Great fun recording/mixing children's opera

[Clueless]

Last week I did my annual community service for my daughter's Montessori school. They produce an opera and I thought it would be fun to "do it right". The performers are 1st-6th grade, and everyone participates, which means that vocal levels are not exactly Broadway grade. Nevertheless, here's what I had and did:

3 PCC-160s on the apron (Floor Right, Center, and Left)
3 hanging mics (Downstage Right, Center, and Left)
A Sennheisser K6 shotgun (aimed mid stage left)

2 ISA 430s (FC and FR)
2 Speck Mic Pre 5.0s and ASC EQs (FL and shotgun)
and three feeds from the insert out of the house Mackie SR24 mixer

I recorded to DP 4.52 using a Presonus FirePOD ("low" work priority was key to eliminating dropouts and clicks--go figure) to a Glyph hard disk. All recording inputs were direct out (no EQ or compression in the chain) I used the MasterWorks EQ to give me a picture of my sound spectrum, which helped me find and kill feedback frequences.

I used the ISAs and ASCs to notch out feedback frequences @ 700 Hz and 2.8 kHz,
shelved down everything over about 8k (with voices and piano only, there's not much going on there, and it just adds to the noise). I used the ISA compressors on the "main" mics so that I wouldn't get overwhelmed in the loud bits (lazy, I know).

I was thus able to get good volume levels during the performance with a minimum of feedback. Lots of people come up to me after the show and tell me "that's the best sound I've ever heard! It's amazing to hear what the children really sound like!"

My only regret is that I didn't realize that the FirePOD would lie to me about when it was clipping. It advertises "high headroom inputs" but that's a load of crap. In the big chorus numbers you can hear the stress. Next time I'm not letting anything go above -3dB, maybe even nothing above -6dB. Everything else sounds pretty good.

I then took the tracks home, mixed to my memory of the action on the stage (sometimes the center Mics were "left" and sometimes they were "right", depending on the action). After about 16 hours, a universal 12 dB/octove hi cut filter @ 8K (remember, I recorded everything direct), about 100 fader moves and some final limiting and leveling, I had 2 CDs which I gave to the school. They were BLOWN AWAY! They just asked me for 100 copies.

And I feel great! I can't wait until next year...

[Gradation]

Way to go! . Sounds like you had a great time!