Gotchas with four violins?
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From: Paul Goble on 9 Apr 2008 10:15 According to the sound crews I've worked with, it's accepted wisdom that pairs of violins playing in unison will always sound dreadful. A few sound pros even expand this principle to say, "Do whatever it takes to avoid small, even numbers of stringed instruments." (There are more thoughts about this on my blog at <http://www.churchviolinist.com/2008/03/more-on-duet-dissonance.html>.) So what's the best way to handle an ensemble which has four violins? The natural way to divide them is two unison duets (2 on Violin I, 2 on Violin II). Is this asking for trouble? I suspect that the problem isn't too bad if there are enough other instruments in the mix, or if one avoids point mics close to the instruments (thus allowing room acoustics to blend out clashing pairs of harmonics). What's your experience? If groups of four violins do pose a problem, how do you mitigate it? Paul
From: michael gaster on 9 Apr 2008 11:05 "Paul Goble" <pg(a)pgcommunicationREMOVETHIS.com> wrote in message news:Xns9A7B540D83E2Fpgcommunicationcom(a)216.168.3.50... > According to the sound crews I've worked with, it's accepted wisdom that > pairs of violins playing in unison will always sound dreadful. > A few sound pros even expand this principle to say, "Do whatever > it takes to avoid small, even numbers of stringed instruments." > (There are more thoughts about this on my blog at > <http://www.churchviolinist.com/2008/03/more-on-duet-dissonance.html>.) > > So what's the best way to handle an ensemble which has four violins? The > natural way to divide them is two unison duets (2 on Violin I, 2 on Violin > II). Is this asking for trouble? I suspect that the problem isn't too > bad > if there are enough other instruments in the mix, or if one avoids point > mics close to the instruments (thus allowing room acoustics to blend out > clashing pairs of harmonics). What's your experience? If groups of four > violins do pose a problem, how do you mitigate it? > > Paul Having worked with orchestras for nearly 17 years I dont think I have ever heard this! perhaps this might be with certain music, I dont know??? Harmonizing is harmonizing... Ive done 4tets with 2 violin, viola, +cello and nothing has ever stood out and it wasnt that the 2nd violin was playing a different part (granted at times they were but not the entire time). and having just gotten off of the phone with a graduate from: Cleveland Institute Of Music, Curtis Institute Of Music, & The Juilliard School; She has never heard of such a thing, granted shes a horn player, but I would think at the very least she would have *heard* of this should it be the case. I also put in a call to a (regionally) well known violinist to get his thoughts and shot off an email to a conductor friends of mine at Curtis. I am real curious here. as far as micing strings, the the best thing is a omnidirection micro-Lavalier such as the DPA 4061 or my pref the Audix ADX-5 (i prefer the audix because it is more rugged and for live audio works as well as the DPA) and attach to the instrument below the bridge. -- Michael Gaster Gaster Engineering
From: michael gaster on 9 Apr 2008 11:25 "michael gaster" <gaster(a)gastereng.com> wrote in message news:46adnVl84YzERmHanZ2dnUVZ_tqtnZ2d(a)comcast.com... > > I also put in a call to a (regionally) well known violinist to get his > thoughts > -- > Michael Gaster > Gaster Engineering He confirms this is true.. I suppose the reason why I haven't heard of such thing is because I have, 90% of the time, worked with large orchestras. or done chamber music events with music written for the instrumentation present. Michael
From: Arny Krueger on 9 Apr 2008 12:46 "Paul Goble" <pg(a)pgcommunicationREMOVETHIS.com> wrote in message news:Xns9A7B540D83E2Fpgcommunicationcom(a)216.168.3.50 > According to the sound crews I've worked with, it's > accepted wisdom that pairs of violins playing in unison > will always sound dreadful. > A few sound pros even expand this principle to say, "Do > whatever > it takes to avoid small, even numbers of stringed > instruments." (There are more thoughts about this on my > blog at > http://www.churchviolinist.com/2008/03/more-on-duet-dissonance.html.) The previous post seems to shed quite a bit of light http://www.churchviolinist.com/2008/03/two-violins.html > So what's the best way to handle an ensemble which has > four violins? That previous post in the blog (above) discussed what looked like the best general idea - divide the violins up by parts. We usually have just two violin players at church, and that's what is usually done - our worship director has them play different parts, even if he has to write the arrangements himself. It is pretty obvious when I monitor their mics. > The natural way to divide them is two > unison duets (2 on Violin I, 2 on Violin II). Is this > asking for trouble? One speculation in the blog about the cause of the problem - fundamentals in tune but overtones not exactly in tune sounds reasonable to me because the vibrations of strings are not exactly linear, especially when the instrument is played loudly. If you have a small number of violins, they may be more likely to play loudly. Of course, mitigating the need to play so loudly is one of those things that Sound Reinforcement is supposed to help with. ;-) There are often more than just one way to play certain notes on a violin. Each approach should result in somewhat different sets of harmonics, which might help mitigate the problem. > I suspect that the problem isn't too > bad if there are enough other instruments in the mix, or > if one avoids point mics close to the instruments (thus > allowing room acoustics to blend out clashing pairs of > harmonics). What's your experience? If groups of four > violins do pose a problem, how do you mitigate it? This seems like a musical problem that might be best resolved musically. I don't know how purist people are trying to be. In our case we sometimes have our synth player play synthesized violin parts along with the real violins. I notice that our clarinet player's sound can often blend in with the violins to the extent that its unique voice is almost lost. This must help by simply adding another set of harmonics to the blend.
From: Ben Crowell on 9 Apr 2008 18:10
Paul Goble wrote: > According to the sound crews I've worked with, it's accepted wisdom that > pairs of violins playing in unison will always sound dreadful. > A few sound pros even expand this principle to say, "Do whatever > it takes to avoid small, even numbers of stringed instruments." > (There are more thoughts about this on my blog at > <http://www.churchviolinist.com/2008/03/more-on-duet-dissonance.html>.) > > So what's the best way to handle an ensemble which has four violins? The > natural way to divide them is two unison duets (2 on Violin I, 2 on Violin > II). Is this asking for trouble? I suspect that the problem isn't too bad > if there are enough other instruments in the mix, or if one avoids point > mics close to the instruments (thus allowing room acoustics to blend out > clashing pairs of harmonics). What's your experience? If groups of four > violins do pose a problem, how do you mitigate it? The statement I've heard is that n=1 sounds good, and so does n>=3, but n=2 is bad, and the explanation I've heard is that with n=2 the vibrato cycles don't blend into a single sound. The prohibition on even values of n sounds like complete nonsense to me, and I also don't think it has anything to do with recording versus live performance. A famous example that breaks the rule is, IIRC, the Beatles' Eleanor Rigby, where George Martin used a doubled string quartet. Can't remember whether they played with vibrato on that tune. |