The Glory Of Live Strings
A few tricks and tips for optimizing the mix of live stringed instruments in a concert-level performance.
By Andrew Stone • February 4, 2019Mixing a string section against a rock act is no small feat. The expectation that comes with incorporating a live string orchestra onto a big rock stage is something I usually loathe.
Almost everyone in the room expects glorious orchestral beauty to magically emit from these stringed instruments not having any realization that they’re far too close to live drums and cymbals, far too close to loudspeaker systems, and usually have input channels that have been chopped to death. All in the attempt to eek out any type of usable signal.
Anyone identify?
In fact, for quite a few years I’ve insisted that some of our visiting string players use electric instruments. Electric you say? Yes, they exist.
Watch a Kitaro or Yanni video and you’ll get your fill. But even though they look quite interesting and perhaps even cool, they usually produce terrible tone and require a great deal of processing to shape the sound into something reasonably close to a proper acoustic stringed instrument.
So how in the world did we use live strings on almost every single song for past Christmas productions and have them sit perfectly in the mix in a glorious fashion?
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