Hi Brad,
if you could post an excerpt somewhere I'd probably be
able to tell you what was going on with your recording.
"Tinny and Distorted" doesn't immediately give the impression
of "mic too close".
A wild guess might be that the mics were out of phase with
each other, that is one would have been "wired the wrong
way round" so that the 2 mics cancelled each other, rather
than working together.
I'd probably start with the mic about 18inches from the instrument,
on the midline of the soundboard and just to the neck
side of the rose, I never recorded theorbo before so
like Eugene says I'd try a number of tests to get the right placement.
andy butler
(sound engineer for many years, lute player for too few)
Brad Walton wrote:
Hello folks,
On the weekend I recorded two pieces in a professional recording
studio. I was accompanying a singer on the theorbo. The recording
engineer aimed two mikes quite close to the body of the theorbo.
On the recording, the sound of the theorbo is very tinny and distorted,
and bears almost no similarity to the natural/ acoustic sound of the
instrument.
Has anybody had experience with miking a lute or theorbo for recording?
What mike placement gave you the best results so far as concerned
fidelity to the natural sound of the instrument?
Thanks,
Brad
To get on or off this list see list information at
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html