In-Ear Monitor Side-By-Side Comparison

Today I attended an EIM consultation at Musicians Hearing Solutions in Beverly Hills, CA with audiologist, Dr. Julie Glick.

Before I even asked, She said the magic words that make every nerd excited: “blind test” and “high-resolution audio at 24-bit, 96kHz.” I also brought recordings from my rehearsals since that is the environment I will be using the IEMs in. I didn’t see the face plates and brand names before trying them out, Julie inserted them into my ear canals and made sure they were properly sealed.

Going into the appointment, I was looking to spend $1500, up to $2000 if the audio was significantly better.

I tested the following IEMs:

Ultimate Ears - UE 18+ Pro - $1,599

JH Audio - JH 13v2 - $1,449 // JH 16v2 - $1,649 // Roxanne - $2,099

Audio 64 - A4s - $1,099 // N8 - $1,699 // A12t - $1,999

I’ll get into the details, but first: a back story, so that I can congratulate myself later on my consistency, and also (hopefully) so anyone reading this can have some confidence that at all times, I was being very discerning while evaluating these IEMs, both in the past and today.

TEST THEM OUT!

One final disclaimer - As with the mic recommendations, I very much hope the main take-away from this is that YOU MUST COMPARE THESE IEMs SIDE-BY-SIDE ON YOUR OWN! Every ear is different, so what works for me may not work for you, but it was critical for me to test them side-by-side.

Some Important Context

Backstory

The way that this appointment came about was that a band I’m playing with currently, the Brent Faiyaz band, had an Ultimate Ears (UE) rep come in and take our impressions, but my memory of UE is that it was harsh, even painful for me, so I wanted to be sure that I really wanted the UEs before dropping $1k+. I went into this appointment with some IEM experience before. As an avid NAMM attendee, I have attempted IEM comparisons before, and I’ve also played a fair share of gigs where the live sound engineers are also reps for different IEM brands - this is a wonderful experience, because they know how to mix for the IEMs. I have played on the JH audio Laylas, Joleens, and Roxannes - the latter I actually played through a whole live-streamed concert with the Marina Diamandis band, and I have also heard some Audio 64 IEMs with 6 drivers, the A6ts. I peviously tested UE 11s.

My Ears

My ears have tiny canals, Dr. Glick said they were pretty average for women, if that’s any help. I have a lot of sensitivity to distortion and harshness in the mid highs and high highs.

My memories going into the testing

My memory was that my favorite practical profile I’d ever listened to was the Audio 64, that it was mellow and easy to listen to and didn’t hurt my ears. My memory was that my absolute favorite, wipe-the-ass-with-sik, decadent listening experience was with the Roxannes, this was one of those gigs where the mixing engineer was also a rep, it was by far the best mix I’d ever heard. Going into this meeting earlier today, I didn’t remember that they were JH audio IEMs, I just remembered I had liked a brand where the EIMs had women’s names that were also famous song titles.

My Priorities

The top priority for me was lack of harshness and distortion, I really want to preserve my hearing for as long as possible, so a nice gentle feel with good noise cancellation in the 30dB range was ideal. Second priority was the mix itself, and I was looking for clarity and a good, but not too heavy, bass response, since most of the time, I’m listening to and blending with the bass player.

The References

My reference tracks were Queen’s Somebody to Love, the Beatle’s Here Comes the Sun (believe it or not the crazy tracking and panning on that album sounds a lot like our shitty piezo signals lol), Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal, a Schubert String Quartet (don’t ask me which one, it was pre-loaded onto their device), and from my own phone I used the tracks from our rehearsals which includes my actual shitty piezo signal.

The Results

Okay, so here were my impressions from the blind test. I’ll list the models in order, but just know that I did not find out the brand/model name/driver info/tech specs until after all of the testing was finished.

1. Audio 64 A12t

2. UE 18+ Pro

3. JH Audio 16 v2

4. Audio 64 A4s

5. JH Audio 13 v2

6. Audio 64 A6t

   (This is where the test briefly ended and I will pause here for dramatic effect).

Let me go through these first.

I started the test and immediately noticed how much better these were than the Shure and Westone generics I’ve been using in rehearsals. Even so, I was able to hear through everything since at home I’m used to nice Sennheiser and Yamaha monitoring.

Audio 64 A12t

I loved how gentle the first pair was. I could crank the volume pretty loud and it wasn’t hurting. Loved how it pronounced hi-hats and percussion, nice bass. I was a little bummed because I could tell the noise cancelling was not as good as I’d wanted. But overall, this was a hard ‘yes’.

UE 18+ Pro

Second pair was really harsh right away, I know in like 20 seconds it was a pretty hard ‘no’. Those ended up being the UEs, and it made me feel so glad I went and did the consultation.

JH Audio 16v2

Third pair was interesting, it sounded… fun :) It was really warm in the bass range, and also came with a cable where you can attenuate strength of the bass. There was a little harshness for me and very mild distortion through a couple different bands. Had really good isolation. It was a ‘yes’.

Audio 64 A4s

Fourth pair was very similar to the first pair, gentle on the ears. I noticed a little bit of distortion between bands again, and this was something I started to notice across the board. There was a little bit of harshness and distortion with these but at normal listening volumes, it was nice.

JH Audio 13v2

The fifth pair was like the third pair but for me at least, there was a more pronounced spike in some of the highs - maybe around 6-8khz. I started to feel a little bit bummed at this point that IEMs don’t do well with my ears.

Audio 64 A6t

The last pair were very similar to the first as well, so similar in fact that I started to A/B the ones still literally and figuratively on the table.

After some A/Bing, I said no to the JH 13v2s and the Audio 64 A4s.

What was left was the Audio 64 A12t, JH Audio 16 v2, and Audio 64 A6ts. I listened back and forth for a while, maybe 15 mins. And after a time, I started to get used to the way the bands all mixed in this set of IEMs, and realized they all had distortion and harshness that was probably indicative of quality, which was probably indicative of price. So I made the face I make whenever I know my partner Tuomas will kill me lol. I looked up to Dr. Glick and told her I wanted to hear some in the $2000-$2500 price range.

Dr. Glick brought out a couple other pairs in the higher price range. The first pair over $2k she had me try were so clear - but I didn’t catch the name, because the pair I put on next was incredible.

They were different than everything else I had tried because they passed the level of just playing back sound… they had this magic pronunciation - when I actively picked apart the instruments and then listened for frequency bands, I could find the clarity I was looking for, but more importantly, it was so easy to soften my focus, broaden my view, and float back into this wonderfully warm mix and just vibe with it. It surpassed its practical purpose and brought me into my emotions, stimulated my lil vagus nerve and brought me into my lil resonating limbic system. It gets me excited, where the Audio 64s, as gentle as they are, are safe but don’t get me excited. I knew that last pair I tried was the one within about 30 seconds of listening.

JH Audio Roxanne (with 2-pin cable)

When she told me they were the JH Roxannes, I remembered the gig I played with Marina, the mix that was so decadent, and since I couldn’t remember the name I didn’t think I’d ever hear it again. At the time, spending that much on IEMs seemed impractical since it was the pandemic and I wasn’t making enough money from live gigs to justify the purchase, but now that I’m working 8-hour days for the Brent camp with a lot of tours and plans for the future in the works, not only is this level of quality good to have, I’d say it’s necessary.

Total, the Roxannes, plus tax, shipping, and impressions cost me $2463.40.

Final Thoughts

I feel lucky to be in a place where this kind of purchase is available to me and I am hoping that these IEMs will last me for the foreseeable future. I hope this helps people who are trying to decide on their own. One piece of advice: knowing a friend who is a rep who can get you artist pricing is great, but remember this is your hearing for life and having the wrong pair can put your longevity at risk, so I hope I can inspire you to do a side-by-side test, it’s worth the consultation fee, it’s really helpful and eye-opening.

My last thought is that even though these are at a high price point, what you’re paying for is the size and delicacy, and for the custom molds, they are a compromise. IEMs will never and should never be used for mixing in a studio environment, unless they are one of your alternative references, like your car or your laptop. The compromise you have to make to fit that much technology into such a small space will never be what good studio monitoring or good open-back mixing headphones can give you, so please don’t get tempted by claims that IEMs can be reliable reference monitors.

Inside the DAW - Great Plugins for Strings

Great Plugins for String Production

Now that I’ve been a full-time arranger producer in Hollywood for several years, I feel like I have enough experience and knowledge under my belt to make some recommendations, I’ve been wanting to write this post for a while, but I wanted to be sure of my advice. I am achieving consistent results that I vibe with, so I feel good about sharing this now. This will likely change as I grow, but this is what it is now.

Working as a producer and cellist in LA is so fun, I get to work on all kinds of music! I get to play on modern orchestral-hybrid scores with colleagues at companies like Remote Control and Bleeding Fingers, playing for Planet Earth and video game scores like Assassin’s Creed/Brawlhalla and League of Legends. I also get to compose, write, and produce with EDM/pop producers who come from a purely production world, playing with pop acts like Olivia Rodrigo, Jax, Ava Max, R&B acts like Brent Faiyaz, I recently aided a pre-record with Brent for our slot on the Tonight Show. I joyfully pick the brains of the people in these fields, and I feel so blessed that my work gets to transcend so many creative boundaries. I really fucking love my job. Bruh.

So the advice presented here is both from my own work, and from the templates and workflows of other non-string player producers. There are other incredible arranger-producers in the string world who I know and love, like Stevie Black, Chris Woods, Tina Guo, Connor Vance, Jonas Petersen, a lot of these people aren’t household names but their work is incredible and I’m proud to call them friends. We all use very different methods to create our art and none of them are wrong!!! So I have to start by encouranging anyone interested in learning string production that the best way to learn is to just explore, keeping in mind the sound you want to create. As long as you have a good idea of what you want the world to hear, you’re ready to start experimenting!

With that in mind, these are the strings-specific plugins I use for my own template as of January 2023.

General Housekeeping

Before we get into the details, there are a few items of business to cover first that are vital context.

Production mindset over performer’s mindset

Achieve the sound by any means necessary

One thing I’ve noticed over the years while working in production is that the people on the receiving end of the masters aren’t in the room with you when you’re working, so that means they don’t care how you achieve something - the only thing that matters are consistency (for you) and impressive results when you play the music back through monitors… so. many. different. monitors. XD

This is a really important mindset to have, it means you have to be okay with using autotune, compression, carved out EQ, quantization, verb, etc. Production will show you just how human you are, don’t fight it. That perfectionist mindset is important for live performances where the listener is taking in 360 degrees of space and doesn’t have a grid in the form of timecode and frequency analyzers, but it is not appropriate for music production. One must consider psychoacoustics and what it means to change sound into signal and approximate acoustics with a limited number of output sources, usually 2 for stereo, and 5.1 or 9.1. (“360” sound is never truly 360). You’ve got to squeeze brass, low strings, percussion, low woodwinds, and the entire ensemble’s room sound through one sound source, things HAVE to be more refined and carved out.

The more fun side of this is that you can also make sounds by any means necessary. Just get it into the mic. Not usually a guitar player? You can be now. Fuck with tape, fuck with granular snthesis. The possibilities are literally endless. Embrace this novelty, achieve the best sound by any means necessary.

ISSUES in STRING ENSEMBLE RECORDING

The most common issues string producers face in production, in no particular order, are harshness, Intonation, residual resonances, phasing, low-mid build-up, and high end processing resulting in artifacts. Therefore, the template is constructed to address these issues. These issues can be combated with EQ, FX plugins, panning, and smart routing, with the caveat that heavy-handed processing can destroy the high end. I find that when you aim for very transparent effects, separate mic positions, and use FX as parallel busses, you can keep things really clear, clean, and smooth.

Context - My Modern Strings Template

Main window in Logic Pro X when I open a blank template.

Before I get into the details about specific plugins, it’s important to know where in my routing a lot of these plugins work.

My current template is in Logic Pro X 10.5.1 on my desktop Mac and 10.7 on my M1 MacBook Pro.

It has a total of 40 functional busses in the mixing window, and on the main window, 34 tracks. The first track is a slot for me to drop any audio files from clients and has no input source and no plugins.

The second track is a software instrument track with a yummy piano VST and decadent, emo verb so that I can sketch ideas and analyze chords and FEEL THE MOOOOOOD.

Tracks 3 and 4 are audio tracks where I can record any solo instruments, track 3 is for hi strings and 4 is for lo strings. These are routed to their own reverb.

Tracks 5 thru 9 are tracks I use to record string sections, Violins 1, 2, Violas, Cellos, Basses. These are routed all to live string outputs which are later routed with the VST section busses into master string outs, Violins, Violas, Cellos, Basses.

Tracks 10 through 32 are string VSTs I use to support the live recordings, I find this is essential in order to mimic a true room e.g. a “realistic” orchestral sound. (An alternative to this method of layering live and VST I know is to use only live takes, placed in Altiverb’s virtual IR space, which has really reliable IRs for halls around the world.) With the mindset of achieving the best sound by any means necessary, I have to say, I prefer the variety of instruments that good VSTs use in their sampling process and it can mask redundant overtones from tracking the same live instruments over and over, even if you have an incredible reverb and you are mindful of mic placement variation. At some point I’ll get Altiverb and use both, just haven’t spent the 700 fucking dollars for a virtual reverb. orfounditreliablycrackedamiwrongtho

The part of the mixing playground I spend most of my days, chillin out, maxing, relaxing all cool.

Visible in the mixing window are the mic positions for these VSTs. I separate the mic positions this way because the high end sounds much clearer to me through my monitors, and it gives me an opportunity to treat the individual positions differently (e.g. harshness of decca tree). I know orchestral composers who don’t do this and their music still sounds fantastic and they make up for it in super reductive EQ). It’s just something that is right for me, I like to preserve the high end if possible.

At the end of my template, I have some tools for light hybrid-orchestral production, some synth support from synths that are designed to blend with live strings. I also have an instance of Nicky Romero’s kickstart side-chained to my master string output so I can audition quickly how it would sound if I’m working with an EDM or pop producer who is likely to duck my strings under a kick, or vocals. More on this later.

A nOTE ABOUT setting up a teMplate, LATENCY & Recording

If you are going to create a template with heavy processing, remember to set project preferences and global settings before saving. For me as a Logic user, this looks like enabling MIDI chase, changing the Sample Rate to 48khz, changing the default buffer size to 1024, and also enabling Low Latency Recording, which will automatically flip to a lower buffer size and bypass any heavy plugins so your audio will track right in the pocket. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT IF YOU RELY ON LIVE RECORDING.

