"Don Pearce" wrote in message

On Thu, 25 Nov 2010 07:18:11 -0500, "Arny Krueger"
wrote:

A spot mic for a featured soloist is not uncommon. I
suppose that would qualify as multi-mic.

Calling spot micing a tiny fraction of the musicians
"multi micing" seems to confuse the issue.

Not really. Adding the spot mic is the big step.

Speaking as an experienced practitioner, one or two mics are almost no step
at all.

After that they are just incremental.

You have to add a ton of increments to get to the next step you describe,
which is superceding the ability or need for the orchestra and
director to balance themselves.

Once you have that spot mic, you are no longer relying on the orchestra
and
director to balance themselves.

You are still depending on the orchestra to balance themselves. The only
thing you did is give that one vocalist the vocal volume that he never
obtained by natural means. Doing this may be unexpectedly complex. You may
end up providing both the singer and the conductor with monitor speakers
that need volume level and spectral management. Then, no performer has a
clue about what's happening in the room.

You have some artistic control over what is heard.

There is a *huge* difference between helping out a lone vocalist or a few of
them, and superceding the ability or need for the orchestra and
director to balance themselves.

Because of bleed which is not completely managable until you put each
musican or at least each section into its own sound-proof booth, you are
strongly dependent on the orchestra to balance themselves even if you use
multiple close microphones.

Acoustic drums are just about the only instrument whose acoustic bleed is
managed while recording or for live sound. They are easily 90% or more of
the actual practice. That doesn't mean that other instruments (e.g.
trumpets) don't bleed heavily.

The ratio of none to some is much bigger than the ratio
of some to a bit more.

True in theory but not true if you're actually buying the mics, cables, and
what it takes to make them work, and then emplacing the mics and speakers,
stringing the cables, hooking everything up, configuring the mixer, mics and
the speakers, and actually operating the console. Been there, done that for
mid-sized audiences for over a decade, over 500 live performances.

Close micing and multitracking a full orchestra is an immense job. It is IMO
arguable that one reason that true sucess with the approach is so rare, is
that few actually do *everything* required to do the job *right*.
Furthermore, I'm not sure that we even have an accurate road map for doing
it right. Frankly what we do is throw in a few mics and a few speakers and
hook them up and punt.