Skip to main content

Hi,
How do you record a group or choir with just 4 headphones available in the vocal room?

Topic Tags

Comments

pcrecord Wed, 12/21/2016 - 11:08

With detachable headphones they could have all on ear.
If it's an accapella act, they don't need headphone at all.
You use splitters to duplicate the 4 headphone lines to make 8 but the PA need to be solid enough so it doesn't overload.
Putting a speaker in the room is an option but puting it out of phase with 8 mics would be complicated.
You could also split them in 2 groupe of 4.
I once did a group shout with only 2 headphones and 10 persons in the room. those with headphones counted the measures and it worked ok

audiokid Wed, 12/21/2016 - 15:55

bouldersound, post: 445928, member: 38959 wrote: Remy's trick for recording a group and monitoring with a speaker:

Get all your levels, placement etc. sorted and do the session without changing anything, then with the group out of the way record just the bleed of the speaker in to the mic. Invert the polarity of that track and mix it in to cancel out the bleed.

Have you ever tried this?

bouldersound Wed, 12/21/2016 - 16:35

audiokid, post: 445929, member: 1 wrote: Have you ever tried this?

I've used all the elements but not in this exact configuration. It's a null test, and the thing that doesn't null is the source. It's not that different from the Grateful Dead B&K mics used with the wall of sound. But that was two mics and differential drive circuitry to allow real time use.

If the speaker is in the mic's null to begin with, and the room is dead enough, it's mostly the lower frequencies (where the mic goes omni) that you have to cancel out. Higher frequencies are taken care of by the mic's polar response. That makes it more tolerant of small changes in positioning. Since lower frequencies have longer wavelengths you would have to move something a greater distance to go substantially out of phase.