One last thought before I begin: my template will likely crash a laptop, so I can make some CPU-efficient alternative recommendations through this post. XD

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It is time.

Specific Plugin Recommendations

Soothe 2

Soothe 2 is a game-changer for harshness on individual tracks and busses.

How I use it:

I use Soothe 2 in a few places. I use it on Decca tree mic positions for the VSTs. The preset Orchestral>Violin Warmer is a great place to start. I typically widen the node’s frequency band and back off a little on the depth. I also use it on the live string section busses, reducing harshness in the violins and violas, and containing low-mids on the low strings (this could be done just as well with Gullfoss). I will sometimes set up an instance of Soothe 2 on individual tracks if they need it.

GULLFOSS MASTER

Gullfoss is essential for a clear and balanced master.

In the same realm of dynamic harshness reduction, Gullfoss is also an essential game-changer, especially for those arrangers who are producing from home and don’t have fancy ass hardware. It is SO worth the price.

When to use Gullfoss:

Gullfoss is the first plugin on my mastering chain, it will broadly reduce harshness and over-pronounced frequencies, and it will recover frequencies that are difficult to hear. Gullfoss makes “approximately 1000 auditory perception model updates per second and approximately 300 equalizer updates per second”. All without any artifacts.

Fabfilter Pro-C & Pro-MB

I rarely, if ever, use compression on strings before the mastering stage, but every once in a while, I find that I have to use compression within the mixing stage to trouble shoot something in the mix. If I do, I ALWAYS compress strings parallel, and I never send more than like 15% of the signal through it, unless I’m trying to mimic rap vocals (which happens once in a blue moon with live performances), then I might send more signal there.

When to use downwards compression:

You’d use very subtle parallel downwards compression if you want to make the strings a little more audible, and/or emphasize or shape articulations, both in section mixing and also on solo live instrument tracks.

For downwards compression on solo lines, esp like. pop cover scenario, I like to use the Spoken Word Squeeze preset in the Fabfilter Pro-C plugin, and tweak from there.

When to use upwards compression:

I would use upwards compression for a solo live instrument when I’m happy with the actual output volume of the track itself, but I want it to cut through a thiccer section of strings, or a loud track, but I don’t want to loose sexiness and delicacy. Downwards compression can turn a beautiful daisy into a laminated duct tape rose, we don’t want that in string playing. Upwards compression helps bring out the sound without compromising beautiful detail.

For upwards compression, l like to use the two-band dynamic upwards compression preset in the Sound Mangling category and reduce the range on both bands. This is a really good preset for cello, that low omni band and the mid and upper bands are placed perfectly and really do operate independently. This is a perfect plugin for bringing out solo lines!

I might also use this for section buses - this brings up quiet details and when used on section it can bring out a bunch of hidden warmth.

JJP - Jack Joseph Puig - Strings & Keys

This is one of the plugins I purchased after picking the brains of some of my non-string playing EDM producer friends. This is a very affordable Waves plugin, like $25 or something like that.

As a string player, I am a little wary of this plugin because it really slams the highs and can make them sound a little artifact-y, it also totally changes the imaging from an orchestral imaging mindset to a pop producer mindset, where you frequency band blankets, I guess you could call them, have to be managed, rather than thinking of a musician in a big acoustic space.

When to use JJP:

I use JJP as a parallel compressor of sorts, on individual instruments in a small ensemble pop setting, e.g., recreating the Beatles, or you could think of the strings on Ariana Grande’s Positions album. It will bring the strings to the FRUNT of your mix and make them pop pop.

I have JJP set up but turned off on the master string section buses in my template. Every so often I’ll try them out at the end of the mixing stage and every once in a while, they do contribute some kind of sparkle that is really nice. Very often this is in a pop-orchestral hybrid setting, where the imaging is a traditional left-to right vibe, but I like the pop of pop strings.

INTONATION: AUTOTUNE PRO & COMPING

Tuning your strings is essential, and it’s a good idea to learn how to tune your strings yourself, because other producers mostly likely won’t be as precious with our audio. They might understand that your instrument is a linear, melodic voice most of the time, and they might expect tuning software to work like it does on vocals.

However, tuning plugins can get really wonky with strings, since our instruments have so much residual reverberation mixing in the body of our instruments, so if we have one note played out of tune, followed by a note played in tune, in some cases the out-of-tune residual noise can last the entire length of the in-tune note, so the tuning may have difficulty detecting pitch, or may detect and tune the stronger of the two pitches, bending the other. Autotune is by far the most natural sounding tuning plugin for strings and somehow I don’t hear this phenomenon happening as much with autotune. Whatever their algorithm is, it’s fucking gorgeous. In addition, the onboard tuning tools that DAWs usually provide and competing plugins sometimes alter the whole signal. Somehow Autotune manages to be really transparent while just fixing pitch.

How to use autotune:

If the performance is already very close, e.g. consistently within 20c of center, I’ll use autotune in the auto setting, with a retune speed on the slower side, maybe around 80. The slow retune speed is critical for string playing, to give the instrument a time to settle into the new pitch. The retune speed is much faster for flat keys, like Ab, Db, Gb, etc. It is much longer for keys like C, G, D, where the instruments have open strings on prominent tonal centers within the key.

For upper strings, I add just a teeny bit of flex-tune and humanize, values under 10. I use autotune on every single individual audio track. I do know producer-engineers who tune section buses.

If something is really out of tune and I otherwise really love the expression of a take, OR if the line is an exposed solo line and the auto mode isn’t cutting it, OR there is really long portamento, I might switch to graph mode and draw them in. Graph mode is THE most signal-preserving version of autotune. IMO it’s basically transparent in the sense that it doesn’t add artifacts.

When to quit and comp:

Sometimes, there are so many resonances that autotune is just wonky. Some things you could try if you want to save CPU are just putting whatever couple notes are wonky onto a separate track and using the graph function there, or just re-recording and comping the new take over the rest of the passage.

REVERBS & REVERB BASICS

Reverbs are a strings best friend. And I’m still not happy with my reverb chain, but I’ll talk about it anyway because it’s important.

My reverb chain usually consists of three steps:

1. Linear EQ - I cut all low frequencies below 100Hz with a gradual shelf up to 500Hz, I also reduce frequencies on a gradual shelf from 2-20k and cut anything over 11k.

2. “Room” reverb - This is the heart of the verb and represents the “space” the ensemble is in, and is usually higher in the mix, like 75-100%, I usually set the input levels from source buses and the mix of the following reverb tail based off this sound. I’m looking for something short, usually under a second for a smaller ensemble and under 2 seconds for a big orchestra. I’m looking for something warm in the mids but something that will let the higher mids and highs through. For me, this is usually some kind of Lexicon verb, but sometimes I’ll use Fabfilter Pro-R, the small or medium spaces, like Warm Vintage preset is a good place to start. Right now my room verb is Lexicon Random Hall, Small RHall 1 Dark, tweaked a bit to taste. I fucking love that the early and late can be EQed separately. I tend to roll off the highs a bit on the early signal.

