Contact Mic, Ex. A, One Violinist

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

In this excerpt, only the concertmaster plays. Because of the position of the contact microphone on her instrument, she is actually breathing hard enough to compress the crystals in the piezo capsule, which at times completely obliterates the sound of her violin but generates another interesting question: when musicians play, there is a tendency to breathe with the phrasing. Of course, this is obligatory for wind players or singers, but string players are not immune. Neither, as it turns out, are listeners. As the violinist plays, do you find yourself breathing with her? In this excerpt we hear both the musician (through her breath and movement) as well as the violin. From this extremely close perspective, we get the most musician mixed in with the violin sound. Everything about this particular capture is extremely close, almost claustrophobic: from the physical proximity of the player's breath to the "boxy-"sounding low-mid to mid-frequency heavy tone color—a sound not normally associated with the violin.