Here's the set up.
I got a very last minute call to record an excellent ensemble this weekend. 70 voice choir (many trained voices) doing an acappella and piano accompanied set at the front of the stage (downstage) on the floor, right into a second set with small orchestra and 2 soloists towards the back of the stage to use preset choir risers and chairs behind the preset grand piano.
Then, after a 10 minute intermission, a Messiah sing along with the orchestra facing upstage and the choir out in the 600 seat house so they could all face the conductor.
I was going to go with a modified decca tree- type set up (using 3 stands) at the front of the stage and then just switch the center mic at intermission. (triangle @ 180 degrees from where it was) spot mic the soloists and hope for the best. They knew the sound on the Handel wouldn't be normal and they were comfortable with that.
When I got there to set up, they told me I couldn't use the front row and I almost was unable to use the front of the stage either. So.
I put the center mic on stage about 15' up. From the floor I ran up 2 omnis where the aisles meet the stage about 15-20' wide of center so I didn't break the fire code by blocking the aisles. Got my mics set for the soloists and got ready to record.
My plan was to move the solo spot mics upstage for the accompanied second set in the minute between songs and try to capture a little more presence (they couldn't be pre placed because the choir was standing there for the first set. To make a long story short, (too late, I know) I could only get one of the mics placed above the conductor's head and got off stage quickly.
For the Handel I wound up just leaving the 3 spaced omnis as they were making sure the soloists came through my spot mics and figured I would just back off on the gain of the mic onstage so the orchestra didn't completely overpower the choir.
I'm not going to be able to edit this recording for a few weeks (I'm a choral director and its December) but I've got a few questions, to hopefully learn from others if something like this or similar should happen again.
1. Re: set up, would you have done things differently? (I'm limited to 8 channels of pre into a Digi 002r and PT LE) and I didn't have an assistant.
2. Re: mixing do you ever adjust for delay by shifting Wavesa few ms? I didn't have time to check for phase issues or much of anything else and I'm not sure what I ended up with? ( I was aslo sending a monitor feed and couldn't solo channels- grrr) Does that usually create more problems than it helps? Most of my projects are pre planned with lots of set up time and I've learned mic placement is THE critical element to good sound. I'm hoping for the best here, and would like to have a good product for this excellent ensemble. (I'm thinking specifically of the second set where I moved the single spot mic in front of the decca tree)
3. I don't look forward to editing all those movt's of the Messiah in PT. I know people have mentioned Sequoia for its mass editing functions. What kind of features are you using that would speed up the process, if I should go that direction in the future. Noise reduction? Fade in / Fade out? Sound Quality? etc...
Thanks for any help you can provide and Happy Holidays to all!
Peace!
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Short takes from a more or less beginner. 1. When chaos rules,
Short takes from a more or less beginner.
1. When chaos rules, you do your best. I´ve been there and done it. Only thing I know for sure is that planning helps. When there is unsufficient time for planning, you have to improvise. Given that, I think you did really well, better than for sure.
2. I generally delay the mics. Not sure how much difference it makes though. For those last row woodwind spotmics though it helps putting them on the right position in the sound field. Takes a bit of thinking and quite a bit of listening to get it right. To help me I at least take pictures of the setup from several points. Helps if there are measurements, but in the end the ears has to rule.
3. I left PT a long time for this kind of job. Find that I save a lot of time by using Samplitude instead. The main points for me are object based editing and CD burning from inside the program. I would say I save 4 hours or more of work for a typical concert recording running Sam instead of PT. I have been seen doing a rough CD mix of a concert in 10 minutes, including burning the CD. In PT terms: each region may have its own settings of EQ, volume, echo, compressors and so on. So each mic may have totally different treatment for each CD track (or even part of track). And burning from inside Sam saves me from bouncing everything out on different files and then compiling together in a different program. Helps that effects are good-sounding as well. (Samplitude is Sequoias little brother, lacks a few things here and there but plenty good for me.)
Gunnar