3. Reverb tail - This verb is usually longer and a little less present in the bus mix, it’s a really important polish but shouldn’t be noticeable, this is also where I want to notice the smoothing of the high end. I fucking hate this part lol. It’s like a snare, I never noticed how much I fucking hate all snares until I started production. Same with long reverbs. They’re so difficult to master and once you get it, you’re kind of not sure it’s right BECAUSE it’s not noticeable. Ugh. Never happy with this. Really not a fan of Fabfilter as a tail. Be wary of their concert hall IRs. This could be a Valhalla shimmer, supermassive, vintage verb, this could be Altiverb. Currently in my template is is a Valhalla Supermassive, Gemini, 30% mix. But it often changes every project. I’m never happy lol.

Optional - Additional reverbs - On a separate bus, sometimes I have an additional long verb for the solo instruments, or I’ll put a verb on the actual instrument bus if I’m REALLY feeling myself that day.

STRING VSTs

If you’re really at the level where you want to create a full orchestra sound, I highly recommend investing in some good strings libraries.

Cinematic Studio Series, both Cinematic Studio Strings and Cinematic Studio Solo Strings, once learned, are absolutely, hands down, the most accurate representation of live strings there is. 100%. That said, getting there is a lot of work and takes a lot of hours to learn. Out of the box, Spitfire Symphonic and Chamber Strings might be more accurate. These are also great libraries, especially for their room, but the details and transients give them away as VSTs.

CSS must be automated in order to achieve realism. It is so reliant on automation, in fact, that they’ve eliminated the velocity parameter as the standard for determining overall MIDI intensity, and I know a ton of orchestral composers these days who don’t even use keyboard MIDI controllers to play in lines anymore. In the CSS world of Advanced Legato, velocity is a parameter that controls performance of shifting, of those complex acoustic moments in string playing where an entire room of musicians is playing one note crossing into another, and all of the instrument bodies are having that reverberatory phenomenon, and therefore the sound mixing in the room is enormously complex…… and CSS GOT that in the can, which is why Advanced Legato is so fucking realistic. The only bummer is that it’s difficult to perform it through a MIDI controller. I find myself pencilling it in because I am already going to pencil in MIDI CCs 1 and 11, and 2, 16 (and 58 if my project is overloaded) anyway.

Some honorable mentions: Spitfire Albion, Spitfire Olafur Arnalds Evolutions, Arcade by Output - they have some string samples to play with. These are all fun tools.

Don’t waste your time on any other strings patches. Their use will be extremely limited and unconvincing.

Why do all of that work and go through all of that trouble with CSS?

Again: “get the best sound by any means necessary”.

It feels SO amazing to sit and listen to your finished project. You’ve listened and intuited the clients track, you’ve tapped into that source of creativity in the comfort of your own living room, not seeing another human soul. You, a single human being, have to replicate the majesty of an entire room of people whose collective training probably adds up to a millenium of expertise, and you have to do it without walking out of your front door. Although I take for granted that I can do that now, the thought is, at its core, pretty intimidating.

When I’m recording and producing strings, I often think about the Barbara Streisand Scoring Stage at Sony Pictures. It was my very first orchestral session, I was recording for League of Legends and it was my first big gig. I also think of that space because I was there for Cine Samples Tina Guo solo cello library, and while hanging out with the Cinesamples team, I was able to hear Tina playing for nearly 8 hours straight (she’s a fucking beast of a cellist). So the sound of that space is imprinted in my mind both for ensemble playing and for solo cello.

To think I can approximate that in another space all on my own is like so fucking dope and humbling. I really do love my job, and I hope that by writing this little thing, I can make that possible for other string producers. The world is changing, and it is giving individual people incredible abilities. Thanks to these plugins, little old me can become an entire orchestra, and so I’m giving a genuine thanks to all of the sexy nerds who make this happen. My number is 555-…… :)

Good luck and drop me a line if you have any questions!

JJP Strings - Waves Plugin Discount

Hey all, use my code to get 10% off any Waves plugins. I use JJP for strings and piano!

https://www.waves.com/r/2olza3

Cello Recording & Production: Goals for Tone and Microphone Recommendations

This post is continually updated as Michelle tries new hardware and recording techniques and is up to date as of January 1, 2024.

Screenshot from a recent session

Cellists and producers rarely agree on what makes cello recording & production sound good. As someone who has a formal education in both cello performance and production, along with recordings and placements with major labels, this is my best attempt to convey what doing both well has taught me.

Producers, and cellists, it’s time for us to find some great mics that we can agree on!

Cellists, I KNOW your pain, before I got seriously into production, I wasn’t a huge fan of the way producers made my cello sound, especially the ones who didn’t have the same hyper-nuanced training of string tonality. In fact, I still hate what other producers do to it.

Producers, after getting a formal production degree and working as an arranger-producer myself for the last few years, now I know YOUR pain; the cello is one of the more difficult instruments to mix well and often doesn’t get the priority in a mix when there are other crucial instruments to consider.

So let’s begin this exploration from the understanding that the cello is one of the most beautiful tonal instruments in the world, but the limitations of psychoacoustics— having to recreate that tone to the same two ears with only a stereo output instead of 360-degrees of live space, presents an enormous, maybe impossible, challenge.

Let’s start at the place we are all gathered together: the recording studio. The most important steps in the recording process for getting the right sound from a cello is in the original tracking: the mic and mic placement in a good room with proper gain staging will get you 95% of the way there. If you have great preamps, great signal quality, even better, but the mic and the placement are so key. The relationship between mic and distance are one of the main things that determines a mic’s viability for cello; proximity effect issues can render mics which are usually great mics unusable on cello. Many of the mics I see recommended fall into this category for both of my cellos, disclaimer that no two cellos sound precisely the same.

CONSIDERATIONS FOR USING A GENERAL WORKHORSE ON CELLO

So first of all, and most importantly, cellists, please be very aware that when you ask producer friends for mic recommendations, they may be making two assumptions:

1. They will assume you are looking for entry-level recording gear since you are “new” to the production world. If you are a professional and want to get professional results, you should be looking to spend at least $800 on a mic. Anything less, lower-level mics are actually okay for production work like vocals, acoustic guitar, light percussion, but they can’t handle the tonal detail of stringed instruments.

2. Producers are generalists. They will be thinking in terms of versatility. Producers are NOT specialists like string players, and they rarely work with instruments that are both delicate AND powerful. Their recommendations will be good mics of general purposes. Just like us, we need nuanced, specialized equipment.

I’d like to start off by saying that people often liken the cello to the human voice… that sounds all mystical, but it is NOT a good frame of reference for recording techniques. This is really important, because many of the general mid-budget workhorse mics that producers use in the studio for strings are mics that were really designed to accommodate vocals. Some differences that I can think of right off the bat: The voice has a focused source of sound, the cello does not. It’s so diffused (check out this study for specific data), that every cello’s sweet spot is in a different place, every mic pics up just a small portion of that, and needs to be listened for before every session.

Another difference: the pressure throughout the spectrum is distributed very differently. Especially in the lower range (<300Hz), the cello is so much more powerful than a voice. So much so that to record the cello, at what would be an optimal mic distance otherwise produces terrible proximity effect and, in my mind, renders a mic unusable. Remember that no amount of gain staging is going to stop a diaphragm from vibrating too much under the pressure from a low string instrument, and where pulling back the mic might work for vocals, some mics suffer so much with cellos that by the time you’ve pulled the mic back enough to alleviate proximity issue, you’ve lost the sweet sparkle of the high end and the body of the mids. This is especially true if you don’t have intelligent software like Gulfoss or Soothe 2 in your plugin collection yet that can correct for this tonal blahness of weird mic distances. Unfortunately, I have this problem with many directional large-diaphragm condensers. Mics that I was about to drop some serious cash for and really loved just didn’t cut it for either of my cellos and I’m glad I tested them out.

