[78-L] Early multi mike recording

[DAVID BURNHAM]

Although, according to the postings here, it's certainly not a first example of multi-mike recording, Stokowski recorded "Sleeping Beauty" in the late 40s and there are session photos in the album which shows the orchestra split up into four sections and each section having their own mike.

Going the other way, Robert Fine reputedly used a single mike to record his mono recordings and three mono mikes to record his stereo albums - and he presented this approach as being revolutionary even in the 40s.  I say "reputedly" because when it comes to believing him, I'm a bit of an agnostic.  In his early Mercury 78 sets, he includes a technical note in every album which says he placed an omni-directional mike 30 feet from the musicians in a reverberant room.  One such album is a Schubert String Quartet.  Even with a modern mike, such an approach would yield a pretty uninteresting sound - distant and reverberant.  I know many arm-chair recording engineers believe this is the best way to do things, just like putting two mikes about 20 cms apart in the best seat in a concert hall would produce the most accurate Stereo sound.  These beliefs totally ignore the basic rules of psycho-acoustics.  I have tried the "Living Presence" method of
 recording with symphony orchestras and the results are never satisfactory - even using the mikes which Fine specifies.  If you listen to the Fine recording of Khachaturian's Violin Concerto, you can hear clicking on the woodwind instruments which sound very close to a microphone and the violin soloist is very present.  I can't imagine an omni mike positioned to give these perspectives, but however he did his recordings they sound magnificent and, of course, they are legendary.  But I'm still a little dubious.

db