Recently bought a contact microphone of a guy called Jez Riley French, who came in and gave us a seminar demonstrating them. Basically you place them on or in things and you get really interesting resonant sounds, so i decided to go on a little walk and see if I could get some nice textures to use in any of the 3 movements really.

Here’s what one looks like:

Aaand here’s me using mine, which only cost £20! Bargain!

Got some really nice sounds from cutting a slit in the stem of a half-dead thistle, placing the mic in there and letting the breeze blow through the thistle naturally.

If you’re interested in these things and similar stuff Jez has got to offer, head over to http://hydrophones.blogspot.com/

So today I’ve been recording a violinist, an incredibly talented violinist named Andrew Sutherland in the Multitrack Studio for my first movement ‘Innocence’.

Audio advisor Steve Kirkby kindly let me borrow his treasured Neumann U87 (over 2 grand in a tiny little wooden box) to use as the close mic (cardioid setting) and I used an AKG C414 as a secondary room mic. I placed them like so:

In retrospect I probably should have wrapped the cables around the stands but anyway… The high placed mic is the close U87, placed up there so as to capture the sound emanating upwards from the bridge and f-holes of the violin.

This is the view from the control room:

Aaand this is the man himself doing his thing: