can you record strings ensemble one instrument at a time?

I videotaped a cello/violin/piano ensemble performance. Afterwards, the
group said they performed poorly, and there were too much audience noise,
and wants to re-dub the audio portion. I'm trying to help them do the
recording. Neither one of us has recorded an ensemble before.

You're in big trouble.

Here's what I'm thinking of doing:

I can record audio using my computer, a mixer front end, and audio software
(e.g. adobe audition). The software suports multi-tracks, but my hardware
limits me to one stereo track (or two mono track) at a time.

I want to record one small group at a time. This is easier to schedule,
easier to correct mistakes, and easier to adjust relative loudness during
the mix, easier to create stereo effect, ... And I won't have to add more
hardware.

In order for them to sychronize, I could play back their performance that I
videotaped. Each musician would be listening to their previous performance
via headphones and playing along while being recorded.

When I have everyone recorded, I can mix them together and viola! Not only
would they sychronize with each other, they also would synchronize with the
video.

Yes, but there will be no sense of ensemble and it will sound very artificial.

Does this rule apply to recording duet? (forget about syncing to video)
IOW, is it better to record duet where both singers are really singing with

OK, this is about their performance. How would you mic the pair of
singers (lets say sop + alt)? Individually or with a stereo pair?

and for arguments sake lets assume they're accompanied by a piano... and
performing in a church (the reverberant kind built by stone:-)

If you mic them separately, you'll have to synthesize a stereo image. If
you record with a stereo pair, you'll get the stereo image in the church.

Personally, I like the real image better than the synthesized one.

best regards
Lars

each other? Or is it better to record them one at a time?

Depends on the singers, but yes, for the most part you're better off having
them sing together so they can work off of one another. Not always possible,
of course, but it's sure a good thing when yu can do it.

Would this work?

It _is_ possible to do this sort of thing with the entire group together
but you will first have to prepare the original tape with streamers so that
it's more clear what the tempo is at any given point.

BTW, the only mics I have are a bunch of SM58. I don't know if this is the
best mic for recording instrument, but we don't need perfection, we just
need it to sound good to the average person.

You're really screwed. Next time rent a good pair of mikes and mike the
group properly for the original performance.

It's possible to do what you want, but it's going to involve months of
fighting with it one bar at a time in order to get it to synch up right,
and it will never sound very good.

-p

Would this work? Perhaps but I wouldn't want to do it. It would be
easier to somply retape the whole thing. What you porpose is cumbersome
at best. If you must keep the video why not just put a stereo pair up,
play back the video and see if they can play along? Disguise any sync
problems by cutting the video.

Just one stereo pair may not work. One of their gripes is that the piano was
too loud at times. So I would think that using multple mikes (perhaps one
for each group of instruments) would be better.

I do plan to cut up the video.

Phil Brown