Orchestral Soundtrack location recording advice

Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 8:08 am

Congratulations, Joe! What a contract!

Perhaps when you have back come down to earth and you have a few spare moments you could list the mics you used and their positioning relative to the members of the orchestra?

Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 9:06 am

Thanks, Boswell. Not surprisingly, mic choices and positioning were the least of my worries; I had a lot of stuff to pick from, although as you can imagine we didn't have much time to tweak or adjust. The Sunday setup was WITHOUT the musicians, so I had to go with what I knew already worked with these players, in that church & setup in particular.

Aside from about 15 minutes of "Play & tweak" time during the first session, we pretty much had to hit the mark & go, making any changes beyond that would seriously impact the overall sound from one cut to the next....

If I could figure out a way to put pictures up here, I'd give you the stage plot... We were lucky in that it was a VERY big church, wich a great mix of carpet & hardwoods where we needed it, and a huge, high ceiling (with some kind of acoustical tile/treatment, too!) for lots of smooth, creamy reverb. (I added next to none in the final mix, save for a few spot mics that needed some extra sheen.)

The percussion and most of the brass were up on the "Altar" area, high above and behind the rest. The Trpts and some of the winds were mid level, on and around the steps, while the core of the orchestra - strings mostly, plus celese & harp - were all down on the main floor of the sanctuary. They had taken out the first four or five rows of pews a long time ago, since the church is often used for big choirs with orchestra, etc. (We expect to come back here for more soundtrack work, when/if it happens again.)

I got the main sound I wanted with a 5.1 array hanging almost directly over the conductor's head. Three DPA 4006 TL's for L, C, & R., using an AEA Decca boom, with two AT 4051's for the Ls, Rs, facing the rear of the hall, on tall stands at the same height as the front three. For the most part, I needed little else, but the spot mics on the sections where a great help when rounding out some of the parts.

Due to space, available inputs and all the usual considerations, we went with spot/touchup mics on each section, a total of 20 in all. There were vintage KMi-84s on the Vl1s, 2nds & Violas, AT 4050 on the celli, MXL V6 on the basses. Some SM81's on the winds, Audix SCX1's on the celeste and harp. More assorted AT 4050's and 4040's on "percussion world", tymps, and french horns, with my much-loved AEA R84 on the low brass & tuba. (WOW!!!! What a sound....)

Surprisingly, I had little pressure from anyone on choices or placement; it was assumed I knew the hall, the music & the players to get it done correctly. Happily, everyone had their job to do, and did it well, so the tech side of things came together beautifully.

As you can imagine, there were dozens of OTHER things going on, entirely separate from the nuts & bolts of it all that made the gig really, um.....interesting! Smile

Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 9:43 am

cool!
did the players only get click, or a little monitor mix as well?

Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 10:10 am

Most times, it was just click. Once in a while, for rehearsal purposes, we'd bring up the original audio. This was done at one point when they were doing two cues that were not traditional music; one was an orchestral bed for an original song being added, which was a little tough to track on its own, until they heard how the piece was supposed to gently speed up and down in certain places. Once they got the hang of it, we turned off the guide track and went back to click-only for the takes.

Amazingly, I had little bleed at all from the cans. Since it was single-ear only, there were no open earcups blowing sound out into the air. We had some early instances of cans no being worn (and laying on the floor blowing click sound UP) but once we caught that, it was pretty smooth and a non-issue from then on.

Posted: Tue May 01, 2007 10:20 am

Thanks, Joe. Nice description of it all.

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