Before we get to my thoughts on specific mics, I think it’s time for some much needed heart-to-heart. Producers, the cellists would like to express themselves first.

Dear producers,

Cellists want you to know that the TOP consideration for them during the entirety of their cellistic studies (after intonation, which is eternally aspirational) has been PERFECT TONE. We EQ our tone via bow placement and pressure and we’re ALWAYS monitoring our EQ, so to speak. In those moments where you’re getting your project together, you know you’re going to worry about the mix later. There are many hours of work you put in where you compartmentalize your focus away from tonal balance, until the mixing stage, and some of you even hire separate mixing engineers (side note: it’s sad that this is a dying art, there should always be specialists for this). String players never compartmentalize that attention to tone. Any string player will be able to tell you what’s wrong with the tonality, so please listen to them. We might not be able to speak in frequency bands and use adjectives instead, but it is worth the effort to try to have a dialogue.

Listen, I get it, I know you have your favorite mic, and I know that ultimately the composition and mix will be yours, which are essential for you. Just consider that part of the reason people pay such a high price for string players is because string instruments are damn hard to play precisely because they require a hyper-acute attention to tonal detail. If you throw off the tone with the wrong mic or bad placement, you’ve lost the entire reason for hiring a professional string player, it sucks to waste your money and waste the player’s time. Know thyself; tonal nuance, unless you’re Dennis Sands, ain’t your thing.

We concede that cellists on their own don’t have the experience you do for understanding how that tone is filtering through the signal chain and the monitors (especially tracking monitors, which aren’t necessarily built for refined tonal balance). All we ask is to consider our perspective and to trust and use our ears to your advantage!

Love, Cellists.

Okay, producers, your turn, go ahead…

Dear cellists,

Sometimes achieving the perfect tone isn’t possible, so if a producer is trying his/her/their best, be clear about your thoughts, but try to understand that there are some issues (particularly room resonances) that come built-in to the recording space, and even with proper treatment, can still persist, especially because of how the low frequencies of your cello propagates in the space. Often times, it’s like a perfect storm of low resonance. (This goes both ways; be kind to yourself if you can’t seem to make things sound perfect in your space. I’ll write my recs soon for room treatment.)

Another thing to consider is that, depending on the track the producer needs you for, they might not be able to include the full spectrum in the recording, but a good producer will do it in away that your full spectrum is IMPLIED, and the effect of this is quite stunning. Your lower frequencies clash with electric basses, they clash with vocals, they clash with other strings, trombones, low woodwinds, and have pretty much the same exact frequency range as guitars, so when it’s time to carve out space, every instrument has to compromise. It is the mark of a great producer if they can start to shape this sound right from the session, which can mean you might sound thin. Try to delay your dismay until you hear the final mix, we love you and want you to sound good too!

Another thing that really helps us producer friends out is on those home-recorded sessions, please don’t record in a room with reflections, at any frequency. You’ve been told a lie by armchair acousticians (read: people who are amused when they are in echoey spaces, which, let’s face it, that is all of us at some point) that reflections are good for sound. I know recording in a dry room might feel super vulnerable and exposed, but remember that a clean, dry sound gives the producer so much more control over how your instrument is going to fit in with the others in the mix and will ultimately make you sound better in the end.

Love, Producers

TRY IT BEFORE YOU BUY IT!!!

Okay, now that we all feel acknowledged and fuzzy, it’s time for me to admit that this is really the end of the practical advice in this blog post. The rest is all opinion based on my cellos and the opinion of some of my cellist colleagues, which brings me to this: THE MOST IMPORTANT PIECE OF ADVICE I CAN GIVE YOU IS THAT YOU MUST TEST OUT MICS BEFORE YOU BUY THEM. (Read it again, people in the back).

Just to clarify: not watching other people test mics, not examining frequency plots and reading articles like this one, but actually sitting down in front of a mic and tracking something you can keep and listen to later.

Where can I go to test mics?

My analytics report that most of my visitors are from LA, so if you’re in and around socal, Vintage King is a great place to start. They have a couple locations. There are some locations in other parts of the US as well, I think Nashville as well. They have impeccable customer service and will let you bring your axe in. Outside of the US, I’m not sure, but ask your colleagues or good ole Goog. I just gave them a call to ask about their trial policy and unfortunately they aren’t allowing testing during Covid.

How else can I test mics?

Ask your colleagues if you can come over and test their gear, work out a trade, a free session for a mic test, bring some snacks. They’ll probably have to help you track anyway and save your files, so this is a totally fair trade.

Any practical tips for mic testing?

• Play both a mix of repertoire you know and just improvising. The stuff you know will put you into that playing mindset where your attention will be on your playing and not the mic, but it is good to have that element of consistency you can listen back for.

• For at least part of it, just improvise, don’t worry about making coherent music, and really focus on the sound you’re hearing, how it changes when you move. I look like a -crazy person- when I test mics. I move around a lot!

• Move around! Start close and purposely trigger the proximity effect and see what the sound is like as you back off. If it’s good, try to see how far away you can go and still get a great sound. Sometimes it just isn’t possible, and if that’s the case, don’t blame yourself or spend any extra time trying. On to the next.

• You can play at extreme volumes, etc.

• Go through the whole chromatic range.

• Try plucking and different bowing techniques (you’d be surprised how different mics treat the different bowing articulations).

• Always use the same headphones.

• Always wait a few days and listen back, preferably blind. It’ll help you to reject or confirm any biases you may have.

Microphone Recommendations

Now I’ll talk about the best and worst of the mics I’ve tested. Before I proceed, I just want to point out that underpinning this whole review is the notion that recording cello with an omni polar pattern isn’t recommended. I wouldn’t do it and you probably shouldn’t either. Unless the client asks for it specifically, you should record cello in mono with a cardioid polar pattern. I will have a separate post at some point about cases where you would want to record in stereo or use alternative polar patterns, and how to do that.

Commonly recommended mics that didn’t work for me

AKG 414

AKG 414/414 XLS (any generation, any capsule). Why? Keep in mind this is subjective, but I think that 5-6k kHz emphasis isn’t flattering, and the way it’s emphasized isn’t flattering. One of my cellist friends said it best: “I don’t like the way it pronounces the higher range”.

Those jeans make us look fat, honey. This band on my cello is particularly harsh, this isn’t a refined high cut that I’ve heard with Microtech Gefell mics. Another thought is that it isn’t an ideal frequency to highlight for orchestral mixes (even non-classical orchestral). Load any orchestral or hybrid track into your Tonal Balance Control and you’ll likely see a dip at 6k, so it makes me wonder if there is something to that. Anyway, aside from numbers and all that, as a cellist, it just really doesn’t sound good to my ears. Even with the high pass enabled to flatten it out, it sounds so harsh. Other cellists I’ve talked to tend to agree. 

Is there a good alternative? I really love the Peluso P-414 by Peluso Labs.
If I had the budget to buy any mics in the world, these would be a staple in my collection. The tone is incredible, there’s nothing to worry about in terms of proximity, and the tonal excellence holds up even at several FEET of distance. It has the same polar pattern flexibility that the AKG 414s have. A really wonderful job by John Peluso. 

