Today Dave and I travelled to London, got completely lost, but eventually arrived out our location for recording the Sixteenwires string quartet. They were a great group of girls, with fantastic repetoire for weddings and other events. We recorded two tracks for the upcoming David Simon album as well as one of their own.

The hall was perfect for strings – it was a largeish dance studio with wooden floors, with a few curtains that were pulled to control the acoustics slightly. We put up a pair of Neumann KM184s for the main ORTF pair – often perceived as being a little too bright for classical string recording, but in a pop mix the exaggerated high frequencies allow the strings to cut nicely above the piano, guitars and drums. Spot mics were thrown up on each of the players too (2 hypercardioid oktava MK012’s on violins, a TF27 on viola, and neumann TLM193 on the cello). For Sixteenwires’ own repertoire I used omni MK012’s as the main pair to get a more natural (“classical”) sound, although I have carefully mixed the spot mics in a little to give a tiny bit more edge.

Thank you Sixteenwires!