Just made the best recording of my life! A cappella choir

[Corran]

Just had to share! This was a chamber choir recital that was performed in my college's hallmark building, which features a beautiful rotunda with plenty of reverb.

Signal chain was two Earthworks QTC-1's into a Zoom H4. Signal processing was very light noise reduction and slight stereo widening. Simpler was better!

Get in to the holiday spirit with this clip!

[MichaelPatrick]

Corran, very nice! I like that space too.

Thanks for sharing the holiday cheer.

[bcgood]

Originally Posted by Corran

Just had to share! This was a chamber choir recital that was performed in my college's hallmark building, which features a beautiful rotunda with plenty of reverb.

Signal chain was two Earthworks QTC-1's into a Zoom H4. Signal processing was very light noise reduction and slight stereo widening. Simpler was better!

Get in to the holiday spirit with this clip!

Sounds great man. What stereo technique did you use? Also, what are you using for your noise reduction and stereo widening?

Great stuff man, that actually did put me in the holiday spirit.

[KEYBEEETSSS]

NICSE

[Corran]

Sorry, mics were in A-B about 40cm apart.

Noise reduction plugin is called Reafir, from Reaper's plugin pack available at reaper.fm.

Stereo widening was done in Sonar with a surround plugin built-in to Sonar.

Thanks for the comments!

[NorseHorse]

And just think. You could put the cables over your shoulder, the mics and H4 in a small case, and the stand(s) in your other hand. Uncluttered is beautiful.

[Corran]

Yep, exactly what happened.

I really wish I would have had my camera on me to take a picture of the rotunda and mics.

[gearstudent]

sounds great!

did you use the built in mics on the zoom as well, or simply the Earthworks straight into the preamp?

it would be nice if you could place a limiter in the signal chain. that way if the crowd applause is loud the limiter would catch it rather than cause digital overs. that way you could run a hotter signal.

i'm curious what the decision making process was to use a stereo widening effect in mixdown.

it sounds like i'm hearing some preamp distortion in the louder parts. i would be curious to hear what the earthworks mics into a millennia media hv-3 would sound like.

[Corran]

Earthworks directly in - no internal mics.

I widened the image a bit to more accurately portray what I heard at the recital. I guess the mics could have been a bit wider spaced.

I listened to this a little more and I hear the distortion as well. I was running the mics a little hot, so I think I pushed the preamps a little too hard. Oh well. I didn't get a sound check .

[NorseHorse]

Replying to GearStudent...

- You can only record two-channels on an H4, so he was only using the Earthworks.
- There is a built-in limiter on the H4, but limiting applausing isn't really necessary generally speaking. The instantaneous claps that go "over" hardly cause any distortion because of their short duration and because it sounds like distortion in the first place. At least I tend not to worry about it.
- I've compared the H4 preamps to Great River, and the main differences are less hiss and less "flat". But running an external preamp would require AC power, a rack, and another interface or different recorder. The H4 can dominate the convenience/quality area for a lot of situations. I borrowed one the other day for a voice recital in a packed home; perfect.

[gearstudent]

I think he did an awesome job. It makes me curious on how it can be even better.

I would think an HV-3 preamp would not be an undue burden to bring around. It will fit in a backpack with the other stuff. For outdoor recording with no access to AC power, it's an issue. But inside, there has to be an outlet around. a large size computer carrying bag could work well for all of the stuff too.

It sounds great, and with an HV-3, it's such an easy task to step it up to hyper-great. maybe an RNC compressor to function as a limiter to clamp the crowd noise (i'd suggest a cranesong, but then we're getting past backback carrying). if there's no crowd, then straight from the HV-3 to the recorder.

earthworks>>hv3>>rnc>>recorder

that's a strong little setup.

[MichaelPatrick]

Another stereo preamp option is a Grace Lunatec V3 (about $1,550), which can run on a battery.

There are lots of options. One with a high performance/cost ratio is DAV BG1 ($710) or BG1u (rack model, $940). Again, both are stereo.

Originally Posted by gearstudent

I think he did an awesome job. It makes me curious on how it can be even better.

I would think an HV-3 preamp would not be an undue burden to bring around. It will fit in a backpack with the other stuff. For outdoor recording with no access to AC power, it's an issue. But inside, there has to be an outlet around. a large size computer carrying bag could work well for all of the stuff too.

It sounds great, and with an HV-3, it's such an easy task to step it up to hyper-great. maybe an RNC compressor to function as a limiter to clamp the crowd noise (i'd suggest a cranesong, but then we're getting past backback carrying). if there's no crowd, then straight from the HV-3 to the recorder.

earthworks>>hv3>>rnc>>recorder

that's a strong little setup.

[hughesmr]

Nice job, Bryan! Great sense of space and complete intelligibility ... the goals of any good choral recording. I used QTC1s for a few years and found them to be pretty finnicky on this type of material. I usually needed a good HPF to clean things up, so I respect getting good clean sounds on location using those mics.

If you don't mind, I'd like to submit a recording (in the spirit of the season) to your thread that I made just yesterday of a local University all-womens chorus performing an excerpt from Britten's Ceremony of Carols. I think this came out quite well, in a great space that (believe it or not) was actually quite deadened from a FULL house.

Signal chain was a single pair of Schoeps CMC6MK21 wide cards > DAV BG1 > Korg MR1000 in DSD 5.6. No processing whatsoever except for the 33hz HPF on the pre. The MK21s were in A/B spaced about 7 feet (too much I know, but I had to straddle the center aisle of the church for the choral procession). The swirling acoustic helped fill in the center, so the wide spacing works here. Mics were about 12' high, no toe-out or angling. There is no spot on the harp ... plenty of presence from the mains from about 20' away.

And yes, this is a live concert recording in a completely packed church. My mics were actually IN the crowd. I wish all audiences could be so quiet!

As usual, comments welcome. Happy Holidays!

[bcgood]

Sounds great Michael. It sounds very airy and intelligible, also very 3D. I messed around with the Steinberg Stereo Expander, (Which you can use to actually make the stereo image smaller as well) real quick and closing my eyes with headphones on I actually preferred the stereo image slightly smaller. Either way it sounds great.

[mljung]

Originally Posted by Corran

Signal chain was two Earthworks QTC-1's into a Zoom H4. Signal processing was very light noise reduction and slight stereo widening. Simpler was better!

Get in to the holiday spirit with this clip!

Once again we must realize that to obtain good sound: good acoustics and microphone placement is the most important! Top notch gear can improve on this but a high quality room is the key. [I do not forget the musicians, their role is obvious]

[Corran]

I'd have to agree that nicer preamps would undoubtably make a slightly better recording (after all, the Zoom is fairly bottom of the barrell, preamp wise). But I've always been one to worry about really nice preamps last. However, my next big preamp purchase is definitely going to be a four channel Sytek. Especially at my age I find it a little overboard to spend thousands of dollars on preamps.

hughesmr, I'll check your clip out later today...gotta go to school right now

[mrsteaks]

Originally Posted by hughesmr

Nice job, Bryan! Great sense of space and complete intelligibility ... the goals of any good choral recording.
If you don't mind, I'd like to submit a recording (in the spirit of the season) to your thread that I made just yesterday of a local University all-womens chorus performing an excerpt from Britten's Ceremony of Carols.
And yes, this is a live concert recording in a completely packed church. My mics were actually IN the crowd. I wish all audiences could be so quiet!
As usual, comments welcome. Happy Holidays!

Byran and Michael, my kudos added to the chorus (pun intended)! Stellar recordings, both. Outstanding!