Peluso P414

Recording Hacks says, “John Peluso learned microphone design from Verner Ruvalds, a Latvian physicist who had worked for Georg Neumann during World War II”. Microtech Gefell, a brand I swear by, is also Neumann-adjacent. “The origins of Microtech Gefell are intertwined with the legacy of Georg Neumann and the invention of the first condenser microphone. Microtech Gefell grew out of the original Neumann factory that relocated to Gefell in 1943 during World War II”.

I think the takeaway from all of this is that the real silver lining of WWII is that now have a ton of great microphones….

It is joke. :3

Neumann u87ai

Neumann U87/U87 ai
It breaks my heart to say this because I really love this mic. The proximity effect just kills it. Get far enough away to alleviate proximity and the tonal balance just ain’t it. I hope this works okay for other cellists though. Like I said, test it out!

Is there an alternative for Neumann lovers? The Neumann TLM 103. This is my current main mic. This is a mic recommendation producers will feel “meh” about and that’s because (it bears so much repeating) it isn’t as versatile, it only offers one polar pattern. But we don’t need versatility, we need it to do one job, very well. Just like us, this mic is a specialist, and the polar pattern is really great for cello, it is wide enough to capture a lot of surface area and tonal info coming from the cello. This mic will pick up room noise because it isn’t super cardioid, though, so don’t get this if you’re in a space that has ambient noise. I have a good recommendation for those of you who live in noisy places, see the Microtech Gefell 300M below.

Shure SM7b

Shure SM7B
Okay, so this is actually a really great mic for the price, it’s used mostly as a podcast/vocal mic, but works alright for cello, my only problem with it is that the signal strength is really soft, too soft for my taste. Cello is such a wonderfully dynamic instrument. One of the few that can play quietly in nearly every part of the practical range, so we really need strong signal strength for those quiet moments to sound full and engaging.

Blue Baby Bottle

Any alternatives? A good tonal match to the Shure SM7B, which I remember as being pretty buttery and mellow, in the same price range is the Blue Microphone’s Baby Bottle. I have heard recommendations for the Bluebird as well, but since I haven’t tried that one, I don’t want to fully get behind it. Blue mics are so great for solo recordings, and if you play into a blue with a plucked chord-melody type thing, you have to do very little editing. They don’t deliver the cleanest signal compared to the high priced counterparts, and this is a mic that cellists will love and producers might not because of the warmth and mellowness. But if you’re looking for affordable and mellow, Blue is great. 

Rode NT1/NT1A

This is a poster child for the stereotype I was talking about before, a perfect example of a mic recommendation from producers thinking you need something cheap and versatile. For cello, the midrange of the NT1A is distorted and boxy, it doesn’t have the detail needed for good string recording.

AKG P220
If you really need something in this price range, the AKG P220 is actually pretty good, comparable in tone, no proximity issues at the distance where tonal balance happens, and does give you multiple polar patterns. I would not recommend this mic for long-term work, but it’s not the worst. This was one of my main mics when I was studying production at Berklee. It did the job.

Small-diaphragm condensers that work for high strings like the KM184 or KSM137, Rode NT-5, etc.
Strings are not created equal! These small-diaphragm mics sound great and sparkly on high strings, but they can make cellos sound tinny.

Any alternatives? My main mics for a long time were the Microtech Gefell M300s. These are medium diaphragm mics, they are very detailed. I wasn’t a huge fan of how they pronounced the harshness around 2k Hz, but it was easy enough to EQ out and still preserve high-end detail. If you also record acoustic basses, they sound great on these as well, great bass response down to 20Hz and no proximity problems. One really great thing about these is they are very cardioid, so they eliminate a lot of room noise. These mics are really great option for people who work in places with a high-ish noise floor, like city apartments, or busy streets. Obviously within reason.

ANY USB MIC.
USB mics were built for internet based communication, namely “video voiceovers; podcasts; internet radio; skype and other forms of chat; hypnotherapy tapes; conferences; interviews and so on”. You cannot in good conscience deliver work with professional prices via USB mic. Why? All the technology you have to squeeze into that small space sacrifices a ton of signal quality, a quality that is necessary to properly capture the complexity of the cello.

USB mics… -not- for us :P

Any alternatives?

Having an audio interface is essential. If you’re hoping the USB mic will make up for the interface because you’re scared of the price-tag, I totally get it.

There are some great audio interfaces for under $100 brand new, and probably under $80 on OfferUp or Craigslist (I just did a Craigslist search for fun and did find an interface on the Westside of LA for $50). Just make sure the A/D Resolution goes up to 48k kHz at least, better if you can get to 96k kHz. Some only do 44.1 and that won’t match professional audio resolution. The PreSonus AudioBox USB 96 goes all the way up to 96k kHz.

Audient portable interface with excellent preamps!

If you have a little more money to spend, The Audient and Focusrite smaller interfaces are both excellent. I’ve used them both for professional projects with great results. I have heard good things about the new smaller Solid State Logic interfaces, although I have not used them.

Warm Audio recreations of other Mics, WA 87, WA 47, WA 414, etc
I’ve tried many of them, most extensively the WA 47 jrs. I own a matched pair. I recorded a sample library with a full mic spread and one of them was the WA 87 (which I dubbed “The Burrito”- just Google it). This isn’t a hard avoid, I know some engineers who can make these sound great, and maybe there is some magic sauce I’m missing, but I just think there are better alternatives if you’re looking for great classic mic copies.

Any alternatives? Peluso Labs is a company that does this same sort of thing, and the signal quality is really great, the noise is low. If you want to get a high end mic but save some money, Peluso is the way to go. 

Telefunken Large diaphragm directional condensers 
Every producer I know is feeling personally attacked right now. The Telefunkens have the same problem as the U87, the proximity problems overlap those tonal sweet spots. When I go into sessions with these, I’m never really happy with the resulting tone. A lot of producers here in LA use these as their all-around mics since they do make great general workhorses. I really think producers should have more than one mic, the Telefunkens aren’t bad mics, but they aren’t great for low strings. My impression is that there is some sort of balance between low-mids and corresponding highs that I don’t know the words for, but they fall into a category of tone that cellists avoid.

Any alternatives?

The Mojave 301 FET is in a similar price point to a lot fo the Telefunken mics and is better for both of my cellos. The Neumann TLM 103 is a great alternative as well and will deliver a much more even sound. 

Clip-on Mics like the DPA 4099
My producer friends out there will scratch their head at this one, but if you search Google for studio mic recommendations for cello, DPAs come up, so it is critical that we talk about these.

The best application for a DPA is a live performance scenario where the musicians are part of a section. Clip on mics, of which the DPA 4099 is the best option for cello, don’t pick up a lot of sound, the the small cross-section of sound they do pick up isn’t the ideal tonal balance because they have to clip on and fit into awkward areas of the cello, like underneath the bridge or fingerboard, lest they get in the way of the bow and the movement of the player, which is often less calculated in a live performance. The capsules and diaphragms are tiny and just not ideal for getting depth in the lows. The tech behind it is super interesting, check out the DPA website. But yeah, not for the studio.

