confirms that, but it's a good shootout at any rate.

For bowed instruments, I am a ribbon guy all the way, as I hate hearing bow scrape. A Royer 122 around 2' back slightly above the bridge is magic. If the room is beautiful, I will have a rich sounding condenser about 6-8' back to capture ambience and sparkle. The combination is breath taking if done right. Spend a lot of time listening to him play in the room acoustically, so you have an honest knowledge of what he sounds like before you even put a mic on it.

Yes, exactly what Randy said, try to get ur second mic in a reinforced cycle if possible, hard back/ side walls or gobos can be ur friend as they may help excite the body of th instrument, but leave lots of space out front. And for the love of God, Do NOT track with eq or compression!!!! If u screw the pooch then ur shit out of luck. If u feel u must, then insert and track clean uneffected tracks as safeties.

I just listened to those tracks, it makes me want to go to church! haha, It's apparent that when his furniture building masters give him time off, he lives on that thing! (how often do you get a chance to try an Amish woodworker joke..lame 8)

stupid jokes aside, it's pretty clear he's well aware of the importance of the room that he and his Cello are performing in, you should DEFINITELY consider that, and think about renting a killer acoustic space to take full advantage of his formidable talent. big stone space is great for a isolated/lonely vibe, mid size wood becomes more apart of the instrument IMlimitedE with bowed instruments, very curious to hear your results Matt.

I'd also consider hiring a local, reputable AE as an assistant for a few hours to make sure everything goes smoothly, you may learn something new along the way as well?

How did you hook up with this guy?(if you don't mind me asking?)


 

Ok ok.... we all know you're the Yoda of this damn stuff, but if you're gonna start talking like him I've gotta brush up on my Yodish. 

All great suggestions, I have a pair of ribbons sdc with cinemag transformers, a pair of octava mod sdc's, my c12 and my mk-u47. I have 4 apollo ic pre, la610mkii with tube upgrade, 2 warm audio tb12's and my dizengoff d4

I will certainly speak to Raphael as he has obviously been very well recorded in the past and knows his instrument.


soundcloud.com/kcatthedog/my-love-08-01-2015

My friend Rick contributed the midi strings and lead in this demo. Raphael has carte blanche to play around the current midi strings and or to develop other parts. 

I found him through contacting a local good studio ( Gallery Studio) that records in a local church.

So I feel I got really lucky.  I believe firmly that we all learn by doing. I have recorded steel for martin in my room, my own recordings and real drums a number of times.  I don't feel that I have a great room but have a largely dead end so I thought I will set up a couple of mikes and ask Raphael for set up advice and then record a couple or three of test tracks and discuss them with Raphael and go with what seems best.

I'll keep you all updated: session is scheduled for August 12th, so its going to happen!

appreciate the quick feedback; thx everyone !

I'm listening Randge I can set up one ribbon, one sdc and both my LDC's and record some passes as he warms up to the demo and then Raphael and I can listen back and see what seems to be gelling with the mix best.

although I use apollo I hardly ever track with plugs and just go for trying to get it right at source

I also have 2 new warm audio eqp-wa's here, so once we narrow it down , we could play with those a bit too or not

The very best mic I have used on ALL stringed (Viol family) instruments is the newest AKG C414xls. I have all the others in my extensive collection but the 414xls is just magic on violin/fiddle, viola and cello.
YMMV!!

My friend records the NY Philharmonic. He uses stereo Shoeps or Neuman K84's. It's probably different in a small room. Range's advice sounds good. just move the cello around a little until you find the sweetest spot and go from there, and don't mic too close.

Many cases here a ribbon will win. The Samar has plenty of top, and takes eq addition well if you want even more air. Presents the fundamental strongly while minimizing bow scrape and other harshness.

A super smooth pro, I usually like a SMC over a LDC.

I've recorded violins, violas, cellos and bass besides the regular assortment of acoustic guitars.

I've tried so many times to use ribbons but some of the nicer violins and such are much quieter than you think they are, and without jacking up the preamps to near max, you're not getting a usable level. Even then, the noise figure of the preamps start becoming really important specs to watch.

I also haven't like using single mics. It sounds completely unnatural in the mix.

I personally settled on using my Gefell M930's as my go-to mics for classical stringed instruments, and I typically use my SSL9k preamps for their cleanliness and low noise.

Any instrument on the floor, like cello or bass, I put a mic about 1'-2' back from the strings, about 1' higher than the soundholes, pointing down towards the bridges. That way the pickup pattern gets a good mix of soundhole, bridge and bow. The other mic I place higher up, pointing somewhere in the middle of the fingerboard so I get the finger articulation, string resonances and the bow to tie the center together with the other mic.

I then pan them maybe 25% to either side to get a slight stereo image, and then balance the levels.

Sort of.  You have to balance everything.  One mic tends to focus on too much of one thing, while two can better capture the spread of the sound from the instrument.  

Human ears are much more sensitive to minuscule sounds than mics are, so when we stand in a small room with a violin or something, it sounds great.  Now, try recording that instrument in a small room with a distance mic and it'll be muddy and boring.

Since sound level falls off at half per doubling of distance, micing quiet instruments at distance cuts the amount of primary signal down by half, while allowing nodes to come up in level in the room in relation to the primary signal.  Since stringed instruments like violin/cello are actually mostly harmonic content, trying to record them at distance in a small room ends up muddy sounding from all the micro-reflections clashing with the harmonics.

So, distance micing pics up more mixed signals from room nodes mixing with the primary signals, coloring the tone of the instrument more than close micing.  However, close micing pics up more from only certain areas of the instrument, necessitating using multiple close mics for coverage in small rooms.

If you have a large enough room/stage, you can distance mic, but only if the reflections have enough space to lose enough power before/after reflection that they don't interfere with the primary signal.

The only other option for purity of tone is to close mic with multiple mics for coverage.