Choir with MKH8040 ORTF

Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 4:08 am

Hello,

wonder if you could give some feedback on the below Choir recording. This was done during a rehearsal yesterday in a midsized stone church (Reverb around 2.5 sec) with a pair of MKH8040's in ORTF
The concert is on Sunday so hopefully with your input, I can improve on the sound some more!

http://download.yousendit.com/E3526C887E5C0617

There will also be some organ on the opposite side of the altar (where the choir stands) for some of the pieces. How do you guys usually deal with a situation like that!?

Thanks a lot in advanced and as always kind regards!! Thumbs Up

TonyK.

Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 5:15 am

I EQ'd in a lot of low end before the basses came out. - about 7 dB at 70Hz Q1. I also boosted treble a bit - almost 3dB at 4300 Hz Q1/3 to add a little clarity.

You might check the angle on your mics - seems little lacking in the center to me. You might need to angle the mics in just a bit to strengthen the center (unless there really aren't any singers in the middle).

As far as balancing the organ, I think I'd just move the mics closer to the choir if the organ is too strong. Hopefully you'll get a chance to check with the choir AND organ before the performance. You've got plenty of reverb - moving the mics closer to the singers will probably help on all counts.

Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 12:51 am

Thanks Zemlin......

when moving the microphones in towards the chorus, I feel that individual voices start to stick out. Pretty tricky to get it right, especially as the organ also comes into play. Would raising the mics help here?

Hopefully there will be a few more basses and tenors during the concert in order to help the low end....

Any other comments are more than welcome!

Thanks,

TonyK

Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 5:30 am

Just to round this thread up, here is the same expert as above, but this time from the day of the concert.......

https://download.yousendit.com/5B340CDB5770410F

Final choice of mics was ShoepsMK21 --> Audient 008 --> PT002

Would be great to hear a little feedback from the pros around here!

Thanks all!

TonyK

Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2008 8:17 am

Either this is one of those cases where butts in seats made a dramatic difference in the sound of the reverb tail or the mics were closer the second time around.

I didn't really find much lacking in the middle on the first example - it was a good width for a chorus. It was a bit washed out and muddy. In the second example, the muddiness is all but gone.

The LF stuff is problematic in these recordings. The extreme low end is highly subject to some pretty aggressive rumbling. The basses are mostly non-existent. However, I wouldn't personally EQ them to bring them out. No matter how I tried this now and in the past with other recordings, it never comes out the way that I hoped. If the basses aren't strong in the performance, there's no way to get them sounding good and strong in the recording.

I would personally HPF starting around 80Hz on the sections where the organ isn't in. (Unless the organist never touches anything bigger than a 12' pipe or so.)

Overall, I think it's quite fine.

The 8040s sound nice - very organic. IMO, they sound more like the Schoeps than they do the MKH line.

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 7:31 pm

Thanks Cucco,

I appreciate you commenting on this! Very cool! Thumbs Up

Best,

TonyK.

Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 10:31 am

I do a lot of choir recording, and it is nice to hear good recordings like yours.

The closer mics helped. The natural reverb is nice, but too predominate in the first sample. I agree that you could roll some of the low end off. Also, you might want to tell them to watch page turns, or maybe I was hearing s's. Because of the note issues they probably would do better reading if they weren't.

-Steve

<edit>
On re-reading my post, it sounds pretty harsh. That was not my intent. That piece is not easy, and they did a good job!
</edit>

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