Contact Mic, Ex. F, Full Section of Violins

TOR / ODESSA Montreal / Subject 1 / Anatomy of a Mix / Contact Mic / Example F

In this excerpt, all eight first violinists are performing, however only the first six players had contact microphones placed on the tailpieces of their instruments, so the last stand of players was not captured in this microphone system. Because these signals were summed in post-production, the sound from each of the violins in theory should not be interacting with each other or the room. This leads to a similar tone color between this excerpt and the one previous.

This excerpt is the same as the one above, except that the contact microphone sources have been separated out using source panning in post-production. This type of source arrangement is not typically used in classical recording, nor is it what the composer intended for listeners to hear.The concertmaster is in the center position (she is the one who breathes the most heavily into her microphone) and the other five players are arranged two on the left and three on the right. In this particular excerpt, the conductor has given explicit instructions for the first stand to lead the section. For all players to follow the musical interpretation and phrasing of the first stand is default for orchestral string sections, but it's interesting to listen to the panned performances available in this excerpt and to analyze whether this particular instruction has changed the timbral cohesion of the players comparative to what is heard in S4E.