#52 HOW TO MIC A STRING SECTION

[@IrvingAguirre77]

One of the best videos I've seen! Great insight into the recording. Love the mics!

[@Okewen]

'ow luvley. I just fall in love with how I imagine all those rooms to smell like 😊. I was born in Argentina -the right country in many aspects, but the wrong one as regards recording. 😂.

[@tyerac]

I absolutely love the sound of a string section tuning/warming up. I don't understand what it is about it, but it just sounds wonderful. Capture that in a library Christian, i'd buy it in a second. Maybe as one of your Evo or Labs entries.

[@henrywebstermusic1]

Or, just nick it from the beginning of some proms concerts or something... ;-)

[@justryanreally]

Well its took me a few days, but I'm now caught up from the start! Keep the content coming chap. They keep my ears busy whilst I do my tech work!

[@TheCrowHillCo]

Thanks for the commitment, a fellow 'completist'. CH

[@raphaelcosta6006]

Thank you, Christian. I'm very curious to listen to the final recording! I wonder how different a small ensemble like this one is to a fuller, bigger strings session.

[@JoramPinxteren]

Was there for a visit a year ago. Good room!

[@wyshwood]

Shout out to Max Baillie, unsung hero of all that is music. Top fellah, just heard him on Architects at Abbey Road. Brilliant.

[@stevegeorge7773]

Cool! And interesting.

[@lukemarsden5872]

Christian - there's a lovely few seconds of music at the end of this video - charming and lovely - please can you tell me where I can hear it in full?

[@bob-rogers]

Cool! I wish we could have seen some of how all that got mixed down to a final product. I'm recording my wife's quartet's rehearsal at the moment. I have a single Blumlein pair and an SM-81 in the stairwell (potentially for reverb).

[@JeanMichelGeorge]

These vlogs do a brilliant job of conveying how fast-paced and travel-intensive your average day really is ... And that brings on an honest question : Is it a prerequisite in this trade to be able to find inspiration for writing / scoring whilst being constantly on the move ? I'd be interested (and relieved) to hear if the composing phase of your work requires you to switch off from all the hectic commuting and buzzing around London that you so often portray here. Or is it something that you just learn to fit in using each fragmented time-slot you can grab ? I ask because I personally need to retreat to a monastery for a week before anything interesting happens :-/

[@J.Livermore]

just what I was looking for, THANKS MAN!!

[@charlesgaskell5899]

Great insights as always.Interesting to see nobody at the front waving their arms around! I guess if everyone is playing to clicks, there's no need? Out of interest, what is the average number of times that you played each cue (mean and median)? How many times did you have to play the most problematic of the cues? Did you use 1m04 as a 'warm up', or was it one that needed special attention?

[@JWMelham]

Thanks for these Christian, interesting to see what everyone is up to :)

[@roieshpigler]

Great video! Next time let us hear the music 😉🙏🏻🎶

[@andreasgilgenberg5588]

no music?

[@AlexBallMusic]

Very interesting video again Christian. I recorded in there once and that mic cupboard is basically pornography. You know the 40s/50s light music track you use as an intro and outro? Would Spitfire ever consider doing a period sounding library using old mics, pres, ensemble sizes, articulations etc? So you could get _that_ sound without running nice vsts through plugins? Or is that a bit niche?

[@Fangornmmc]

That would be utterly brilliant if they did that. I mean, you can get quite far with detuning and other tricks and whatnot, but still...

[@JSCote]

Very interesting room to record strings... it's relatively small, or at least not very reverberant, so I guess you have to rely on quite a bit of good old 'verb for that "big" sound...? Or not? Would love your take on this.

[@TheCrowHillCo]

I'm not going for a big sound, I'm going for a really tight and intense sound, but when I'm strapped for cash and am using this studio for 'bigger' sounding stuff I use a combo of their EMT plates (real big ones in the basement) and then lashings of TC6000 back at home!

[@JSCote]

Thanks Christian, very interesting. And on the subject of "big VS tight", I see that there's no conductor in the room. When do you feel it is required to have one and when is it not? Size of the ensemble, type of music, ratio of live VS already laid down tracks, people knowing your style and your requests VS people you don't know... ?

[@apolace7242]

@@JSCote conductor is completely dependent on style of music

[@robertocaesar]

Come on! Some of the musicians sound please! You had mr dying here!

[@studentjohn35]

Not even a single M-50 (or even M-50 clone) in that mic locker.

[@saidazizmalikov4607]

I TRUST MY MUSIC WILL RECORD SAME

[@jdz101]

How to mic a string section....50k of microphones :O

[@AlexBallMusic]

jdz101 You telling me you don't own a bunch of vintage U87s and U47s? Pah! Loser.

[@jdz101]

Only 3 more years of farming myself on a street corner and I'll have the mics and outboard....Be right back

[@russell_szabados]

jdz101 Brilliant answer!