It was a slow moring here, I'll play something of a contrarian on the stand height / microphone angle geometry stuff.
My suggestion is not to get overly hung up on trying to get a similar level of direct sound from all sections of the orchestra. For one thing, the physical arrangement of instrument sections is purposeful and designed with the loudness and timbre of each section as heard from the audience in mind. For another, hearing a wide range of depths across the orchestra or ensemble makes for a more interesting and rewarding listening experience to my ear. To be clear, I’m not taking about some purist stance of ‘recording the actual sound,’ or ‘recording from the audience perspective’. I have no qualms about improving things to optimize the listening experience as much as possible.
All the suggestions for height and angle have obviously worked well for others here and are more or less standard time-tested setups, yet.. and I know it is cliché to say so and repeated ad nauseum.. trust your ears rather than your eyes or the dictates of any standard setup technique to optimize things beyond those generic starting points if you can. And when doing that, it may be helpful to mentally switch hats back and forth between listening as a music lover as well as a recordist and audio technician.
What makes for an interesting and engaging recording to your ear? Do you really want all the sections of the orchestra to appear in the same sonic depth-layer, with the same direct/reverberant balance? If the room doesn’t sound that great, then that may be a good choice to achieve the most palatable sound. But if the room sounds really good..
What I really love about my better classical recordings is when the technical aspects are well balanced enough that I can quickly put all those things out of mind and forget about them when listening. I want a full experience of being there, hearing it all even more optimally than I can experience it live- with among other things, both intimacy and depth in a believable perspective, both equally important.
Beyond the basic technical aspects need to achieve a decent recording, I get that listening experience from a good breadth of balanced contrasts- a wide range of dynamics, image depth, timbres, and imaging, and room envelopment. I don’t get that listening experience when all the instrumentation seems to have nearly identical depth and an identical direct/reverberant balance. I want to hear all the elements and sections clearly of course, but I also want to hear the instruments which are located in the back of the orchestra as
being in back and farther away.Admittedly, recording that way is something of a luxury which demands a great sounding room. If the ambience of the room doesn’t sound that great, or if there are other more basic issues, a reduced depth perspective which achieves a clear and equal contribution from all sections may be a very wise compromise. But if the room sounds great, do you really want all the sections of the orchestra to appear in the same sonic depth-layer, with the same direct/reverberant balance?
Ideally I don’t want the instruments in the back row to have the same apparent depth as those in front. I want them to sound like they are in the back, farther away from me, deeper in a great sounding hall than the sections in front. I want the front sections to sound closer, including any featured soloists sounding more direct and intimate standing beside the conductor, yet still in the same space and not overlaid on top or oddly gigantic.
I was thinking about this (and this thread) last night while reading some excerpts from
David A. Pickett’s website on his research into the music of Mahler. He explains how after a few performances, Mahler would sometimes make post-publication manuscript revisions to his scores to achieve the intended sound from the audience perspective, reflecting his experience of conducting them in a live concert hall setting, and how those changes have sometimes become ridiculously exaggerated in recordings which ignore the composers original intended listening balance for clarity and technical balance. I’d argue it also sacrifices the sonic depth which I feel make a great recording engaging and enveloping. Here’s a good short example with sound clips to hear what he’s talking about-
http://www.fugato.com/pickett/mahler5-3.shtmlHis general argument is pretty much what I’m getting at, although it argues more specifically against over use of spot microphones (an long running classical recording debate we’re all familiar with – I’m sure we’ve all have ridiculously exaggerated soloists or other sections in some commercial classical recordings). As mostly simple stereo-pair recordists for the most part, we don’t need to worry about those spot mic’ing problems so much, but I still find the crushed depth perspective provided by mics up high looking down on the orchestra to often sound unnaturally flat and less-engaging, even if it does make for all the sections sounding more or less equally clear. It can also present problems with timbre from the upward radiating brightness and proximity of the violins and violas as others have noted.
I don’t want either an entirely distant, ambient audience perspective or a flat, up-close birds ear view. I want the best balance which incorporates something of both extremes, something of a middle way with range.
In the best rooms I’ve recorded in, I’ve gotten that from diffuse field response omnis placed lower, out of the bright upward violin radiation zone, sometimes without a direct line of sight to everything farther back. I much prefer the sound of violins from in front of them rather than not very high above them.. as long as the damn music stands don't get in the way.
The diffuse omnis, placed out of the violin screech zone helps achieve that. But good clarity from the distant instruments in back while also getting that nice depth requires very good room sound.
