x
zemlin 21 December 2004

This was a freebee - so I took some liberties to experiment. I think it worked. Tried my new preamp - experimented with mic positioning - used ORTF - hadn't done that before. Wanted to be able to balance the choir and the orchestra, so the choir mics (NT5) are above and toward the rear of the instruments. Orchestra mics (MK012) are behind the conductor. There is also a pair of omni room mics (ECM-8000) in this mix.

This is WIP - Having listened to it a bit I think I'll narrow it up some, but overall I'm pretty pleased with the sound.

The choir was about 25 voices
The orchestra was about 10 pieces
The choir was backed right up against the wall of the roughly 80-foot-across octagonal room. Most of the reverb is courtesy of Ultrafunk. That is the only effect other than level adjustments and panning. No EQ (except for what the Sebatron provided)

Keep in mind, this is a small venue for a piece like this - a BIG HALL sound ain't gonna happen. I could fake it, but the choir director wants a fairly accurate representation of the work.

http://www.cheap-tracks.com/mp3/uui-12-24-04_sample.mp3

Topic Tags

Comments

JoeH Tue, 12/21/2004 - 10:36

Thanks for the Christmas treat, Karl!

I really enjoyed it; the mix is quite nice, much better than I expected from your description. As soon as I heard it I thought of a Chamber Choir, then I went back and reread your post that it was 25 members. (The trumpet player did a nice job, too...not everyone survives the Gloria movement intact. :-)

How do you like the Sebatron? I've seen ads for it here at RO, and I just haven't had the time to look into it....is it a mono unit? Do you have several?

anonymous Tue, 12/21/2004 - 12:09

Very nice recording. As a church choir director and recording enthusiast was impressed. The Gloria is a hard piece to pull off with just 25 members, please give my kudos to the director. Thought the balance was great also. Almost sold my Oktavas but after hearing others use them I will keep what I have. Keep up the great work, Van

David French Tue, 12/21/2004 - 12:33

That is soo weird. It sounds nothing like what I would expect from the description you have Zem. How can there be room mics in such a dry sounding recording? It sounds to time coherent for this. And I think I see TWO stereo arrays, one ORTF and one XY. It sounds like one close ORTF to me - typical wide stereo.

Did I mention it sounds nice.

:)

Big_D Tue, 12/21/2004 - 21:22

Yeah the problem was on my end.

Very Nice Karl! I really enjoyed it. I like the fact that there is not quite as much room in it, but I can definitely hear the room. I prefer this type of approach to classical peices as the vocal and insturmental groupings are more easily distinguished instead of being one homogenus blob. I have heard other recordings done this way and have always enjoyed them, keep up the good work. 8-)

Cucco Wed, 12/22/2004 - 14:37

Karl:

Nice work here dude! There's definitely some very good points to this recording. I was also expecting less based on your description. The sound has a very distinct treble starting at about 2400 Hz and up to about 8kHz. Distinct, different - not altogether bad, just different and distinct. I actually kind of liked it.

Your use of digital reverb was judicious and placed well within the frequency - not too much bass emphasis, but smoothly rolled off in the upper register - mimicing perhaps a venue with good solid floors and hard wood on many of the walls. My personal preference is to stay away from all reverbs, but truthfully, you did pretty well with it.

J...

zemlin Wed, 12/22/2004 - 15:22

There seems to be a theme here ...

much better than I expected from your description.

It sounds nothing like what I would expect from the description you have Zem.

I was also expecting less based on your description.

I must come across has having no idea of what I'm doing - which might be true. :-?

As far as being time coherent, after I start the "tape" rolling I go up to the front mic and give it a good, loud clap. I use that as a first guess for time shift on the tracks. I made a slight shift of one pair of tracks in this recording to prevent cancelation of the bass.

I expected some obvious phase problems with this recording as the choir mics are overhead of a "U-shaped" orchestra and the orchestra mics are at the opening of the "U" - thus the distance ratios between the two sets of mics and the different instruments are all over the place - but I haven't heard anything ugly yet.

John Stafford Wed, 12/22/2004 - 18:06

Karl
I don't think anyone would ever suggest you didn't know what you were doing!

I was surprised by the sense of tightness you were able to achieve using six mics, as I would have found it very difficult to do the same. There's always some stray reflection that messes things up! On the other hand, if I were to use fewer mics on a setup like this, I would end up with balance problems that you also managed to avoid. Of course it's not time-coherent by accident, and you managed to get the best of both worlds. Maybe I should have said that you made it sound like you used fewer mics without the real-world problems of doing so. That's not meant as an insult :D

Another thing is that you used Rode NT5s on the choir. I've always been a champion of their cause, so that's not something that surprised me! I've never used the Oktavas, but that's partly because of problems getting a good set where I live, it was nice to hear a pair of them at work.

ghellquist Mon, 12/27/2004 - 14:09

Karl,
just joining the choir. Sounds real good. Great musicians. (My Cudos to the trumpet player). Good recording, probably great given the acoustics.

As you say, perhaps a bit wide on the stereo, not quite what a listener is used to hearing in the hall. But as all parts sounds so balanced, I might as well keep it that way.

Only thing, perhaps, is that the ess-es stick out a little here and there. Always difficult though, too close and they are too strong, too far away and all you get is that cathedral effect.

One side note. Lately several of my listeners has complained about too large dynamic range in the recordings. I tried slapping a multiband compressor across it all just to show them how bad the idea was. And, behold, they all smiled. I´m not sure what to think, here I spend all this time and money to catch all the nuances and all they want is compression? Anyway, probably something for a different topic.

Gunnar

Davedog Mon, 01/10/2005 - 18:15

Well...heck...Karl, thats as good as it gets...very very nice.

It seems you've 'warmed' things up just a touch from the previous sample..The esses dont bother me as much on this "final cut''...but then they really never did. Its a fine piece of engineering as well as a very good mix. Kudos..The stereo field has come around for me on this one...Its like the center is back rather than being quite so L-R...

zemlin Mon, 01/10/2005 - 18:33

Thanks.

A little EQ to tame the resonance of the room, messed a LOT with panning the different pairs of mics by different amounts before I got here, a couple tricks to boost the center of the image, and a little ozone. I didn't make any specific de-essing measures, but there is a small eq dip up in the 5K-6K range - probably made some difference.

I expected some phase issues with the mic arrangement I used. Initially I thought I had gotten away with something. Phasing became apparent when I tried to get that last 3 percent out of the mix and took a lot of tweaking to get close to what I wanted.

x

User login