• Recording a Choir, mic placement etc
    9 replies, posted
Hey. I need a hand, in a month I'm going to be recording a really awesome choir's summer concert. It's a choir of 50 adults, about 40 women and 10 men. The concert's in a church and will have an audience. I'm doing this as more of a "studio" recording than a live one so I'll be doing a fair bit of post production and don't want to intentionally include sounds made by the crowd. I have 4 condenser mics available, one of which will have to be used to mic up the piano. Now I'm trying to decide the best way to utilize the other three mics.. there's a few ideas I have throwing around. Here's a dodgy paint drawing of the layout: [IMG]http://i46.tinypic.com/334szs0.png[/IMG] (red dots are mics I NEED, blue and orange are two possible positions) As you can see the women are on the left and right and the men central. I want to be able to pan it to add depth (and capture the harmonies nicely), so one thought of mine is to have close mics for left and right, and one central one to bring out the male parts. This won't capture the ambiance of the church which is unfortunate, but I will be able to re-create the reverb with plugins and such anyway, and the central mic can have a circular pickup pattern to pick up some ambiance. Second idea is to have the third mic (the central one) near the back of the church to capture all of the reverb, but I'm worried that with an audience it'll pick up more of their faffing about than the beautiful sound the church has to offer. The choir will be loud though, so it might not be an issue. I'm also worried that if that's the case the male singers (which provide the bass notes the harmonies rely on) will be very weak in the mix, which isn't good at all. Due to my setup I *may* be able to have another dynamic mic going through the same channel as one of the others, so I could have that up close to the male singers and another condenser near the rear, going through the same channel. Really not ideal though, they'd have to be mixed in real time which I'm not too happy with. Have any of you got an good ideas for this? Am I thinking along the right lines?
i doubt you'll need reverb plugins in a church, they are made for the absolute perfect choir sound. i would say maybe pull the microphones back so you can capture the reverb around them from the walls, that would also prevent someone from overpowering the mix.
Can I get a list of microphones please? I had to record a few church choirs/orchestras with my teacher. [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/Zhdvz.jpg[/IMG] Since you are recording such a large choir you're going to want to get tall microphone stands and place your mics (hopefully matched pair) into the air. This is so that the entire orchestra is equally recorded and not any particular one person. Spot mics next to soloists for solos obviously. [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/fWt7p.png[/IMG] If there are no soloists, just use that extra mic and do a xy on the piano or a spaced pair.
Thanks for the help bro Agreeing with both of you now, thanks for the suggestions. I was actually thinking about having the mics elevated, just need to find some suitable stands that won't get in the way of anyone.. I don't think people will appreciate having their view of whoever they're there to see being blocked out by a mic stand in front of their face! I haven't got the mics as of yet, I'm going to have to source them from various places, but with the mixer we'll be bringing we'll only be able to record four tracks at once and that's going to have to include the piano. Should be getting a few with pickup pattern selectors- Should I go cardiod or circular for the ambience? So at the moment I'm thinking the matched pair either side slightly elevated, (and a few meters meters or so back?). I'm still worried the men may be drowned out, so a central mic also a little further back/can be moved for any soloists? Also, might consider doing an xy on the piano through a single channel just to see how it sounds, but I dunno if that'd be worth the effort. Oh and I'll have the morning throughout their rehearsals to set up, so I'm going to be able to do a little trial and error, I just want to go in with a bit of a plan.
[QUOTE=chaz13;36116973]Thanks for the help bro Agreeing with both of you now, thanks for the suggestions. I was actually thinking about having the mics elevated, just need to find some suitable stands that won't get in the way of anyone.. I don't think people will appreciate having their view of whoever they're there to see being blocked out by a mic stand in front of their face! I haven't got the mics as of yet, I'm going to have to source them from various places, but with the mixer we'll be bringing we'll only be able to record four tracks at once and that's going to have to include the piano. Should be getting a few with pickup pattern selectors- Should I go cardiod or circular for the ambience? So at the moment I'm thinking the matched pair either side slightly elevated, (and a few meters meters or so back?). I'm still worried the men may be drowned out, so a central mic also a little further back/can be moved for any soloists? Also, might consider doing an xy on the piano through a single channel just to see how it sounds, but I dunno if that'd be worth the effort. Oh and I'll have the morning throughout their rehearsals to set up, so I'm going to be able to do a little trial and error, I just want to go in with a bit of a plan.[/QUOTE]Just go cardiod, you can usually hear the church's reverberation pretty easily where ever you are. There might be some spots in the church where the sound doesn't project, I had that problem with the orchestra I had to record, the sound literally went UP and didn't beam through the church. Honestly don't worry about the men being drowned out, if the conductor or who ever organised this event made it so the men sound drowned out then that is just poor conducting and not your fault with poor engineering. With the rehearsal that time span is when you use your head and figure out what you need to do or change :) You don't really know what mic placement is best for the church until you monitor your mix and decide for yourself.
Well thank you very much for the advise. I'll be getting confirmation today then I need to source the hardware, I'm really excited.
Just do a mid side at the center of the choir. Don't mic the soloists separate because that always sounds awful especially if the soloists are singing into a pa anyways, there's no avoiding that sounding like shit. There's no point in using a ton of mics since you'll just get bleed across them all, just use a good figure 8 and a good cardioid and you'll be fine. [editline]29th May 2012[/editline] Or do two sets of mid side, one on the piano as well, although spaced pair is usually better for piano so you get the full range.
[QUOTE=chaz13;36119932]Well thank you very much for the advise. I'll be getting confirmation today then I need to source the hardware, I'm really excited.[/QUOTE] No problem, and make sure the the matched mics are in the exact same spot distanced away or you're going to get phasing issues.
That's a good point, not something I'd even considered. so to sum up, I'll mic up the piano and have two mics either side of the choir the same distance from them and as elevated as I can get. Correct? Might shove a mic at the back of the church to see how that sounds, too. As I'll have a spare. One last question as ventilated mentioned, is the pa system going to cause an issue?
Depending on how loud it is you might get some more "room" sound as the PA will excite the room a bit. Peterson posted basically the setup I would try. I've used that setup before, albeit for an outdoor event with a choir. Doesn't apply to you (YOu said you wanted a studio sound), I'd personally use the spare to capture audience reaction. But that's because I like the sound of the event as a whole. ;o
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