Skip to main content

Here is the latest video on recording choirs, and follows on from the video from earlier this week where I talked about different stereo techniques.

The back story is that I had a project (actually 2 - I have another today) with choirs. I've recorded them before so asked if they'd mind me using some clips for a video. They were quite happy, so I changed the plan.

The venue was a large church in a town around 20 miles from here - I've never recorded there before but it's a decent size, so my plan would have been to do a simple stereo recording, in X/Y mode, my favourite. I decided to modify this and also rig an M/S pair, plus I'd put in two wide spaced cardioids and record in A/B mode - something I've not done for years. Power in churches is often very dodgy, so I decided to be totally self-sufficient and run on two Zoom recorders, on batteries - an H2 and an H6.

At the rehearsal I set up the two re-discovered Oktava MK-319 mics as the A/B pair, with 2 414's as the X/Y and the TLM103 for the mid mic and the U87 for the side mic of the M/S pair - these last 4 would go into the H6 and the A/B mics into the H2.

The rehearsal revealed the acoustics, for a big space, were not that reverberant, so I changed the 414's into fig-8 mode to capture some more of the sound of the venue, operating in Blumlein mode.

A good decision I feel - I liked the fuller sound. The approval version of the audio is here if you want to hear how it sounded in the end.

https://vimeo.com/6…

https://vimeo.com/6…

The audio clips in the video are also available here

https://www.eastang…

Comments

audiokid Sun, 04/17/2022 - 01:06

Hey Paul! What a great video! Where I live, the oldest church is nothing like these beauties! Look at that organ! 

I don't consider myself a recordist but I have recorded choirs (with an audience too) in Blumlein and really liked the results. I used the Royer SF 24. The sound is full and very natural which I think suites choirs so well. When mono'd it sill sounds full and the mids are there but not as forward in a good way. 

Very informative. Thanks for sharing.

paulears Fri, 04/22/2022 - 11:35

This might be of interest - a smaller consort, just 5 people and this piece written by a guy from the Ukraine, and they are using it to generate some money for one of the charities supporting people there.

paulears Tue, 04/26/2022 - 09:04

I'm doing another choir job tomorrow at a different church, one with much dryer characteristics. Ironically, it's a competition run by a classical UK broadcaster, and the prize will be...... a recording done by them.

 

It means that it's the choir being judged, not the recording, so I'm trying to get together a Decca Tree - I've never used one myself. It will be nice to try this out.

audiokid Tue, 04/26/2022 - 21:43

It means that it's the choir being judged, not the recording

I've done many just like like that for our provincial music festival competition. They are low stress and fun!

I kept is simple, used a big boom which stood behind the director, 4m up extending out to the choirs. Worked great.

Looking forward to hearing more about it!