How to Record and Mix a Cello at Home
Here's a quick guide to recording and mixing a cello at your home.
Microphone choice. The cello has a low tone, although it's not low enough to use a bass guitar or kick drum mic. Ideally, you'll want a very good large diaphragm condenser like the KSM27. If you can afford it, it's not a bad idea to do a close-far mic combination with a pen condenser pointed at the f-holes of the cello and a large diaphragm microphone a bit farther away.
Experiment with different microphone set ups. If you're only working with a single mic, you can have it pointed at the bridge a few feet away from the cello, but take the time to try different distances and different mics if you have them available. The intricacies in a person's playing style may come out more with a certain miking combination.
When you're recording a cello at home, you should also make sure to take the instrument's volume into account. Like any other stringed instrument, the cello has a fairly broad dynamic range. A loud cello may need to be miked differently than a quiet cello. Remember to listen. It's the best way to get the exact sound you want, and it's always better to take extra time to experiment early on in a string recording session than to have to back and rerecord the instrument later.
Mixing - If you've miked the cello properly, you shouldn't need a ton of EQ. You can dip the highs around 10k as well as the extreme lows and accent the low mids to get more presence. Your dips can be more and more dramatic if the cello was recorded with other instruments or if there's a bass guitar in the recording. In most pop recordings, the cello should be panned as much as 45 degrees to one side, although this will depend on how full your song sounds already.
As with all strings, effects should be fairly minimal. You might add a touch of reverb to the cello if it's a solo performance or to add more depth to a track. Remember to listen to your mix on a variety of speakers. Make sure that the cello is always audible and use envelopes to handle large changes in the instrument's dynamics.
Have any questions about recording a cello at home? Post in our comments section below.
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Phil Dotree has written copy for numerous websites and news sites for five years. His articles have appeared on the Howard Stern Show, Fark, Digg.com, and more. Phil is currently working on a book about fr... View profile
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