Q: Recording real Chamber Orchestra with VSL...

[eclect]

Hello Diez and Co,
We are going to record real orchestra (15 strings + woodwinds) for movie score and we are going to combine it with VSL strings (which is part of the budget). I'm looking for as much info as possible on this task. Like, should i use spot mics (VSL is spot) or some close pair and room mics will be enough. Is it ok to mix live room with convolution for VSL in one track (i know i will hear myself but l'd like to hear opinions and want to be prepared as much as possible) and anything else.
So, if you have any expirience to share it will be very appreciated.
Any resources are very welcome too.
Thank you, thank you, thank you...

[Dietz]

Mixing our Instruments with recordings of live players or ensembles is pretty common and should work without major hiccups. The fact that we record our samples as pure as possible (no reverb, no sweetening, no noise etc.) makes it very easy to mix & match the sounds of the virtual and the "real" parts.

I would tend to put more emphasis on the main (or "room") microphones, because this is where the typical "signature" of your recording will come from. Using close mics in addition to that is a good idea as soon as you want to record soloistic performances of single players (which you want to "back up" on behalf of virtual instruments). In other words - it depends a lot on what you're after, but in the end, it is very common to have both close and room mics in the same session. Record them to dedicated tracks and choose the proper mixture afterwards.

Mixing with the same reverb on both live and virtual instruments will most likely do the trick to belnd them perfectly with each other. There _may_ be more demanding situations when recording in huge and/or very unique venues which don't lend themselves so good to be mixed with additional reverb. In cases like that I achieved great results by making customised impulse responses: Before or after the session, substitute the instruments by a loudspeaker, send a sine sweep through it, and use the "original" mic-setup to record the response of the room. - Voxengo makes a handy tool for the creation of customised IRs:

-> http://www.voxengo.comproduct/deconvolver/

... I'm sure there are several examples for mixing real and virtual instruments on our demo-site; one of them is the work of Simon Fox, realising the compositions of his grandfather Hans Gál for the first time:

-> http://vsl.co.at/en-us/67/3920/4696.vsl

A more jazz/electronics-oriented example here:

-> http://www.serious-entertainment.com/e_slow_audio.html

The title "Estate" (the 3rd one in the list) contains nice examples of mixing "live" and sampled brass, as well as sampled strings (starting at about 2:00). - The vibraphone is VSL, too, BTW [;)]

HTH,

[eclect]

Thanx Dietz,
Almost forgot about Voxengo. I'll give it a try.
btw:There is great topic on recording live orchestra on nuendo forum.
Can you piont me on similar resources.
Thanx again.

[Dietz]

@eclect said:

[...]
btw:There is great topic on recording live orchestra on nuendo forum.
[...]

Thanks, I know - I contributed a bit to it [:)] ... I'm a Nuendonian since Day One.