I worked with mostly stereo templates until recently. Going to quad meant a rethink about multi mics and how to go about re-imagining the libraries I use. I decided on the Close-Room-Far approach with stereo feeds from Vienna Ensemble Pro into my Daw. My thinking is to automate the three feeds in Vepro but leave the three feeds up full to start. In the past I blended mostly close and room (or stage) and rarely used the far sounds at all.
In needing to feed the rears, I loaded the fars up in the instruments and of course it opened a can of worms. Differering rooms with different blooms, not to mention how each instrument and indeed each instrument class responds. So it seems to me that when you open up to using the far mics, you need to do it to all the channels because you’ve defined your rear wall, assuming you pan the fars to the rear. And then it brings up the issue of what to do with those libs that use one mic or one option. Adding reverb also causes issues because now you have reverb on reverb, and things can get washy real fast.
I find anything more then the three mic options is too much, 8dio, I’m looking at you. Too much choice with the 8 options. Those libs with less tail in the back work better for me. I’m after space but not outer space, I can add verb, can’t we all?
Drums are another matter for me because some of those big epic sounds really need the room to bloom and the close mics can sound anemic on their own.
But yeah, no amount of extra mics are going to make an unplayable instrument any better. My best thinking at the moment is to think about size as well as dynamics. Some patches are there for size, some for soli playing. The idea is definition and space.
In my new approach, which is not battle tested, I am happy with the results so far in a Cubase template. What I am doing is panning the close up front, many times reducing the stereo field to narrow it to a place in front. The stage mics are panned not quite halfway back and the rears panned not quite at the back. I send the three to an aux and use a quad verb, a stock Cubase med size with a short tail. It’s there to smooth out the rooms, seems to work well in differing amounts per lib. I think the setting sounds a bit like the cello studios at EW, so more of a score stage verb.
For those single mic things, like Lass, I pan to the front, but pan the verb send to the middle of the room and this seems to bring about the same effect as if the lib had multi mics, to a certain point. Same with Sample modelling, which along with Audio modelling is my solist choice. Again not battle tested, but so far it seems as though the multi mic options are giving me more dimension in the room and I’m intrigued as to what this will bring when I actually work with it for real. I’m imagining I will now have to deal with the way the room gets excited as well as how to perform the dynamics, so it makes it more complicated.
I guess I’ll have to see if all this even adds any value musically.