Anechoic Multi-Channel Recordings of individual String Quartet musicians

Many and great efforts have been put into creating anechoic recordings of symphony orchestras, opera arias, solo instruments, speech and etc. However, chamber music, a typical music formation is poorly represented in the available anechoic material library. This is especially relevant in the context of small concert halls, where typically the most common form of concert would be of chamber music. With this need for material in mind, short excerpts of each movement of Haydn’s string quartet op. 76 n.1 have been recorded in an anechoic chamber. The recordings have been conducted with individual instruments with an array of 12 studio microphones positioned evenly around the musician. This paper reports on the methods, technical aspects and difficulties faced in producing such recording, as well as the post-processing required to achieve a realistic and usable performance of a string quartet. The finalized audio files will be made freely available for use in academic research.