David Harbin wrote:

>>I am tired of engineers heavily miking star violinists / violists.  For
>>example, many of Pearlman's recordings make him sound beefy.  I am told
>>that, live, he can sound much sweeter.

The term "beefy" is hard for me to apply to a violin sound, but I'm a
bit of a novice. On the other hand, the quote above actually seems to
refer to the violinist himself, if taken literally.  The word is often
used to describe a person's ... um, shall we say, portimento, and since
Perlman is perhaps a wee bit stout, I suppose that is possibly the intent
...

Mike Leghorn wrote:

>...  A loud, in your face sounding recording will invariably sell
>better than a "musical" recording of the same music.

Aha, now I see --- the "beefy" term did indeed imply a certain portliness,
which can understandably cause a lot of heavy breathing to emanate from
the performer, which is picked up excessively by close miking.  Thus "in
your face" refers to the performer's face, not my own, as I initially
misunderstood.  Is that it?  ;-)

Well, that's all I really wanted to ask about, so cheekiness nearly
aside, can I assume close miking what is responsible for so much sucking
of air to be heard on certain string recordings?  I personally find it
extremely distracting and unpleasant.  Do connoisseurs enjoy it as "part
of the performance"?  Surely there aren't "breath marks" written into a
violin sonata.

Rick Mabry
Shreveport, LA