# Recording live cello



## Matt Riley (Feb 15, 2017)

I’m going to going to be recording a cellist and wanted to get some tips from the experts on forum. Firstly, I have access to the following mics:

Nady RSM-4
2x AKG C1000S
2X MLX 990
AKG 414
SHURE SM-81
2X Neumann KMS-105
2X ADX-51
ATM450
2X M81
2X SG TX
2X SGI RX
BLUE ENCORE 200
GT55
3X M1290
6X M1255B
KMS105
AUDIX CX-111
Sennheiser E906

What would you use? I could use up to two at the same time if needed. How would you place the mic/s? I have a fairly large iso-booth with foam that I built which cuts down on any room noise. Any other suggestions or thoughts?


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## synthpunk (Feb 15, 2017)

Matt, Might you have the budget to rent a Neumann U-67 series Large diaphram condenser ? That would be my first choice. A M49 or 149 is also a fine choice.

Ribbons can also sound very nice on cello what do need a high-gain preamp in most cases the Royer has a very good reputation. I love my Coles.

If not I'd probably go with the 414 and a good preamp like an Neve, SSL, or API.


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## Matt Riley (Feb 16, 2017)

I guess I'd rather not rent anything if I don't have to since the others are free.  I was planning to use the preamp built into my Apollo Twin. Would that be OK in terms of quality?


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## synthpunk (Feb 16, 2017)

The Apollos preamps are extremely clean that can be good in some regards and not in others. String sometimes can be on the rough/brittle side so I prefer to use a smoother Mic and musical preamplifier combination. Of course if you have a good Unison preamp plugin in your Apollo Twin you could use that to your advantage.


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## Matt Riley (Feb 16, 2017)

Anything to consider when placing the 414?


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## synthpunk (Feb 16, 2017)

I would start with pointing it at the F hole and set to cardoid. You can adjust it up the strings for more natural sound. You can also try the directional setting.

Also consider adding a room mic to the equation.



Matt Riley said:


> Anything to consider when placing the 414?


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## Matt Riley (Feb 20, 2017)

Thanks for the help! I'm setting up to record right now.


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## GP_Hawk (Feb 24, 2017)

I always thought the most important thing is the acoustic environment. The cello radiates sound from all over. 
A medium reverberant room is a good choice, and try to avoid a small room or a room with no ambience. You don't want to be too close to the instrument and you don't want to spot mic it.
So how did the session turn out?


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## Matt Riley (Feb 24, 2017)

I think you're right. I mic'd it too close - just 2 1/2 feet away with the 414. The room (sort of a music office where I compose/arrange) was small and very padded in the iso-booth. So I picked up a lot of "clicking" sounds from the cello. Oh well. Note to self for next time.  

Here's a sample:


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## SillyMidOn (Feb 24, 2017)

synthpunk said:


> I would start with pointing it at the F hole



"'tis always a good idea to start things off with pointing it at the F hole", as the bishop said to the actress. God forbid do not start with the G String, or you may well find yourself having the G string stuck in the Nut, and what kind of an evening would that end up being?

(many apologies for ruining this post...)


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## synthpunk (Feb 24, 2017)

That's the one thing we did not speak about Matt was the room. Were you able to try the extra room mic as well or was it small enough where it really didn't make sense?


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## Matt Riley (Feb 24, 2017)

I should have listened more closely during the session and just had the cellist sit back a few feet. We did several tests with the settings on the mic and the UAD unison preamp software which took a while so I was worried about time and focused more on modifying the cello part and getting a cello performance out of her. However the cellist wouldn't have been able to move too much further away from the mic because of wall. I could always rent a space next time.


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## Matt Riley (Feb 24, 2017)

Sorry I misread. No I didn't do the room mic because it's not a great room. Also there's some HVAC noise that would get picked up. That's why I put the 414 in the iso-booth.


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## thesteelydane (Feb 26, 2017)

If I had seen this post in time, I would have said what you have now discovered yourself: You need a fair bit of distance between the instrument and the mic - more than most people think. Same goes for violins and violas (I have no experience recording double bass, but I hear it's even trickier). And the tonal variations you can get from different mic placements is huge.


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## Matt Riley (Feb 26, 2017)

What have you found to be a good amount of distance?


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## thesteelydane (Feb 26, 2017)

Matt Riley said:


> What have you found to be a good amount of distance?


That depends on the cello, the room, the player and what sound I want. Generally at least a meter, often more, to capture everything being projected from the different zones of the deck. And especially with cello I almost always use two mics, one close and one 1-2 meter away.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 26, 2017)

In general - but not as an iron rule - I don't like large-diaphragm condensers on cello, unless they're far back catching room sound. They tend to exaggerate resonances you don't want to exaggerate.

I use a matched pair of Oktava MK019s, which are poor man's Neumann KM84s - that kind of pencil mic, and I place them back at least 4'.


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## Matt Riley (Feb 26, 2017)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> In general - but not as an iron rule - I don't like large-diaphragm condensers on cello, unless they're far back catching room sound. They tend to exaggerate resonances you don't want to exaggerate.
> 
> I use a matched pair of Oktava MK019s, which are poor man's Neumann KM84s - that kind of pencil mic, and I place them back at least 4'.


