Micing and amplifying the gu zheng.

[Vi An]

There are always interesting ways sto mic the gu zheng and not everyone is familiar with this. So I am here to share some insight over the years of performing and running into multiple problems of sound techs not knowing exactly how to best mic the instrument.

Over the years I have tried many ways to mic and amplify the gu zheng, from guitar pick ups (condensor pick ups that is) to very expensive mic systems!

I am recently using a piano pick up called Barcus-berry 4000 "Piano Planer Wave System". It is a piano pick up and is very suitable for the gu zheng as recommended to me by my jazz collaborater Alan J.Wall who purchased it for me on my birthday! Basically I place it into the first sound hole under the gu zheng, I have to reach in a little ways past the sound post and push it down to stick. It has been a great system so far as I have performed twice with it.

If you have any other suggestions or advice I encourage you to post them here regarding micing and amplifying of gu zhengs.

My regards,

Vi An.

[Vi An]

I just also wanted to add that because this micing system is hidden unlike mic stands all over the place, you get to see more of your performers :-D Mics can be so distracting to the performer!

Happy tuning!

Vi An.

[blueharp]

Thanks for the info Vi An! My specialty is elecro-acoustic/electric harp. I am in the process of writing the user manual for a series of electric harps made by Camac Production of France, so I am always interested in what kind of micing solutions people use.

Actually I was introduced to the guzheng, it was listed as a "cheng" in the program, at a concert by Andreas Vollenweider (Grammy winning electro-acoustic harpist).

At one point in the show the guzheng was brought out and set up for him. What followed was absolutely mesmerizing. He played an original composition and then improvised in a sort of funk/jazz style with erhu and dizi joining in. Believe it or not it worked!

Being nosy I went up to the stage afterwards to try and figure out how it was amplified so naturally. There were 2 long pickups parallel to the main bridge that looked to be magnetic.

Shortly thereafter I bought my first guzheng with the intention of playing improv/jazz. The beauty of the "real" music for it permanently sidetracked me and while I do play the occasional blues riff, the traditional repetoire has captured my heart.

I have used the Barcus Berry system on my acoustic harps and agree that it is quite suitable for the guzheng.

There are others that can potentially work well, Pick Up the World makes some very nice ones as do C-ducer and a few others. It all depends on the amplified sound that is desired.

Thanks for sharing!

Steve

[Vi An]

Heya Steve,

Thank you very much for that!

[blonderedhead]

hi,
this is very helpful information. how do you recommend mic placement for studio recording of guzheng. hanging the microphone two feet above the center of the instrument or one below or both. any suggestions? thanks

[Vi An]

Hello,

The best micing situation I have had was where 4 extremely quality mics were set up at different corners of a room, and only one would be pointing towards the playing end. This is the best reproduction of guzheng sound giving it life, full dynamic range and super 3D feel for the listener!

Another very effective and practical mic set up is two high quality mics, one about a foot and some above your playing hand, where the other mic is pointing up from below the instrument (about a hand length away) and aimed half way between the middle sound hole and the strings hole area. This gives you two stereo channels to work with and the sound reproduction is just exquisite with nothing to loose!

My regards,

Vi An.

[blonderedhead]

hi Vi An

, those are great suggestions. i guess it would also depend on the size of and the acoustics of the room also. the i don't know if i can get a hold of four quality mics but i will definitely try the second placement. what kind of mics have you used and feel most satisfied with (brand, model no.)?

by the way, i really enjoyed some of your original compositions on your site. thanks!

[Vi An]

Hello,

Thank you I'm glad you enjoy some of my compositions from my site!

I'm running out the door right now but I'll get back to the forum with the mics names and model no(s).

Best,

Vi An.

[Dick]

Vi An. I respect your point of view, however it appears you and I disagree in a fundamental way about the concept of "true voice."

For me, recording is a wonderful educational tool. But recordings lack a key ingredient necessary to the art of music.

If memory serves, Glenn Gould also suffered from this idea that recordings constitute an "advancement" over music. Maybe it's a Canadian thing...

[davidmdahl]

I am not sure I understand what the disagreement is about, but there are some interesting issues here. Two ways we have of experiencing music are live performances and studio recordings. Each has interesting implications. With live performance, we have the two-way communication between a performer(s) and an audience, the tightrope walk aspect of the quality, and the individual experience of each person with respect to the performance.

A studio recording can be a very difference product, even if the performance is of the same composition or "chart". Here the performance is one-way communication. The quality of the performance can be managed and edited so that the likelihood of a "perfect" performance is subject only to the budget. I suspect that this latter aspect is what particularly appealed to Glenn Gould.

Regarding the individual experience aspect, an acoustic instrument can sound very different depending on where the listener is with respect to the instrument. I know from experience that my flute sounds very different to my ears that it does to someone else. It also sounds different to someone standing close to me than another person at a greater distance.

