Micing a Viola

[Bgarrett74]

Hello,
We have a show coming up that I have an eight piece band on stage. Two guitars, electric bass, drums, keys, cello, violin, viola. The violin player does have a pickup that they are going to use. The viola or the cello player doesn't. I was thinking of purchasing a pickup for the viola player. Does anyone have one that they can suggest? Or should I just use a microphone on the Viola. I am planning on micing the cello also. They don't move around as much so I don't think micing them will be an issue. The viola seems to move more and it might be hard to use a mic. I will be feeding the house speakers and some monitors with the viola mic.
Any suggestions would be great.
Thanks,
Brent

 

[Lextech]

From a purely audio standpoint I truly hate pickups. If a player brings their own great I'll try to use it but will have a mic ready also. That said they have their place in some situations. What are the levels we are talking about? Are you doing a rock concert? For many applications mic on a viola works just fine, they move but so do every string player, cello, bass and violin. The main concerns will be monitor volume and main speaker placement, along with polar pattern of the mic used. So can you give us a little more detail and someone will chip in. In particular what style of music, yes it matters, what kind of volume we are looking at and if the monitor arrangement.

 

[Bgarrett74]

I don't like pickups either. We are doing the American Idiot musical, so I would say it is a rock concert type musical. Plenty of volume on the stage for monitors. I will be using 22 wireless mics on actors that will be feeding the musicians monitors. Most of the micing will be for monitors on the stage. The main house speakers are downstage of the musicians about 30 feet so they won't be close to the house speakers. I will have a monitor speaker in front of the three sting players. They have to share a speaker. I do have two AKG 414 mics that I am thinking about using for the cello and the viola.

 

[rhedgehog]

Like Lextech mentioned, pickups aren't necessarily that great quality-wise compared to mics. However, if you decide to go that route, I would recommend checking out the barcus berry 3100 pickup. It runs about $100 and sounds pretty good (I use one on my own violin when playing with rock groups). Fishman also makes the v100/v200 (only difference is the jack), which a lot of people like, but some report that it's a little more tinny than the barcus. Nothing beats a bridge with an installed pickup, but I doubt the violist would want to swap bridges just for this show. Do note that the barcus will acoustically mute the instrument, which might bother the musician, and the fishman's mounting system is less secure. But again, pickups should be more of a last resort if mics really aren't viable.

 

[rwhealey]

As a (former) violin player I had good success with a clip like this: http://www.rode.com/accessories/violin_clip and an omnidirectional lav like the Countryman B3. It doesn't get you a classical concert type sound but is great for modern music and you rarely have to worry about GBF.

DPA used to make a clip that didn't have the stupid "RODE" huge letters on it but I can't find it anymore.

 

[Lextech]

The 414 is a great mic on a cello, it would not be my first choice on a viola, but, it would work. You do have an advantage with the 414s you can use to your advantage. pattern selection. So assuming that don't want the vocals from the monitor being picked up by the string mics you can select the correct pattern to reject the sound from the monitor. So if the cello player is facing the monitor a cardioid pattern would be a good starting point. For the viola since the mic is normally facing down hyper or maybe figure 8 would be better. The filter and pad switches are also your friends in this situation. Let us know what you end up doing.

 

[TDN]

It's been pretty common for fiddle players (and yes, it's different, and no, it's not really that different) to just use a vocal mic for their fiddle. They just step up close and play. It's a compromise, but in an 8 piece rock set up, you're not looking for a classical recording.

I've also used a shotgun mic mounted above and pointed down at the player's shoulder. If you are worried about feedback, this will give you some directionality that you can steer away from the monitors, and it's somewhat forgiving on the player moving around. Are the players seated? You can probably get away with that then.

And I'll second the idea of slipping a wireless mic pack on the fiddle player and clipping or taping a lav to the violia, probably on the bridge.