(For more of my articles on recording and music, check out my new site StudioRoll.)

Record Producer has a good tutorial on recording a symphony band. The question it seeks to answer is this: can you really record a large band with just two mics, or you need to close-mic every instrument? Here’s a snippet:

The priority with an orchestra is to get a recording that sounds like an orchestra, with no ‘improvements’. And the best way to achieve this is to start by thinking about how people ideally listen to an orchestra, from a high-price ticket in the front few rows of a concert hall with excellent acoustics.

You could put a pair of microphones in this position and record the orchestra as though the mics were an audience member’s ears.

Unfortunately this doesn’t work. The human brain has the ability to process the information supplied by the ears and focus on the sounds it wants to hear, and to ignore other sound that it doesn’t.

Hit Record Producer for the rest of the article.