Building Music- Experimental Spatial Music Performance

[fifthcircle]

This week, I have been involved in a rather involved concert over at the Getty Center in Los Angeles. It is a part of a joint project between the Getty Research Institute and the Los Angeles Philharmonic dealing with music that has been written with specific architecture in mind. The concerts and lectures have been split between the Getty and Disney Hall.

Tonight's concert is in the auditorium of the Getty center which is a rather interesting space as it has an odd-shaped balcony and several "nooks" and odd shapes. Musicians have been placed all around the auditorium. There are vocalists in the balcony, other musicians elsewhere up above, 4 brass players inside the audience seating area, steel drums in the back, 2 tubas hidden in the back corner, a bari sax and contrabass sax in the other corner... A string quartet will play, but with 2 cellos on either side of the stage, violin in the balcony and viola in the audience.

So the question comes, how do we mic it? Oh yeah... add to that the fact that on the ground floor, no stands are allowed in the seating area.

I hung 5 mics from the ceiling- my AKG 426 in 90-degree hypercardiods (blumlein screwed with the image because of the rear lobes of the pickup), and 4 B&K 4006s- 2 on the flanks of the 426 and 2 from the second electric for the balcony.

I placed an ORTF pair of Schoeps CMC6MK5's on a stand at the back of the stage facing the audience... Why, because musicians were sitting on stage with their backs to the audience of course. (in a concert like this, you'd expect the musicians to face forward?).

2 Schoeps CMC6MK41 hypercardiods were also clamped to the lighting towers on either side of the stage facing out into the audience- not for applause, but to capture as much of the musicians that are standing out there as possible.

Lastly, the front edge of the balcony and the back corner with the saxes weren't really being picked up with this setup so I added 2 last mics. On the front of the balcony, I added another Schoeps CMC6MK5 (but in omni this time) at the front corner to pick up the woodwinds and violin (from the back of the mic) and the singer in the back corner of the balcony (from the front of the mic). The saxes got the other MK5 (in cardiod) hanging over the edge of the back side of the balcony on a long boom looking straight down.

All mics are being recorded at 24/96 to my Sequoia rig that is stationed backstage. The multi-track mix will first be delivered in stereo to the clients and we may take it to a studio to do the music justice in a surround mix setting...

While it is only 12 channels of mics, I must say this has been one of the most difficult recordings I have ever worked on. The saving grace is the fact that the acoustics are very dry, but the sound travels quite well due to a little bit of reverb (about 0.5 seconds or so)... The acoustics are actually perfect for this performance.

Here are some photos of what I was dealing with...

--Ben

[Remoteness]

Ben,

Great report.

Sounds like a cool but challenging project.

Keep up the good work!

[fifthcircle]

Concert was last night... Everything went really well. Thank goodness for rehearsals, because this was one of those jobs where the "standard" stuff just flat out doesn't work. Throw the books out the window- it is time to start over.

Time for mixing....

-Ben

[Ted Nightshade]

What a cool project! Wish I could have been there.