Submitted by zemlin on Fri, 12/23/2011 - 15:19

Sample from Christmas Choral Concert

I was called in on very short notice to record a weekend's worth of choral music by the Indianapolis Children's Choir - an organization that serves over 3000 kids in central Indiana.

Here's a piece from their Youth Chorale - high school kids.
Recorded with two MS pairs - AKG SE300B + CK91 and CK94 behind the conductor. A pair of RODE NT2000s stuck out over the ledge of the balcony.
Recorded into a PreSonus 16.4.2 - from there into Samplitude Pro. Front mics are time-aligned with the back pair.

sonicartistry.net/mp3/icc/AngelsSingSaturday3-IYC-OhHoly.mp3
If this track is selected for a CD, additional mix/edit work will be done.

 

Attached files

Comments

Thanks.
Listening today, this mix sounds bright/harsh - which is not the mics I used. These tracks are eq'd heavily to take care of some of the color in the hall - so that needs a little more work.

I really like both the AKGs and the Rodes. The AKGs are very even-tempered mics, and I love the flexibility of the modular design.

I'm VERY interested in the PreSonus 16/4/2 console. Are you enjoying it? I've heard lots of good things about it, and the features for the $ seem outstanding.

For me, it's time to move on from the Mackie Onyx series for large input counts. (When I use the Onyx 16/4/2, I use the FW card for tracking, and the analog side for mixing CD/SD backups. I've just replaced the FW card - which failed again - and this is the LAST time I will do so).

I see you're using Samplitude with the PreSonus, so it would seem even wiser for me to move to this for one of my larger live rigs.

16.4.2

I am very happy with the Presonus board. For the money, the feature set can't be beat. I'd give it a 8.5/10, as there are a few little glitches and some features I would have like to see different, but overall it is an outstanding bargain. I track directly into Samp with it, no issues there. I run pretty big buffers to ensure reliable recording. When tracking in the studio, monitoring through the mixer prevents any latency issues, and is far easier to setup than dealing with it on the DAW. I use a wireless network and an iPad when doing live gigs, so I can stand up with the talent and get monitor mixes dialed in, or walk around the venue and tweak the EQ or the mix. Love that!

The solo function requires a couple of button pushes that I would like to avoid, and the release on the compressor is short relative the the indicated scale. Presonus says it's because of the RMS detection - the scale reads 40-1000 - in reality the actual release is about 10% of that figure - so I generally operate with it maxxed. 16 channels, 6 aux outs, two effects loops, dynamics & 4 band sweepable EQ on EVERYTHING including effects, stereo ins, auxes and submix buses, speaker delay, (8) 31 band GEQs, full multitrack recording via firewire, and remote control from an iPad - this in a board for under $2000 that I can drop in a padded gatorbag and carry out over my shoulder.