Spot Mics, Ex. D, Four Violinists

TOR / ODESSA Montreal / Subject 1 / Anatomy of a Mix / Spot Mics / Example D

This submix contains three violin spot microphones panned to the relative left of the stereo image, as a mixing engineer would do in post-production. Because these spot microphones are laterally distant from each other, they have all been panned to slightly separate positions (from close to center to far left), which produces a wider stereo impression. Similar to how the contact microphone sound inherently changes when more signals are summed, three spot spot microphones inherently capture and reproduce more room sound. Stray notes aside, the captured recording now represents a fairly coherent violin section sound versus individual players, but it's still more direct sound than room sound.

The first stand of violins is on the right, while the second stand is on the left. Again, this is for evaluation purposes and in a final mix both would be panned to the left because of their position within the body of the orchestra. However, this version decouples them slightly from that context in order to show their relationship with each other. Performance differences between the first and the second stand continue are pronounced, but the coherence in performance decisions between the two players at each stand is quite noticeable.