Mic placement problems multiple venues

Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 1:38 pm

An honerable mention goes to the very important newspaper
photographer, who asks to have the main pair moved for the sake of the photos, then proceeds to take 50 loud snapping photos during the
chamber music concert, all to get one boring photo for an article.

Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 1:54 pm

aracu wrote:

An honerable mention goes to the very important newspaper
photographer, who asks to have the main pair moved for the sake of the photos, then proceeds to take 50 loud snapping photos during the
chamber music concert, all to get one boring photo for an article.

AMEN!!!!!

I did a concert about 7 years ago of a concert band (going nameless of course). The band hired a photographer to come in and shoot some promo photos. Instead of ruining ALL the work I had put into proper placement and height, I decided since I had plenty of room between the first row of chairs and the lip of the stage, I would lay my stands down so that I could just prop them back up in less than 60 seconds if necessary.

So...while my Schoeps (4 in total) are laying on the ground in mic clips attached to stands, the conductors bratty-ass children came RUNNING into the hall and proceeded to STEP on one of the mics. Another one of the children came over and started smacking one saying "HELLO....IS THIS ON?!!"

Then, of course the photographer wasn't curteous enough to turn off the sound effects on his piece of sh*t digital camera (no manual shutter - just a EVF handheld digital that beeped with every picture!!!!!)

Grrr..

Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2007 8:03 pm

Yes we had a photographer hold up an entire dress rehearsal (we were recording both audio and video of the dress) this summer. He was suppose to be in at 10 am and we had to have all of our microphones out the picture (pun intended) and he never showed until 11:00 am and they wanted to start at 11 so we had to scramble to get our stuff up and working in a couple of minutes after he finished the photography.

Bummer.

He said he had gotten the wrong time from his administrative assistant (really his wife) and that is why he was 1 hour late. Not a good way to run a railroad (or a photography business).

This was a children's play and trying to keep all those kids on stage for an hour without them going crazy was amusing. We were charging a daily rate so it really did not matter to us.

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2007 10:42 am

Thomas W. Bethel wrote:

There was an organ professor who shall remain nameless but he was always complaining that we were not really capturing his playing and he had taken it upon himself to figure out the best placement for the organ recording microphones after doing much experimentation with his own Sony microphones and a tape deck.

B oy, that is some story!
O rganists can be temperamental!
E xpect the unexpected, huh?

Razz

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 6:40 am

hughesmr wrote:

Thomas W. Bethel wrote:

There was an organ professor who shall remain nameless but he was always complaining that we were not really capturing his playing and he had taken it upon himself to figure out the best placement for the organ recording microphones after doing much experimentation with his own Sony microphones and a tape deck.

B oy, that is some story!
O rganists can be temperamental!
E xpect the unexpected, huh?

:P

No actually his initials are HT. It sounds like you might know about this. I laughed myself silly reading your reply. Thanks for making my day.

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2007 2:09 pm

Thomas W. Bethel wrote:

No actually his initials are HT. It sounds like you might know about this. I laughed myself silly reading your reply. Thanks for making my day.

Haven’t the foggiest who you are talking about.
After all, there are lots of organists around.
Should I figure it out, could I ask you if I am right?
Kindly let me know at your earliest convenience.
Except, of course, if you’d rather not say.
Let’s keep it to ourselves so you don’t get into more trouble.
Losing his business would be a real bummer, I’m sure!

Very Happy

Sorry, nothing else to do today!

Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 1:19 pm

I get some of those photgrapher issues on a pretty regular basis. My favorite is a client of mine where the photographer sets up in the center aisle right under the main pair. He uses a digital SLR so there aren't sound effects, but they once asked what "all those strange sounds" were on the recording.

I let them know Very Happy

On a different subject (yet strangely similar)... I have a client here in LA that was a student at Oberlin way back in the late 70s. Heard a bunch of pretty good sounding recordings on 1/4" tape with Oberlin Labels on them. When I talked to this client, I mentioned that the Oberln ones sounded pretty good and he said- "there was this guy named Tom Bethel that was doing all the recordings back then."

Tom- your work travels.

--Ben

Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 1:30 pm

Ben,

Thanks for the heads up, nice to know I am remembered.

Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 2:26 pm

Ever hear of Habershame Records in Oberlin, or a name similar?

Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 3:37 pm

BRH wrote:

Ever hear of Habersham Records in Oberlin, or a name similar?

No never but there are a lot of recording places that have come and gone and I worked with most of them. I've worked with Gasparo, CRI, Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs, Mark Infinity Sound, Telarc, Mark Records, and many more small labels. I have never heard of Habersham but they may exist and I just have not run into them. It could also be a student at the college as there have been many smaller lables with one or two CDs that were done by students or student groups.

Here is some information on the WWW

http://cdbaby.com/cd/bobshaw

is this the record company you are referring to?

Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 9:05 am

That's not it.
It's Habersham.
This would be about 40years ago.
I transfered an LP of Oberlin professors.. woodwind quintet..Danzi, Cambini...... for CD replication. I couldn't get a hold of the master tape. I can't remember the engineers name, but I think he passed away, and his wife or son wouldn't respond to telephone calls. And you know what LP to CD sounds like. It wasn't a very good recording, but excellent performance.
I keep trying to find the tape.......

Another hijacked thread!

Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 7:29 pm

Here are the names of the people that would have been here at that time

Danny Born -Technical Assistant in the Con

Hugh Couburn - Audio Engineer in the Con before me

Howard White Director of Audio Visual

Howard Hoffman - Guest Engineer

Jack Renner (yes that Jack Renner) Century Advent Records

Plus a lot of people from Cleveland that use to do recordings of Concerts and records for Faculty members. This included Engineer Paul Hamman of Suma Recording Studio (aka Cleveland Recording in prior years)

Can't think of anyone else right now.

I came in 1969 so it would probably have been Hugh Couburn who was my predecessor .

Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 8:19 pm

Thomas, thanks for your reply. I need to check with one of the players about the name again.

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