Combining a recording of a soloist with VSL orchestra in MIR

[Philvis]

Hi there

I was wondering if anyone had experience of combining a real live instrument with MIR. 

I am about to record a soloist for some film music, the accompaniement to which is already done in Logic/VSL using one of the MIR Rooms. 

My idea is to get a completely dry recording from the studio, then get it home and add the recording so that it is heard in the same acoustical setting as the virtual instruments.

Does anyone have any recommendations how to get the best result? I am tempted to let the studio engineer finish everything in the studio (which would mean using the studio acoustic or one of the studio's reverbs). It would mean less work for me, but may mean a more compromised recording.

All suggestions gratefully received!

Philip

[crusoe]

https://forum.vsl.co.at/topic/50866/Boccherini String Quintet Op 41 Ndeg1 With The Turkish Finale Violin And VSL Instruments/280410

[bbelius]

Hi Philip, I have done this with some instruments, solists and a choir of 24 singers. Worked good. In my experience it works best with dry recordings that are near to the instrument/ singer, but not too near because it will take you some EQing to make the sound sit in the room. For the choir I used one mic per section at a distance of 2-3m. I also mixed a main mic (ORTF) without MIR to these recordings. For soloists and instruments a distance of 0.5-1.5m should work fine. It can be a little tricky to find the right amount of reverberation time, wet sound and first/secondary mic. The singers sounded too far away, so I used a mic setup with additional center mic for singers only. Also the integration with the VSL instruments with MIR / Synchron worked fine and blended in. Best, Ben

[stefan_telser]

Hi,

very interesting topic.

We recently recorded svereral tracks with a Lute with a stereo mike in the studio.
Should I convert the signal to Mono before feeding it into MIR?

Best Stefan

[bbelius]

Hi Stefan,

MIR can handle stereo signals. Make sure you don't use a to wide stereo setting for the player in MIR if you want sound a natural reverb in the room (the size of the ellipse).
If you experience any problems with the stereo signal, you can try using only one of the mics or a mix.

Best, Ben

[stefan_telser]

Hi Ben,

thanks for the quick reply!

Best, Stefan

[Dietz]

@stefan_telser said:

Should I convert the signal to Mono before feeding it into MIR?

Best Stefan

In short: No. 😊

Long answer: It's advisable to make sure that a stereo input signal is centered, otherwise the spatial positioning of MIR will be obscured by the signal-inherent panning. This is especially obvious in case of very wide MIR Icons.

 

Kind regards,

[stefan_telser]

Hi Dietz,

Thanks for helping!

I know this is slightly off-topic because I do not intend to add any Virtual Instruments to the Mix, but maybe the information is useful anyway.

Here is my result (Recording Studio Weiler):

wav-file

MIR Settings

Miracle Settings

Regards
Stefan

[Beat Kaufmann]

Hello everyone who wants to play music to VSL-Sample, here are some results...

...just for fun:

• Children 10 years + VSL-Samples), recorded in classroom 2004: Toreador / Valencia
• BethlehemStrings together with real tenor saxophone (middle section), played in 2006
• Albinoni Adagio with Harp, Violin,... (VSL) and real soprano saxophon...

...of course all these pieces are played without MIR... "MIR" wasn't born at the time.

Have fun and maybe you will try to play together with VSL-Samples yourself.

Beat

[Itchy]

Hello Mr. Kaufmann! > Philip, I’d have the studio engineer provide a discreet relatively dry track [i]as well as[/i] separate tracks recorded/ "live-mixed" ...taking advantage of whatever ambience sounds good... or avec his/her favorite studio reverb. That way, you'll have options when you plunk the tracks into your existing mix & the MIR environment. > re: studio ambience; I'm reminded also of the concept of microphone setup being used to most realistically record an instrument, as opposed to the concept of most realistically recording [i]the space the instrument is in[/i] (which should only be attempted if the acoustic space merits it!). > Personally, I like the transparency of active Royer ribbon mics & Millennia pre-amps. >HTH!

[Beat Kaufmann]

@Itchy said:

Hello Mr. Kaufmann! I'd have the studio engineer provide a discreet relatively dry track as well as separate tracks recorded/ "live-mixed" taking advantage of whatever ambience sounds good... or avec his/her favorite studio reverb. That way, you'll have options when you plunk the tracks into your existing mix & the MIR environment.

re: studio ambience; ....

I would like to emphasize that the music examples above are only listed for pleasure. They should motivate everyone to play instruments themselves, together with VSL.

Thanks for the tips.
As you can see, the recording with the children was made in 2004, Bethlehemstrings in 2006 and the Adagio of Albinoni probably 2003 - so all at the very beginning of the story of VSL itself. I simply enjoyed trying everything because I suddenly had an orchestra at my disposal. For people of today this is (unfortunately) nothing more special. At that time this fact was quite groundbreaking. So I can't change the recording conditions back then. Meanwhile the children are adults... 😉

How to record instruments for playing togehter with samples (of VSL)
I can support Itchy's tips for recording instruments: The instruments should be recorded as "DRY" as possible. Nevertheless, you should keep in mind that each acoustic instrument should be microphoned in the same way as you would for classical sound recordings. So "Dry" does not necessarily mean as close as possible to the instrument. No, as an example for the violin: The best distance is 1m above the f-holes).  You can find a video or a website for almost every instrument, how best to record. Search for this task with Google.
Since these tips are not intended for professionals (they know them already): It doesn't necessarily have to be a Royer microphone or a Millennia microphone amplifier. It also works with a "Rode NT5" for example or an other good budget microphone and it works also with the amplifier of "your audio interface". Nevertheless, If you have good hardware, use it, of course.

Large instruments (grand piano, organ,...) should be recorded in stereo in any case (AB, ORTF,...), smaller instruments may be recorded also in mono. Classical Vocals: I would record them with M/S technology. This way you can add a bit of three-dimensionality to the voice, which seems more natural later in the mix (Listen to the singing examples). If you don't have the Microphones for M/S, it also works with one alone (mono).

By the way: The instruments at VSL were recorded with this background as well - earlier in the Silent Stage. So exactly at the right distance and still as "dry" as possible and as we know, of course all of them in stereo.

-----------
So if you have recorded your voice or instrument in this way, the conditions are good for mixing the result with samples - whether in "MIR" or with a conventional audio mix.

I wish you success

Beat

[Itchy]

“+1”