Gospel Mayhem! Your thoughts?

[zakco]

Hello everyone...

I have a upcoming gig that is looking to be a real challenge and I'm interested in any suggestions you all might have...

The room is a medium sized theater (approx 700 seats I believe) and it will be a live performance with a full house. The room is quite dead compared to other venues of its size.

There will be approx 90 voices accompanied by Drums, Upright Bass, Elec Gt and Acoustic Piano. In addition there will be 3 soloists (1 is the piano player). I've done plenty of choir recordings and live bands, but never both at once in close proximity...

While I have little or no control over the stage layout, I have been assured that the recording is very important and whatever mic placement I choose will be fine with no concern for visuals. This is good...

I will be tracking to Radar and an Alesis HD24 (via lightpipe) for backup. I have 24 channels of mixed variety outboard preamps and a decent mic selection. I will be located in a somewhat isolated control booth at the back of the room.

I'm confident about my about my choices for spot micing the instruments and soloists, but where I'm a little concerned is with the choir. As you can see from the drawing, the band will be located at center stage directly in front of the choir risers. And much to my dismay, there will be at least 10 monitor wedges onstage!!

My plan so far for the choir:

-Main pair Schoeps CMC6/mk4 in ORTF on a 12' boom stand at the front/center of the stage. This would be aimed for optimum choir coverage but obviously I'm going to get a LOT of band here. I suppose they will be "main show mics" and not really choir mics.

-Each choir section (4) will get a C414 XLS in wide cardoid as a spot mic.

My concerns of course are with the main pair and whether or not they will end up being useful or simply a jumbled mess. The band members are all professionals and are prepared to keep their stage volume minimal, but still when you consider there's a full drum kit and monitors, how low can they really get?

Assuming some the local remote forum vets have had similar gigs, I'm very interested in your opinions of my plan and any suggestions you may have...

Thanks!

-Zak

[zakco]

Stage plot as provided by clients:

[zakco]

I have at my disposal:

Mics:

Schoeps CMC6/mk4 (2)
AKG C414XLS (4)
AT 4050(2)
Geffel UMT70s (1)
Soundelux U195 (1)
Josephson C42 (2)
Shure SM81 (2)
AEA r84 (1)
Shure SM7b (1)
Neumann KMS105 (2)
Senn MD409 (1)
Senn MD421 (2)
Senn MD441 (2)
AKG D112 (1)
Shure SM57 (lots of em..)
Sure SM58 (lots of em...3 handheld)
The theatre also has a decent selection of mics including an audix drum micing kit (don't know much about these).

Preamps:

Millenia HV3D (8)
API 512c (6)
GR MP2-NV (2)
Hardy M1 (4)
Mackie ONYX 800R (8)

[pkautzsch]

Using fig-8 mics for the choir might solve some of the worst bleed issues. Have the nulls face the monitors and/or drums, and rather put up some more mics. I could also imagine having 2 mics per choir section: one for the front rows, one for the back rows. Done a similar thing with loud brass vs. not-so-loud strings once (with TLM170s), and actually had to put up another brass spot then!
A wider spaced pair way out in the room might help to glue the stuff togehter.

I love wide cardioids (Schoeps MK21) for choir spots, but not with a band and monitor wedges in front.

[roonsbane]

I agree with pkautzsch

Using fig-8 mics for the choir might solve some of the worst bleed issues.

I have done many of these gospel recordings and Figure 8's on the choir is key. Nice and tight with at least four (more if you can fit the stands). Also, consider an NOS (or for a slightly more boring image, an ORTF) facing the audience. The crowd is integral to the show. People are going to be finding god, and you do not want to miss that.

On shows I have done the drummers can't play less than fff, so if you have any kind of gobos you may very well need it.

Cameron

[zakco]

I can do fig8s, I'm just having a hard time visualizing the position where I would get good coverage of the voices and still keep the band in the null points...

Could you describe the positioning?

Thanks for the feedback!

-Zak

[pkautzsch]

Seen from the side of the stage:

[LoudChris]

+1 For the figure 8s.

[zakco]

Originally Posted by pkautzsch

Seen from the side of the stage:

Thanks, that helps.
Ok...dumb question...with a fig8 capsule are the null points equal on both the vertical and horizontal plane? Or in other words, do the top and bottom nulls match the sides?

-Z-

[zakco]

Originally Posted by roonsbane

Also, consider an NOS (or for a slightly more boring image, an ORTF) facing the audience. The crowd is integral to the show. People are going to be finding god, and you do not want to miss that.

I was planning a spaced pair of omnis hung out in the house for that. If I understand you correctly, you're talking about a pair at the front of stage facing into the audience? That sounds interesting and would reduce the delay that I'd have from the distant omnis.

On shows I have done the drummers can't play less than fff, so if you have any kind of gobos you may very well need it.

The theatre has a few and I'm expecting to need them...

Thanks,

-Zak

[roonsbane]

Zack Said:

If I understand you correctly, you're talking about a pair at the front of stage facing into the audience?

Exactly! If you can, you could try moving it back over the audience a few rows. This will require hanging which is not always easy.

You also said:

Ok...dumb question...with a fig8 capsule are the null points equal on both the vertical and horizontal plane? Or in other words, do the top and bottom nulls match the sides?

I am trying to imagine your null question conceptually. I am not sure I understand, but I would recommend staring at some frequency response plots for fig8 mics and remember the sensitivity response diagram is 3 dimensional. Of course 0 degrees is directly facing the front center of the capsule and 180 degrees is directly in the back which looks just as pkautzsch diagramed, much like putting two basket balls side by side. I hope this helps!

Cameron

[David Rick]

Originally Posted by zakco

Thanks, that helps.
Ok...dumb question...with a fig8 capsule are the null points equal on both the vertical and horizontal plane? Or in other words, do the top and bottom nulls match the sides?
-Z-

In a word, yes. In fact, the polar patterns are figures of rotation. Imagine they were made of wire and spun about the mic's main axis.

With non pencil-shaped mics, there can be minor differences due to asymmetrical body shadowing, but only at high frequencies.

David L. Rick
Seventh String Recording

[KEYBEEETSSS]

HEY ZAk I do/produce a lot of major Live recordings in Gospel & that one dude I really don't know what to say; there really isn't a best way if u ask me; I would just hope that all the performances are on point enuff to where it won't be so bacl on the back end & they don't have to worry about to many fixes; jus adds so they way the mix can be somewhat cleaner; I knw this doen't help much but WOWWW is all I can say....