My Favorite Mics in Every Price Range

$100

If your cello is dark to standard, tonally-speaking, a Shure SM57 is a surprisingly wonderful and super duper affordable mic. For the price, this is hard to beat. The signal is very soft, though, so turn your gain up for this mic.

If your cello is brighter or even strident sometimes, you could try the Shure 565SD. Same super low price and a slightly darker sound. (Fun fact: it was Freddie Mercury’s mic of choice for live performance… so there’s that.) These mics will not pick up as much detail as the mics in the upper price ranges, but in my experience, as long as you’re transparent about your mic, I’d say you could count these as professional.

$100 to $500

Golden Age R1

Golden Age Project’s R1 Tube Ribbon mic - Honestly, it does the damn job. It’s kind of unremarkable, but it also doesn’t have any of the problems you have with diaphragmatic mics. It’s warm, mellow, and dependable. It comes with it’s own power supply so it’s harder to break. Size-wise, it’s super cumbersome, so don’t plan on taking this with you while touring (once touring returns).

If you want something portable, the AKG P420 or P220 (both under $200) are alright, the tonal balance isn’t as refined. They work and I’d say they’re better in comparison to the Blue mics I recommended before. These are right on that border of what I’d consider professional vs. amateur. Probably acceptable for section or buried-in-the-mix playing.

Blue mics are great in this price range if you do a lot of like Erik Friedlander pizzicato chord melody stuff. (One of my Berklee friends plays often in this style and also uses a Blue mic and it’s quite stunning.) The Baby Bottle was my very first mic.

$500 - $1000

Mojave 301 FET

My favorite mics in this price range are the Mojave 201 and 301 FETs (the only difference is that the 301 has more polar patterns, I believe). This is my third fave right behind the TLM 103, just because I was impressed with how affordable it was for the quality. This mic really has everything you could want in a mic and I think of the mics on this recommendation list this is the one where things really start to be full-bodied professional mics. They have a strong, wonderful, full sound without proximity issues. Highly recommend these guys and I know a couple producers who swear by this for cello.

My other rec in this price range is the Microtech Gefell m300. It is a medium diaphragm but still has wonderful resolution and bass response. These are typically bought as a stereo pair for more than $1000, but if you just buy one (that’s all you need for cello - cello should be recorded in mono unless you’re recording an unaccompanied performance)… as I was about to say, one M300 alone is around $800. 

From here on out, my recs will be Neumann and Microtech Gefell. Their quality is simply unmatched for low strings. They were made for each other, I think. (No really, like it seems like they were made for cellos and basses in an orchestral setting). Many of the London recording studios use the following mics for their sessions, with good reason. 

$1000 - $2999

TLM 49

Neumann TLM 103 & TLM 49
These two tie for my favorite mic in this price range. Unlike the more transparent quality of the Microtech mics I’m about to recommend, they both have a definitive color, and that color is like mama’s Mac n cheese from some summer day in ’85, you at the kitchen table with dirt on your knees and that hockey jersey and your little banana bike laying on the front porch. Not born before 85? …well you are when you listen to shit recorded with the TLM 49. It’s warm, it’s comfort food, it’s heart-felt, these mics have empathy. There’s no other way to say it, they have soul. It’ll feed you pot roast after church that it started simmering on a Saturday night because it doesn’t like to work on Sundays. (Sorry, it’s getting late and I’m hungry.) The TLM 103 is a specialist, with only one polar pattern and a clean, flat quality. It delivers really reliable, detailed signal that can be transformed and mangled without losing clarity.

Microtech Gefell UMT 70 S
Another great mic that I’ve used in some session work, but never owned, so I’m not going to be able to give it a full seal of approval, but from what I remember, it has that distinct MG transparence and clarity. Unlike the harshness of the AKG 414, it takes the trash 6k+ harmonics on the cello and spits it back out as velvet.

Microtech Gefell UM930Ts
Of the Gefell mics I have tested in this price range, the M930Ts is by far my favorite. This mic has a transformer built into the body of the mic, and it has inCREdible, powerful and sensitive tone. In the words of my engineer friend who let me borrow this one for testing, “It has balls.” (His words not mine). Most of the Gefell mics have a delicate transparency but this one packs a punch and pronouces cello with beauty and power.

$3000 - $4999

Microtech Gefell UM 92.1S

Microtech Gefell UM 92.1S (or M 92.1 S)
This is it friends, this is my favorite mic of all time. (The difference between the two models is that the M 92.1 only has one polar pattern where the UM has three.) I’m saving up as we speak. When I went to Vintage King to test mics out, I brought my Sennheiser reference headphones with me, and I couldn’t tell if the signal was coming through, other than a little sparkle in my ears, that’s how incredibly, astoundingly, unbelievably transparent and honest this mic is. For any of you who have played in Carnegie Hall, playing with this mic is a similar experience; it somehow filters out all of the badness, all of the harshness, and somehow still gives you a perfectly honest impression of your sound. It’s like when you’re in that negative self talk loop and your BFF is like, “hey, bro, I know you’re down about this, but think about all of these other awesome things you’ve done.” Yep. This mic is there for a bitch. 

Microteck Gefell UM 900
This mic is one that I have to be honest, I’ve never played on this, but I’ve watched a ton of sessions at air studios and a few other sessions where the sound was stunning, and they were using the UM 900, so I thought I’d recommend them anyway. Not a hard recommendation because, you know, $50k+ preamps and mixing boards, but hey. This is part of the chain. 

$5000 - $10K

Neumann M149

Neumann M149 - The M149 has the same capsule as the U47, which is another good mic for cello, this Neumann has the decadent butter factor without much proximity issues. I think the question here is if the high price point is worth it, and I don’t know really the practical purpose for an individual (vs a recording studio or production company) to own this mic, unless they make enough expendable income and have already treated the space to the best of their ability, invested in great monitoring, etc etc, and have started the transition to really upper-class hardware. At that point, I don’t know if this person is a cellist anymore. But if you can justify this expense, it’s a great mic.

I know I’ve tried others at the higher price point but I don’t remember enough to make any specific recommendations; I also didn’t think any of them were particularly memorable, which probably means something. Also wonder if it’s even worthwhile to recommend anything in this price range for cellists or for producers who record a full range of instruments, you’re going to know what you want for yourself.

MIC LIKES AND DISLIKES FROM OTHER CELLISTS

My colleagues love their:

• Soyuz Bomblet

  “Pretty even and warm sound all around.”

• Rode NT1000

  “I’ve been all around very happy with my Rode NT1000 Condenser”

• AEA R84

  “I’ve been loving the combo of the Neumann TLM 103 and the AEA R84 in M/S. It provides a really warmth, but clear and crisp, tone with a lot of depth and nuance.”

• Se Electronics Se7

  “The Se7’s have also made pretty good SDC mics for general purpose, and they’re mellower (and cheaper) than the NT5’s.”

Here are some mics that my colleagues didn’t like:

• Rode NT1A

  “The midrange of the NT1A just felt distorted and boxy. It’s a great workhorse mic that you can get a bunch of miles with. But it’s not the best, IMO”

• Royer R-10

  “I recently bought the Royer R-10 (ribbon mic) based off of a lot of research and recommendations and was sad to discover that it is terrible for cello upper registers.”

I hope this list has helped. I will continue to test and try many more to come and add to this list as I grow in my knowledge. Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for me to try out!

Borders, Jaron Lanier, Space....

I thrive on the discovery of the fruits that sprout and flourish on the borders between things.

