Contact Mic, Ex. G, Full Section of Violins — Rear Desk Leading

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

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. In this excerpt, the conductor gave the rear stand explicit instructions to lead the section. Because the rear desk of players were not captured by contact microphones, they cannot be heard in either this excerpt or the one following.

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 instructions given by the conductor were for the rear stand of the section to lead. However, as they were captured using this system, the concertmaster is in the center position for overall consistency with the other five players are arranged two on the left and three on the right.