Richard Thomas Posted July 30, 2014 Report Share Posted July 30, 2014 Just sharing a few thoughts on an upcoming job I've got. It's some music recording (which is nice, as they don't come up too often), however it's for an art project. A musician is improvising in response to their (outdoor) environment- so being cleanly capture the environmental sounds happening at the same time as the performance is going to be necessary. Initial thoughts were to have a long shotgun mic at hand and point it at whichever source they're responding to, however you'd be 'behind' the action. I'd also prefer to be concentrating on the mix here, and I'm not sure if there's any additional budget for a second person A second thought is to get a soundfield mic, set it up centrally and use it both as a main stereo (or even surround) mic and use the Harpex-B plugin in shotgun mode to pull out individual sources in post. My question is, how effective is it? It's not something I've used before and I don't really have access to any suitable ambisonic recordings to play with (they're all interior music recordings) A third thought is that I'm going on a recce next week (which may also answer some of these questions) and I'm thinking it might be worth getting some 'wild' recordings of some of the sounds sources which may feature as a possible backup, 'cheating' them in, if necessary. I might also be overthinking this and just using a stereo pair further back from the instrumentalist would do the job Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rich Posted July 30, 2014 Report Share Posted July 30, 2014 how will the performer hear the sounds of the environment over the sound of their performance? will they need some kind of monitoring, possibly form your mics? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Thomas Posted July 30, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 30, 2014 I'm expecting it to be through their ears, rather than mics- although I'm thinking how mics are less discriminating than your brain. Still need to have a chat with the artist about this, and the kind of perspective they'd like from the recording Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted July 30, 2014 Report Share Posted July 30, 2014 RT: " I'm not sure if there's any additional budget for a second person " if that is what is required to do it correctly, then we are again dealing with unreasonable expectations. OTOH, I have in the past dealt with some artsy-fartsy types, and their expectations were actually quite unreasonable! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundmanjohn Posted July 30, 2014 Report Share Posted July 30, 2014 Richard, I have a Soundfiield ST450 and Harpex if you want to experiment before the gig. It's fully Rycote-ed and I normally record to a 788, so it's all portable. I'm up in bonny Scotland opening a show at the Fringe, but back next week and free-ish. PM me if you'd like to try things out. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundmanjohn Posted July 30, 2014 Report Share Posted July 30, 2014 Mind you, I wonder where they're going to be performing? I suspect that mostly they'll be responding to aircraft, leaf-blowers, scaffolders, pile-drivers, kids' parties, fork-lift trucks, fracking drilling rigs, bird-scarers, car alarms and shouts of 'Oi, get off my land!" if my recent excursions are anything to go by... John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Thomas Posted July 30, 2014 Author Report Share Posted July 30, 2014 Mind you, I wonder where they're going to be performing? I suspect that mostly they'll be responding to aircraft, leaf-blowers, scaffolders, pile-drivers, kids' parties, fork-lift trucks, fracking drilling rigs, bird-scarers, car alarms and shouts of 'Oi, get off my land!" if my recent excursions are anything to go by... John It's in a park in London, so that's probably a yes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
studiomprd Posted July 31, 2014 Report Share Posted July 31, 2014 how to differentiate if they are performing in response to what they hear, or to what they see..? all in all, I'd expect it is more artsy-fartsy than my taste... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Reineke Posted July 31, 2014 Report Share Posted July 31, 2014 " they'll be responding to aircraft, leaf-blowers, scaffolders, pile-drivers, kids' parties, fork-lift trucks, fracking drilling rigs, bird-scarers, car alarms and shouts of 'Oi, get off my land!" - I often respond to those instances with.. expletives. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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