If you can’t tell by now, I'm so intrigued not just by bodies of knowledge but of the ideas, thoughts, and art generated by their borders. That’s one of the reasons I dig Jaron Lanier so much. He’s a man of my own heart, living life with a microscope on the edges of things, and as a result, superseding a palatable professional identity.

Another guy who talks about this and whom I respect so much, naturally as a cellist, is Yoyo Ma. I can’t find the original speech, but I watched an internet broadcast of one of his speeches at some point and his central thesis was that creating anything new and worthwhile will happen when things with established mental/social/political frameworks collide. One example that comes to mind is his performance of The Swan with dancer, Lil Buck.

I don’t know about you, but I think there is something compelling about that performance that outlasts its novelty.

Meowg

I did a Google search for “space and synths” hoping to find some cool random artwork, but all I got was Moogs & cats.

In my career I have always had a microscope on the edge of things as well. It’s always a fine line between skill-stacking; gratify the universe’s minimum quota for examination of nuance, versus just going off the rails and chasing novelty. I try my best to stay on solid ground, but as both of these men, I find that my identity is blurrier and blurrier as I progress in my exploration of cello, which became an exploration of music, which became an exploration of nuance and life itself. Jaron is best described, in my own heart, as a brilliant mind, someone who keeps us from adhering too hard to frames of reference and showing us precisely that almost everything is such, and instead urging us to wash away the socially normalized contextual references and to just see the thing, think about the damn thing. As for Ma, Most people would describe Yoyo as a cellist primarily, but to me, he is a goodwill ambassador. He’s really just a guy who saw the importance of a thing and had a really compelling vehicle. It’s a really, really good kind of blurry. :)

So right now one of the borders I’m exploring is space and composition. I don’t want to be too specific here because there’s so much room to see where all of this goes, but one of the certainties is that it will involve source recordings, such as these (click the button to hear), from the 2017 Music Radar article “Turns out the Universe is one massive space synth and you can hear it”. I mean, come on, it’s too easy.

I will ABSOLUTELY figure out a way to use these in some sort of space related musical project. To come soon. In the mean time, check out the article. And think a bit about forcing a Venn diagram out of your favorite things in life and seeing what turns up in the middle. It might surprise you.

Favorite People Series

Jaron Lanier

While I was in Boston studying production at Berklee, I took a semester-long seminar through Berklee’s Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship. The seminar was a creative and dynamic course. In retrospect I almost want to call is a course-marketplace, and I’ll get back to that at some point. It was a mashup between the two big Cambridge schools on the northern shore of the Charles River: Harvard and MIT, and us lowly south-of-the-Charles Berklee folks. During that encounter, I had the chance to have a conversation with Jaron Lanier, computer science philosopher (through authorship) and composer. You may have heard of his book titled “Ten Arguments for Deleting you Social Media Accounts Right Now”. Amen, Jaron, amen.

I wanted to share him with all of you because he is one of the coolest most interesting cats I’ve ever met. In his own words, Lanier is “A Renaissance Man for the 21st century” He is a self-described “computer scientist, composer, artist, and author who writes on numerous topics, including high-technology business, the social impact of technology, the philosophy of consciousness and information, Internet politics, and the future of humanism.” For my own rendezvous with Lanier’s work, I think that last bit about the future of humanism is probably the closest you can get to depict his overall philosophical concept, when one thinks that humanism is from now on inextricably linked with technology. I’ve always thought of life, evolution, and the pinnacle of humanity being the sort of upper limit of a fractal, and everything outside of it, while still sharing original equation, is technology. Lanier makes a hard distinction between AI (what I may mistakenly think of as the development of self-awareness in technology) and AR… which is really outside of the score of this whole bit, but it really gets me stoked anyway.

The thing I love most about Jaron is there is no current ideological framework one can refer from to get what he is all about without putting in the time reading, and I highly recommend putting in the time. One perfunctory example of this is that, for instance, he doesn’t exclude certain ideas about spirituality when thinking about technology.

Oh, by the way THIS is the dude who popularized the term “virtual reality”. In the late 80s he oversaw the development of the the first “virtual worlds using head mounted displays”, a first riff on the headset, as we call them today, and also coined the use of the term “avatar”, and developed the system of identity representation within VR.

In terms of musical accolades, he has performed as a pianist and Asian wind specialist with Yoko Ono, Ornette Coleman, Phillip Glass, and many more, and has received several public commissions for his composition work. As a musician, of course, I find the non-musical parts of his mind to be the most novel and compelling. I’m doing a terrible job explaining this guy, but, so does everyone else. Probably the funniest line on his website is the heading for a section of other works referencing him: “Selected books with chapters devoted to trying to explain Jaron Lanier”. I feel that. (I’m not done talking about Jaron yet, keep reading in my space audio + music feature below.)

Trust me, you need to just read the books. Click below to visit his website!

Cello Directivity Fundamentals (heh heh heh)

Check out this table I compiled with note wavelength and directivity. Please note this is specific to only one cello tested.

I made this super handy chart to show the directionality and cycle length of all chromatic frequencies on the cello. (So this won’t have quarter or 3/4 tones… and if you’re here for that, congrats to you for being an even bigger nerd than me). What does all of this mean?

Characteristic to the violin and the viola, the overall directivity of the cello has two noticeable frequency bands of pronounced radiation. First, below 300 Hz (approx D4), the sound pressure level is above −6 dB in all directions. At the 315Hz (approx. D#4) one-third octave band, most of the sound is directed to both sides and the bottom. Second, at the 1250 Hz (D#6 aka Stratosphere) :P one-third octave band, the sound radiation is concentrated to the front and above.

With different dynamics the overall directivity does not present any considerable change. Above 1 kHz more sound is radiated in the top-left direction and the sound pressure levels above 2 kHz are generally increased with higher dynamics, as expected. Meyer (author of one of only a couple major anechoically-isolated studies of stringed instrument acoustics to date) has reported omnidirectional radiation below 200 Hz, which is lower than others. Although I have never tested my own cello in a clinical setting, I have found this to be more true for myself. My own cellos are both 7/8, the finer of the two being even more petite. I find that the omnidirectional range is lower, with some really pronounced pressure around 151 cycle range (approx E3).

The radiation from pronounced plate resonances around 250 – 300 Hz described by Meyer show that radiation is concentrated to both sides at 250 – 315 Hz especially in the bottom elevation. So what does that mean for cellists? I think it’s essential when budget and time permits to make sure you’re playing on an isolated, sound-treated surface.

Meyer found front-directionality at 500 Hz and 2000 Hz (this includes resonant harmonics for frequencies whose fundamental is below this range, a really obvi example of this is bow hiss.) The front-back ratio is cited to first exceed 10 dB at around 500 Hz, which corresponds roughly to the 400–500 Hz observed in other studies.

So, in other words, and something you already know, every cello is different. I hope though that the reader takes away from this that the directionality reallllllyyyy matters when capturing live audio on cello. A good half of my income is derived from re-recording audio that other cellists didn’t quite get right, and it doesn’t have to be that way.

Source: Jukka Pättynen and Tapio Lokki from the Helsinki University of Technology, for their publication, “Directivities of Symphony Orchestra Instruments”. Much of this article was abridged from their anechoic study. Leave it to Fins to give us a thorough study of acoustics. (Kiitos, Suomi)