I wonder if something like that would be better for my situation since the mic sits in a quiet iso-booth with foam walls on 3 sides.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 26, 2017)

Cello needs some room to breathe, and the bow makes noises you're not supposed to hear close-up. I'd record it in a room rather than an iso booth. If you need to put up foam or whatever, do that, but three dead sides is unlikely to sound all that good.

If noise is a problem, use directional mics. Position them and the cello so they block the noise, e.g. parallel to a street with traffic.


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## Hannes_F (Feb 27, 2017)

Everybody knows that the cello sound comes out of the f holes! 1 - 2 ft away is OK. You can point a second mic to the strings.

NOT.

The above is a recipe for acoustic guitar (mandolin, banjo ...) in pop.

For classical strings the sound does not primarily emit from the f holes to begin with.


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## Joram (Feb 27, 2017)

When recording cello i would choose for the AKG 414 from your list because:
1 - I know the mic and it sound neutral sonically.
2 - it has different patterns so you can find the best sounding for that instrument, in that position in that room.
3 - it has attenuation levels so you can level it perfectly to keep dynamics and keep the sound clean
4 - it has a low cut filter on the mic to clean up rumble and low end rubbish




Hannes_F said:


> Everybody knows that the cello sound comes out of the f holes! 1 - 2 ft away is OK. You can point a second mic to the strings.
> NOT.
> The above is a recipe for acoustic guitar (mandolin, banjo ...) in pop.
> For classical strings the sound does not primarily emit from the f holes to begin with.


I don't understand what you mean but I can tell you that the sound of cello comes from the whole instrument. With many instruments it is the same case. But there's something else which is very important and that is the room the instrument is in. A room, more in particular early reflections, color the sound strongly. So keep control of these or your transients will sound awful. 

It is always great to have good microphones but with low tenor and bass instruments it is more important to record in a decent room with no strong resonances. I am quite sure preferring to record with a good dynamic microphone (Sennheiser 441) with a mackie preamp in a nice room before a super expensive and high quality large diaphragm tube condenser (U47) with a Neve pre-amp in a bad room.* I know both mics really well and I am particularly fond of the U47 but it is quite clear that it can't chance the sound a room.

I cannot be repeated too often: do not underestimate the influence of the recording room. At the same time: don't overestimate the importance of a mic pre-amp.

* I would prefer a 441 in the bad room as well since it is a hyper-cardioid.


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## Hannes_F (Feb 27, 2017)

Joram said:


> I don't understand what you mean


The same as you. I was sarcastic in the first line of my post.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 27, 2017)

We all have different taste, but I personally wouldn't grab a C414 as my first choice for cello. It's a relatively versatile mic, but it tends to have sort of a "hot" sound - which is not to say that Joram doesn't have a way of getting a really nice cello sound with it, because he probably does, just that it's not the first mic I'd reach for when recording cello.

I have an AT 4050, which you can make sound like a C414, but it's less of a character mic. Being a large-diaphragm mic, though, I still wouldn't use it for cello - and it also has switchable pickup patterns and a rolloff (which I've only used for narration/VO, never an instrument).

I like instrument mics on cello, and - especially because I'm an intermediate-level cellist who makes more bad noises with the bow than a real cellist does - I don't like them too close to it.


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## Matt Riley (Feb 28, 2017)

Nick Batzdorf said:


> In general - but not as an iron rule - I don't like large-diaphragm condensers on cello, unless they're far back catching room sound. They tend to exaggerate resonances you don't want to exaggerate.
> 
> I use a matched pair of Oktava MK019s, which are poor man's Neumann KM84s - that kind of pencil mic, and I place them back at least 4'.


I can't seem to find the Oktava MK019s anywhere. Do they make them anymore? Do you use a matched pair for the stereo image?


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 28, 2017)

The Oktavas were around in the '90s. They came from Russia right after the collapse of the Soviet Empire, although there were also Chinese ones at one point. I don't know whether they're still around.

They're nice mics, but their best feature was the price. You can get decent instrument mics from other companies too - AT, Rode, etc. And of course the Neumann KM84 (not the brighter 184) is the one they're "inspired by."

Yeah, the matched pair is for the image. They don't have to be exact, but within a dB or even two. I just got lucky with mine, which are within 1/2dB and sound the same.


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## synthpunk (Feb 28, 2017)

The only reason I recommended the 414 was that was the best overall mic on the list that Matt provided.

OCTAVA
http://www.oktavausa.com/mics/product-category/mk-012-series/

You can find the older ones used on reverb.com

If you get newer ones you can get them modded or dyi
http://recordinghacks.com/microphones/Oktava/MK-012


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 28, 2017)

No question, the 414 is an excellent all-rounder. So is the AT4050 for that matter.


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## synthpunk (Feb 28, 2017)

Great mics I actually own a pair of Phil Ramone's 4030's.



Nick Batzdorf said:


> No question, the 414 is an excellent all-rounder. So is the AT4050 for that matter.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 28, 2017)

The 4030 is also an excellent mic, but it's quite different from the 4050. This is going back a lot of years, but I believe it's actually not a large-diaphragm mic, more like a medium one.

When I was at Recording magazine, Dave Moulton did a shoot-out of a bunch of vocal mics. I don't remember all of them, but one of them was a super-accurate B&K, Neumann's first "affordable" mic (a fixed-pattern version of another one, but it was still pretty high-priced)... and there were others.

The one his panel like the best was the 4030, even though they could hear the singer in the room. I heard the recordings afterward, and I remember it being bright - but good and present bright, not harsh bright.


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