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Help on choosing a microphone for chamber music recording

  • 4 replies
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Topic Help on choosing a microphone for chamber music recording
Hi!

My first post in this interesting Forum. I need some help for my project:

I am a flute student and have reached the level to start playing in small groups (duets, trios). Normally there is a flute (me) and a cello and in some cases a second flute. There are a few other possible combinations of instruments, such as flute + piano and flute + guitar.

I want to make recordings of the performances using a suitable microphone and PC equipment with SW such as Audacity. These will be used mainly for our own + our teachers evaluation, but I want them to be of good quality.

For the moment I can only afford one microphone, due to cost and also because of available space and installation/setup and operation simplicity.

My budget is quite limited and I could spend not more that about 200 $ for the micro and its phantom supply if required. The laptop I plan to use is may present Toshiba netbook NB100 + Audacity 1.2.6

I think that a typical cardioid polar would not be adequate to record three players with a single mike, but I may be wrong.

We normally play in a rather crowded large room (for the moment, most are just the students families)

My questions:

- For such scenario, what would be a good microphone type, model and brand?

- Are condenser type the better for this application?

- I found the AudioTechnica AT2050, with selectable pattern cardioid, omni and double 8. Price is within budget but I lack the experience to chose correctly, so it was rather a matter of sheer intuition

- Some say that selectable pattern mikes are not as good a single pattern units and in fact, some specs for the AT2050 are poorer than same brand, similar models with single pattern (sensitivity, S/N ratio). Is this correct?

- Could you suggest the optimal setup for my project?

Thank you in advance!
2
My opinion is that you try to record in stereo and therefore buy a stereo pair for overhead recording . A stereo pair of oktava MK-012 (for example) have a good quality/price ratio for such a task. You should be able to find a pair for under $200 on their online store or ebay.
3
Thank you for the idea. I had not considered stereo recording because of the double equipment necessary, but it could be a solution to the problem of widely spaced musicians.

However the Oktava microphones are currently much higher than 200$ the pair, they are around 500$ up.

There are also some concerns that sites that offer them at too low prices could be selling low quality chinese fakes.
4
You can get them (a stereo pair)on ebay (that's where i bought mine) new, for less than $200 (if you don't get all the capsules) from the official seller (oktava-online). don't buy from anybody else.
5
Might be a bit too late but with a friend we've developed a Pocket Microphone Library iOS app.
It includes a list a 90+ mics with the tech specs (directivities, curves, etc.) and a comparator.
It is called Rës: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/res-microphone-pocket-library/id1016290844?ls=1&mt=8

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