Justin
I'm someone who has interest in both music and ambient recording and find t=
his
intrusion of a musical question to be very interesting. When I started expe=
rimenting with
ambient nature recording, I asked the maker of the Telingas about a dual us=
e of his mics
and he was very clear that in his opinion they were not suited for music.
The real issue may be the kind of sonic perspective you are looking for, an=
d this may or
may not mean you need the super silent type of mic's necessitated by nature=
recording.
A Shakuhachi has a very wide dynamic range but to get a sense of its unique=
rich sound
you have to be close to the microphone. This means that the self noise of s=
omething like
musically beautiful 4060 DPAs might not be so much of a problem. DPA's are =
quite
sensitive which significantly decreases the threshold of their moderate noi=
se and they can
handle quite high levels. Only a super-loud playback would raise the electr=
onic noise to
the foreground.
I use 4061's for Violin, Erhu and other bowed strings because they are a bi=
t less
sensitive than 4060's and can handle the extreme levels of a violin at a di=
stance of 10
cm or so. Many people have made very good ambient recordings with the small=
DPA's.
and a well-known commercial surround-sound microphone is in fact made up of=
these
same elements. Mics useful for ambient recording have the advantage that t=
hey don't
have to answer to our very very exacting ear for familiar musical sounds.
Of course you might want to take a more distant view point in which case ve=
ry quiet
ambient mic's could work as they do to place intense bird sounds in a deep =
transparent
sound image.
I would make some tests with DPA's (or what ever mics you can borrow) to ge=
t a
practical sense of how much noise you would be dealing with for the sound y=
ou want.
An incremental approach is always better if you can return to your source. =
Some find the
lack of reverberation in outdoor recordings afford a very special musical e=
xperience, but
you have to expect a radically different perspective from that of the chamb=
er hall. The
best advice for music as for all recording is experiment vigorously with wh=
ere you place
the microphones.
The ideal sound unfortunately may require a multiple microphone recording t=
o capture
both the qualities of the instrument and the ambience but this may be for a=
later stage
of your obsession.
Joel Ryan
Steim Amsterdam & Institute of Sonology The Hague
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