The fun thing with microphones and the rest of recording technology is that we get more control over what people hear. There is no absolute control, of course, since people choose their own CD players and other playback equipment. It is pretty amazing though that we can hear a guzheng CD with sounds recorded from a variety of perspectives mixed into one result. I am sure that Vi An would not appreciate me laying under her guzheng to sample the "true voice" from that location, so I am glad that a microphone is less intrusive. <g>

If a recording is a product of manipulation of the sound and performance of an instrument, is the recording any less of a true voice of that instrument? Hmmm, interesting.

As a musician, I both love and hate to listen to recordings of myself. It can be a traumatic learning experience to hear how others might be hearing us.

Best wishes,

David

[Dick]

Vi said:

...a guzheng's true voice can really shine through a recording! When you simply just play the instrument, you can not hear all of the subtleties or the fullness of a resonance...

Dear Vi An, these statements contain an assertion about musical aesthetics. I responded to your words. The notion that recordings are somehow better than music rubs me the wrong way. I didn't think any feelings would be hurt if I said so. The existence of disagreement on the point should not offend. But then, your later posting makes it clear your assertion was thoughtless and unintended:

Vi said:

I have not mentioned anything about "true" this or that. Besides I do not agree or dissagre with you on the "fundamental way about the concept of "true voice." There is no such thing. A voice is a voice.

So, fine. If you are confused about it, or don't care how recordings compare/contrast with music, let's just drop it. Sorry about piping up where it's not welcome.
The reference to Glenn Gould was intended as mild humour. Mr. Gould was a Canadian pianist, as famous for his spectacular technical abilities as for his unorthodox approach. His view of the value of recording technologies is pretty widely known. Briefly, he wrote that recordings are preferable to live performance. He believed it possible to establish and document the "definitive" interpretation of a musical work. This happens to be a view I don't share.
Take care,

[davidmdahl]

Dick said:

Mr. Gould was a Canadian pianist, as famous for his spectacular technical abilities as for his unorthodox approach. His view of the value of recording technologies is pretty widely known. Briefly, he wrote that recordings are preferable to live performance. He believed it possible to establish and document the "definitive" interpretation of a musical work. This happens to be a view I don't share.

A recording is a capture of a point-in-time performance of a musical work. This gets complicated somewhat by the ability to modify and even transform the performance after the event. A recording constitutes another way for a musician to present a performance to an audience. I don't think of a recording as being superior to live performance, or vice versa. They are just different.

I do agree that it is ridiculous to designate any single performance, recorded or live, as definitive. This is true in Western classical music, and especially true in traditional music. The trouble is that recordings create a false sense of "definitiveness". When we listen to a CD over and over again, we come to expect that consistency and perfection as normal. A great Irish or Chinese musician is not likely to perform the same tune the same way everytime. Even Glenn Gould's performances evolved. His recordings of Bach Goldberg Variations as a young man and old man are one example.

When I play traditional music (Irish, Vietnamese, & Chinese), I attempt to find places to vary the performance. This is fun, but it is a lot more work.

Best wishes,

David Dahl
Portland, Oregon USA
(on the road in San Jose, California)

[Charlie Huang]

*steps in*

OK, I dunno what the fuss here is about.

Recordings and live performances are different. Sometimes, I listen to a live performance and think it is better than a recording, sometimes I hear a recording and find it better than a live performance. Whether it be any expressive or true depends on the context of who and when it is performed, etc. Let's not get metaphysical here, we already discussed this in the thread on the other forum...

Vi_an-san, one should not censor oneself in this case. I agree that amplification in certain cases can make instruments sound better. I recorded a guqin piece on the PC. The sound that was emitted from the speakers was rather nice during playback and gave me totally different sound experience than if I played with no amplification (though I did sense a slight emptiness to it, but that may be my out-dated technology). However, when I listened to the recorded track, it was rather inferior (again, due to my out-dated equipment). Amplification has its uses but it is not correct to assume a dependance on it. The 'true voice' of the instrument can be heard only if one creates the setting and environment that is appropriate.

EOS.

[Dick]

*steps back* Well, neither do I know what "fuss" there is. I would agree with Charlie that self-censorship seems odd in the context, but presumably it is within the parameters of the writer's privilege.

Vi An, let me repeat my sincere and humble apology if anything I wrote hurt your feelings or offended your sensibilities.

Charlie, I will do my best to conform to Forum rules prohibiting metaphysical content. Indeed, would claim I have followed them, even though I was formerly unaware of such rules. The Forum being generally about music, may we assume that aesthetical discussions are still in bounds?

thanks,

[Dick]

By the way... who or what is EOS? Goddess of dawn? www.pantheon.org/articles/e/eos.html

[Charlie Huang]

EOS = End of story.

EOS...