Q about recording using the DECCA TREE

[TwilightOdyssey]

I'm going to be making a pre-production demo for a recording I will be doing in a couple of months. It is going to be a power trio playing live in a room.

After reading a fascinating article on the Decca Tree, I'm thinking about using this mic scheme to get a high quality stereo recording of the songs as they happen live.

Does anyone have any experience in using this mic scheme? It seems harder to set up, initially, than doing a coincident, spaced, or M/S mic scheme. I think it will yield superior results.

Any pros/cons I should be aware of?

Thanks in advance!

 

[J Moose]

Re: Q about recording using the DECCA TREE

I've had mixed, and usually poor results with a Decca Tree configuration over MS or an ORTF.

Part of the rub is that with a Decca Tree, you need to be in a REALLY big room to have it work well. You could try pulling the mics inwards, but the accepted configuration puts the side pairs about 6' 9" apart and the center mic is about 5 and a half feet in front of that. So, the mics themselves take up a massive amount of floor space...

In a small room the reflections can get really messy. And small, in this case would be anything about 20x25 or less and I wouldn't even attempt it. Bigger is better... remember, the guys who came up with this were recording large orchestras in equally large rooms & soundstages. The last thing you'd want to do is place the mics close to walls... doesn't sound very hip. Lots of phase smear from the early reflections.

You'd also need three matched fairly good omnidirectional mics, like Earthworks or 414s... it doesn't work with cardioids and cheap mics usually have too much off axis colorization.

As for setup, I think MS is actually MORE involved from the back end... once the mics are up but its still not that difficult, sounds natural and gives great control over stereo width.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Q about recording using the DECCA TREE

Thanks for the info, Moose.

If I go with M/S: I was thinking of putting a D112 closer to the floor, in line with the other mics, and then low pass filtering it to have some added control over the bass freqs. Do you think that this is a good idea?

 

[J Moose]

Re: Q about recording using the DECCA TREE

If I go with M/S: I was thinking of putting a D112 closer to the floor, in line with the other mics, and then low pass filtering it to have some added control over the bass freqs. Do you think that this is a good idea?

Uhhh... that'd be interesting. Try it... who knows? Doubt it'll sound good though... the middle mic is where the "beef" of the image comes from and D112 is a fairly odd mic.

Typically with MS I'll use a 414 as the sides and a TLM103 or maybe a Blue Dragonfly as the front... possibly a small diaphragm like a KM84 or schoeps if there's one around. U87's work too... In any case, all mics are full range.

I'll walk around the room, find a spot that sounds good and plant the stand there, about head height. If 'ya get everything right the recording will sound like it did when you were standing in that spot.

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Q about recording using the DECCA TREE

Thanks for the info!