miking recorders

Brian Jones

Freshman
Jan 18, 2011
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Northern California
I'm real green at pro audio but have some decent equipment. I am providing sound for a friend's memorial who passed recently and there will be live performers. They will be playing recorders. I've never miked a woodwind instrument of any type so this will be a first for me. I have enough SM58 and SM57 mics to use either as well as boom mic stands.

There will be four performers. Any tips would be appreciated.

I specifically wonder if windscreens are a good idea and if so, what kind.

Should I use any sort of compression? The only compressor I have available to me at the moment would be a pair of Behringer Sharks. (DSP-110 IIRC).

If it matters, I will be using K10's and a MixWiz WZ3 16:2.
 
Re: miking recorders

If you only have 57's and 58's available, then you should use one of those.

I doubt you are going to need much compression if any at all unless you have the gain cranked way up.

The Behringer Shark is a feedback eliminator, iirc. My suggestion would be to leave it at home.
 
Re: miking recorders

If you only have 57's and 58's available, then you should use one of those.

I doubt you are going to need much compression if any at all unless you have the gain cranked way up.

The Behringer Shark is a feedback eliminator, iirc. My suggestion would be to leave it at home.

I do have a handful of other mics, but not 4 of any of them... (one each Beta 57A, OM2 and a crappy generic) and I wanted them all to match.

I won't have the gain cranked hardly at all. This is going to be a quiet crowd in a room that's pretty good acoustically.

I won't use the Shark, but FYI I bought them for the delay feature. They can provide delay for fill speakers that need more than just a few milliseconds. They do have feedback suppression but they also have compression, limiting, gate and probably a couple of other DSP features I'm not thinking of at the moment.

I guess a good multi-channel compressor is going to be one of my next purchases but I think powered subs will come before that. I've got an SRX728S but people looking to rent the K10's don't want that huge sub or to deal with a passive system. At this point, the new EV Live X ELX118P looks like a good option that goes down pretty low and is lightweight for a very good price. It probably won't perform quite as well as a PRX618S-XLF or HPR181i, but for price and weight, I think it will do just fine.

Anyway, once I get a ''real'' compressor and know I have something else I can always put in the signal chain for larger delays, I'll sell the Sharks.
 
Re: miking recorders

Brian,

It just so happens that I come from a family of expert recorder makers. http://www.prescottworkshop.com Any Prescott instruments from serial number 2,000 into the very low 3,000 had some portion of the work done by me, on many all of the work save final voicing and tuning.

The tone of the recorder mostly comes out of the fipple, the angled cut just below the head. I would not bother with compression, recorders don't have that much dynamic range, they have more of a tonal change with breath adjustment than an SPL difference.

A 57 ought to be good, I would try and aim from the player's face down the length of the recorder a little to minimize breath noise. Unless you're dealing with baroque instruments they will probably have a fairly bright tone, you shouldn't have to work too hard and you can use an aggressive high pass.
 
Re: miking recorders

Brian,

It just so happens that I come from a family of expert recorder makers. http://www.prescottworkshop.com Any Prescott instruments from serial number 2,000 into the very low 3,000 had some portion of the work done by me, on many all of the work save final voicing and tuning.

The tone of the recorder mostly comes out of the fipple, the angled cut just below the head. I would not bother with compression, recorders don't have that much dynamic range, they have more of a tonal change with breath adjustment than an SPL difference.

A 57 ought to be good, I would try and aim from the player's face down the length of the recorder a little to minimize breath noise. Unless you're dealing with baroque instruments they will probably have a fairly bright tone, you shouldn't have to work too hard and you can use an aggressive high pass.

okay, this made me laugh out loud. and not because of the recorder reference.

it's just... someone asks a pretty arcane SR question regarding an ensemble of infrequently seen instruments, and our very own forum deity [at least partly responsible for our genesis] just happens to have spent a considerable amount of his formative years building the same. this combined with his copious experience in sound reinforcement makes him arguably THE definitive expert on the topic at hand...

love it...

brian



edit: typo
 
Re: miking recorders

Brian,

It just so happens that I come from a family of expert recorder makers. http://www.prescottworkshop.com Any Prescott instruments from serial number 2,000 into the very low 3,000 had some portion of the work done by me, on many all of the work save final voicing and tuning.

The tone of the recorder mostly comes out of the fipple, the angled cut just below the head. I would not bother with compression, recorders don't have that much dynamic range, they have more of a tonal change with breath adjustment than an SPL difference.

A 57 ought to be good, I would try and aim from the player's face down the length of the recorder a little to minimize breath noise. Unless you're dealing with baroque instruments they will probably have a fairly bright tone, you shouldn't have to work too hard and you can use an aggressive high pass.

Thanks Bennett!

I didn't expect to get advice from such an authority on this combination of subjects but now very glad I asked here.

btw, the group that is performing is the American Recorder Orchestra of the West (AROW) or at least a quartet from that group. The deceased friend is David Henderson who was a member for many years from my understanding and who taught music years ago. Is there a tell tale sign by which I can identify a Prescott recorder in case one of the musicians is playing one? I'd love to casually mention, ''Oh, I see you're playing a Prescott.'' LOL

Ironically, David is partially responsible for my joining the ranks of PA owners. He and I both were committee members of a non-profit whose sole function was to put on an event that was part educational booths and part performances including musical performances.

David had possession (but not ownership) of a Fender Passport 250. The first year I volunteered to be on the committee, we were using that Fender to support two bands alternating on stage. One ''band'' was a duo (more like a soloist with accompaniment) and the other had I believe 4 members that year including a drummer. In addition to the woefully inadequate PA, this was an outdoor event covering about 2000 s.f. next to a roadway and to top it all off, David by this time was nearly deaf. One usually had to repeat things when talking to him.

He was stubborn about running the PA himself though so I stepped in. I had some money and wanted things done right so I started buying PA equipment and long story short, I now am using an SRX/iTech setup with a FOH MixWiz setup to provide sound for the same event. To say it is an improvement is a vast understatement.

David also provided sound for a local Darwin Day event and I provided sound for that last year and will be doing so again this year.
 
Re: miking recorders

I have a method for this. Listen to the instrument, find out where the sound comes out and put the mic there. That said, when miking up recorder ensembles I prefer to use two or threee SDC's. 58's would probably work just as well. Observe the 3/1 rule and let the group get an air blend. It will generally sound better than close miking and mixing every single voice.



 
Re: miking recorders

Hey Brian,

I might be able to tell a Prescott instrument from a few yards away, but you'd probably have to look for the stamp. All our instruments are marked ''T. Prescott'' over a serial number on the centers and sometimes heads. The feet just have a serial number. Listen for the ones that sound really good? 8)~:cool:~:cool:

I have actually had the pleasure, once in my life, of being asked in casual conversation if I was ''that'' Prescott, which was kind of fun. However, my father is really the ''brand'', and he knows every one of his customers by name. That's what you get when you make less than 100 instruments a year at an average price of about $2,000.

There's ''micing recorder consorts'' and then there's ''micing recorder consorts''. You can spend a lot of money, but fortunately it's a very midrange instrument and fairly loud, so I doubt you would see much of an improvement even if you spend 10x as much.
 
Re: miking recorders

yeah, I was a little shocked when I saw how much the recorders sold for at your dad's website. These are not the instruments we used in grade school music class. LOL



Thanks again.
 
Re: miking recorders

Bennett, I think you need to officially change your forums status to ''Worldwide Recorder Expert''. And you need to be wearing a beanie with a propeller in your avatar. That way all the new guys know to stay away from you
icon_lol.gif
 
Re: miking recorders

Brian,



It just so happens that I come from a family of expert recorder makers. http://www.prescottworkshop.com Any Prescott instruments from serial number 2,000 into the very low 3,000 had some portion of the work done by me, on many all of the work save final voicing and tuning.

Hey, Bennett, is your family related to Abraham Prescott, the 19th Century instrument maker known for his double basses?