Help! IEM/tuners for string quartet...

TheBigDipper

My string quartet friends, who I've recorded a few times, are thinking about in ear monitoring and silent tuning for their performances. They've asked me to explain to them what's involved. If this was in a rock band context, I'd be comfy explaining it to them, but I've no experience of how an acoustic quartet of 2 x violins, 1 x viola and 1 x cello would do this when performing as an acoustic quartet. Or why, to be honest... 

Anyone got any practical experience of this? Contact mics (or close mics mounted on the instrument) through individual tuners into a small mixer to feed the IEM? I'm sitting down with the cellist in the next day or two to find out what they hope to achieve and what they see as the problem. 

maltingsaudio

That would work, the quality of the clip on mic wouldn't have to be top quality as its just for tuning.I haven't yet worked with a string quartet who uses tuners, although I have worked with a fair few, both miced and acoustic. They seem to be on a different plane as opposed to us mortal musicians and tend to tune to each other from a tuning fork as reference and then it appears to be a sort of tempered tuning for the instrument so its in tune with itself and magically the others.
Thats my experience any way.

VimFuego

as a string player I am also confused by this, as malting said it's normal to tune to a fixed source (in my case usually a squeezebox) then adjust to tune to 5ths from there. If it's a really warm room then you will probably need to retune at some point but other than that my fiddle never goes out of tune whilst playing (wish the same could be said of the player).

TheBigDipper

VimFuego said:

as a string player I am also confused by this, as malting said it's normal to tune to a fixed source (in my case usually a squeezebox) then adjust to tune to 5ths from there. If it's a really warm room then you will probably need to retune at some point but other than that my fiddle never goes out of tune whilst playing (wish the same could be said of the player).

They played as a double quartet the last time I recorded them (8 of them plus double bass & harpsichord) and did have some tuning issues that the recording (live with audience) highlighted, so maybe that's the issue for them. I'll find out, I guess.

TheBigDipper

maltingsaudio said:

That would work, the quality of the clip on mic wouldn't have to be top quality as its just for tuning.I haven't yet worked with a string quartet who uses tuners, although I have worked with a fair few, both miced and acoustic. They seem to be on a different plane as opposed to us mortal musicians and tend to tune to each other from a tuning fork as reference and then it appears to be a sort of tempered tuning for the instrument so its in tune with itself and magically the others.
Thats my experience any way.

I've been told that really good string players can microtune their fretless instruments with their fingers as they play. I've only ever been a really rudimentary one (cello) so can't comment. 

VimFuego

TheBigDipper said:

VimFuego said:

as a string player I am also confused by this, as malting said it's normal to tune to a fixed source (in my case usually a squeezebox) then adjust to tune to 5ths from there. If it's a really warm room then you will probably need to retune at some point but other than that my fiddle never goes out of tune whilst playing (wish the same could be said of the player).

They played as a double quartet the last time I recorded them (8 of them plus double bass & harpsichord) and did have some tuning issues that the recording (live with audience) highlighted, so maybe that's the issue for them. I'll find out, I guess.

if I had to guess I'd say the issues were with the harpsichord, if the tuning of something like that is not spot on, it still sounds fine but can be a bitch to play in tune with. Be interesting to see what solutions you can come up with.

TheBigDipper

VimFuego said:

TheBigDipper said:

VimFuego said:

as a string player I am also confused by this, as malting said it's normal to tune to a fixed source (in my case usually a squeezebox) then adjust to tune to 5ths from there. If it's a really warm room then you will probably need to retune at some point but other than that my fiddle never goes out of tune whilst playing (wish the same could be said of the player).

They played as a double quartet the last time I recorded them (8 of them plus double bass & harpsichord) and did have some tuning issues that the recording (live with audience) highlighted, so maybe that's the issue for them. I'll find out, I guess.

if I had to guess I'd say the issues were with the harpsichord, if the tuning of something like that is not spot on, it still sounds fine but can be a bitch to play in tune with. Be interesting to see what solutions you can come up with.

Should've said - the harpsichord was made by Yamaha and needs a power supply. Good guess, otherwise.