Posted by John Swensen on July 15, 2000 at 17:16:23:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: American brass playing and ethnocentrism posted by Rick Denney on July 15, 2000 at 15:44:58:
I'm not a real recording engineer, although I like some of them.
I thought DG used as many mikes as there were music stands. This technique emphasizes the near-field sound characteristics of the instrument (complete with key noise, breathing, and uneven frequency response) for the benefit of flexibility in mixing and freedom from significant hall contributions to the overall sound. This can save a lot of time during the recording session, but it, certainly, does not reproduce the sound heard in a real concert. It is very popular for recording popular music (sometimes with up to three microphones per instrument, but I can't say that it is appropriate for most classical ensemble music.
Lewis Layton and Kenneth Wilkinson, of RCA, were masters of the three-mike setup (a stereo mike pair, plus a third mike to help with center fill. These three mikes fed three tape tracks, and that was it. Robert Fine, of Mercury Records, amazed the world with his one-mike, monaural, recording of the CSO playing Pictures at an Exhibition (Bud Herseth's first recording, by the way). His later, two-mike, stereo recordings were just as good but, by that time, RCA had the recording contract for the CSO, and Mercury had to find other orchestras to record (some were quite good, some were a bit ragged, at times).