A small documentary from recording a children choir

[ISedlacek]

For the last two days we had been recording a CD of the famous children choir Iuventus Gaude in a beautiful St. Ann´s Church.

Pictures show the choir in recording action and the choir listening to choirmaster´s inspiring comments in between takes.

[ISedlacek]

Schoeps MK21 in NOS position was the main stereo pair.

MK2 outriggers on the sides.

The complete microphone setup.

[ISedlacek]

An improvised control room in the sacristy.

Everything was recorded in Samplitude through RME AES-32 card. Main computer controlled via "remote desktop" laptop

Preamps:
Forssell SMP-2 (4 channels)
Thermionic Culture Earlybird 2.2 (as a line input for the piano)

AD - DAD AX-24 + Forssell custom made AD (recorded in 96kHz)

Millenia HV-3 on top of the rack. I wanted to make an ABC sample recording the same take using Forssell/Millennia/Ealrybird preamps. But in the end, there was unfortunately not much time for it ...

Neatly folded cables are the first step to success

It was very nice experience and hopefully also nice result. I will return to the recorded material in a few days and will start editing and sound optimising ...


PS: what kind of news is that suddenly I am allowed to use only 6 pictures in a post including smilies ?? Even if the pictures are stored at my own server ... I had to divide the post in three posts ... What sense does it have ? In the result it comes to exactly the same thing. There is only extra trouble with it ...

[Chris Wilson]

Dear ISedlacek

Thank you for posting these pictures, this looks like a joy of a project to work on.

Out of curiosity, would you tell us: Are you also running the DAD converter at 96k, or are you using DXD? I have heard such good things about both DAD and Forsell A/D, which a studio north of Seattle uses, and would love to hear an A/B comparison someday.

From the picture, I am guessing your main pair is eight or nine meters back, but cannot really tell, and I am only guessing at the hight.

Again, thank you for sharing images this project and your beautiful remote rig.

[jg1983]

Looks impressive, ISedlacek! Where did you get the long stereo bar from? I do a lot of recording with spaced omnis and have been searching the net for a couple of weeks now for a simple stereo bar that's about 1m long and can only find the really expensive ones (AEA, Schoeps etc.).

Jonathan

[ISedlacek]

Originally Posted by Chris Wilson

Dear ISedlacek


Out of curiosity, would you tell us: Are you also running the DAD converter at 96k, or are you using DXD? I have heard such good things about both DAD and Forsell A/D, which a studio north of Seattle uses, and would love to hear an A/B comparison someday.

From the picture, I am guessing your main pair is eight or nine meters back, but cannot really tell, and I am only guessing at the hight.

It was recorded in 96k. I am still not sure about any substantial sound advantage of DSD/DXD formats.
The main pair was about 6 meters back from the choir

Originally Posted by jg1983

Where did you get the long stereo bar from? I do a lot of recording with spaced omnis and have been searching the net for a couple of weeks now for a simple stereo bar that's about 1m long and can only find the really expensive ones (AEA, Schoeps etc.).

Jonathan

2-3 years ago a local turner made it for me - for about 25 EUR . It looks and works exactly like those terribly overpriced bars from Schoeps ad DPA ...

[DaveD]

Hi Ivo,

Any chance of us hearing samples of this recording in the near future?

Dave

[ISedlacek]

Originally Posted by DaveD

Hi Ivo,

Any chance of us hearing samples of this recording in the near future?

Dave

Hopefully :-))

BTW this choir has won gold and silver medal this weekend at the World Choir Games in Graz (among hundreds of choirs from the whole world) - in the category of children choirs and spiritual music

Graz | July 2008: Musica Mundi

[bcgood]

Originally Posted by ISedlacek

Hopefully :-))

I'm crossing my fingers, I would love to hear this. Great looking set up except where's the tape? Just kidding

[brle]

Originally Posted by ISedlacek

Main computer controlled via "remote desktop" laptop

Hi Ivo,
this is very interesting setup, could you elaborate on this? If I understand it correctly, you need to install Samplitude only on main PC and then you can access to files directly from a laptop. Do you use XP professional "remote desktop" features or similar softwer on your computers and how are they connected (ad hoc wireless network comes to mind)?

Sascha

[ISedlacek]

Originally Posted by brle

Hi Ivo,
this is very interesting setup, could you elaborate on this? If I understand it correctly, you need to install Samplitude only on main PC and then you can access to files directly from a laptop. Do you use XP professional "remote desktop" features or similar softwer on your computers and how are they connected (ad hoc wireless network comes to mind)?

Sascha

This is actually very cool thing that I discovered with a help and hint of my computer friend. Originally I have laptop + Magma expansion with Lynx AES inside for mobile recordings. But this setup is quite a frustrating lottery for me, sometimes works, other time "no Lynx drivers available" etc. Simply headache.

To take a big computer means also to carry LCD, mouse, keyboard, which is not very exciting.

But I got a hint about the feature called "remote desktop" (normally available in XP and Vista) that enables one computer to be fully controlled by another computer. After some tweaking I finally managed to connect my laptop with studio PC in a way that I open "remote desktop" function on laptop and see the PC on my laptop and fully control it (the laptop works just as a LCD/mouse/keyboard in this case). The computers are connected via ethernet cable

It worked great and my next step is to make a rack PC specially devoted to mobile recordings , which will be controlled by the laptop - that means no LCD etc. needed + it will be placed in a rack with other things,which in the end results as if I record just on a laptop (very handy). Ideal setup for me ... (with the Magma/Lynx thing as a backup in case something fails)

[brle]

Very cool indeed!