MRC vs Musikverein - shootout for best acoustic venue

[KostasM]

Dear All,

The Melbourne Recital Centre is already regarded as the "Best Venue of it's Size" - 1000 seats for Chamber music in the world. It's acoustic designers - Ove Arup , have modelled it on London's Wigmore Hall and Austria's MUSIKVEREIN, but then have taken it quite a few steps further - since it could be designed/built from scratch and was not a refit into an older structure.

The Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir are over 150 years old, and this is their first performance of a PURCELL GALA, the first time they've used authentic baroque instruments, and their first use of the Melbourne Recital Centre.

As a recording engineer [as well as a film-maker], I was very keen to "hear" what all the hype was about.

My first reaction to the room is that it is almost "anechoically quiet" - no noise. This does give the sound a degree of "dryness". But this also gives the sound a breathtaking dimensionality - instruments and performers are rendered with a 3D palpability - particularly when using Neumann mics and state-of-the-art location recording equipment.

Here are some sequences from Sunday night's concert [RMP @ MRC]:

http://www.reel2reel.tv/ADC/RMP_RMC_2_FINAL-1.wmv

http://www.reel2reel.tv/ADC/RMP_RMC_3_FINAL-1.wmv

http://www.reel2reel.tv/ADC/RMP_RMC_5_FINAL-1.wmv

http://www.reel2reel.tv/ADC/RMP_RMC_7_final-1.wmv

http://www.reel2reel.tv/ADC/RMP_RMC_9_FINAL-1.wmv

http://www.reel2reel.tv/ADC/RMP_RMC_15-1.wmv

http://www.reel2reel.tv/ADC/RMP_RMC_13-1.wmv

http://www.reel2reel.tv/ADC/RMP_RMC_17-1.wmv

also, here is a documentary I filmed last November on the MRC:

http://www.reel2reel.tv/ADC/MUS_MRC.wmv

There haven't been many "breakthroughs" in the world of concert hall design or music recording [particularly acoustic music] for many years. I believe the MRC is a new and important reference point.

Here are the 24b/96 converted to 44.1k/16bit so you can properly "hear" them...I have to say, the more I listen, the more impressed I'm with this hall.

www.reel2reel.tv/ADC/rmp_1_2009.wav

www.reel2reel.tv/ADC/rmp_2_2009.wav

www.reel2reel.tv/ADC/rmp_3_2009.wav

www.reel2reel.tv/ADC/rmp_4_2009.wav

www.reel2reel.v/ADC/rmp_5_2009.wav

www.reel2reel.tv/ADC/rmp_6_2009.wav

www.reel2reel.tv/ADC/rmp_7_2009.wav

rgds

Kostas

[audio ergo sum]

There is no such thing as "the best" room for its size.
It depends on the score, the instruments, the arrangement, the relative positions of players and listener, the taste of the recipient etc.
It is different if you ask musicians or knowledgeable listeners. etc...

Doing a "shootout" is rather silly IMO when you can have them all. And your list is very limited...naturally...so what's the point. App. 99% of great recording venues are missing.

It probably is a very fine hall though.
Congratulations for having such a good sounding space in your town and thank you for posting the samples.

[studer58]

Just to divert the thread a little, I have some photos I took in the Musikverein a few years ago of the overhead mic array (all SD schoeps from what I could tell)..it looked like a very discreet 'clothes washing line' of roughly 1.5 metre spaced parallel fencing wires above the performers, not only above the players but well out into the audience as well, with mics on shortish droppers 'raining down' above the desired sections of the orchestra and probably patched into a big mixer console somewhere in a monitoring room backstage. I recall thinking it was a recording engineers' dream array...not a stand in sight anywhere, yet the orchestra was "section spot miked" most admirably. Just the sort of thing we'd do if we were building the venue (as recording engineers) from scratch. Let me know if you'd like to see any pics ? Went on a day tour of the halls (smaller than you'd expect them to be !) and a concert there the same evening...sheer bliss !
Ray

[Ozpeter]

Yeah, perhaps a diversion is in order...

I've recorded a great many times at Wigmore Hall and several times at the Melbourne Recital Centre, (never at the Musikverein), so I can at least compare and contrast the experience at the first two. I won't compare the sound - for a start the Wigmore is half the size of the MRC so it's chalk and cheese from that perspective - they're just different. About all they share is, perhaps, a certain woody acoustic warmth. Whether the designers of the Melbourne Recital Centre with all the acoustic modelling tools at their disposal have ended up with a 'better' acoustic than the Wigmore's, whose builders relied more on intuition at the end of the 19th century, I'm not sure.

At Wigmore Hall (at least in the time up to my move from London to Melbourne about 10 years ago) most of the recording infrastructure was provided by the BBC. They put in three transverse winch lines, the middle one being more or less over the front row of seats. You could link the front two to get some front/back positioning (the front one was across the stage itself). The rear pair was a bit further back and not often used. The beeb installed a couple of ambient mics dropped from the ceiling about half way back in a fixed position.

I put in an arrangement of my own at one point when the BBC started trying to charge freelancers for the use of the cabling. I used to drop a starquad cable wired for a stereo mic from the roof and kept a pullback cord ready for use for front/back positioning. The starquad was thick enough to supply all that was required for connecting and supporting the mics, though it was never safety inspected...

Recording was undertaken from a room behind and above the auditorium which really was only just big enough for the purpose. The BBC tended to crowd the table with semi permanent mixing gear, and there was a pair of (KEF??) speakers big enough to have been a good size for the auditorium let alone for that little room. The upshot was that if you weren't using pretty compact gear, it was rather tricky to set up in there.

(I used to do some live sound in that hall, usually amplifying speech by illustrious singers giving masterclasses - and once Dame Edna Everage! - and because the acoustics were so supportive I only needed a pair of hifi B&W DM4 speakers and a hifi amp to fill the hall nicely).

When the Melbourne Recital Centre was being planned I was fortunate to be amongst those asked to cast an eye over the proposed arrangements, and was pleased to discover that a plethora of motorised vertical mic winches was to be installed - about 14 I think. You can use these singly or in combination to drop a mic almost anywhere that you might want to . The house gear centres on miniature DPA mics enabling a lot to be flown with little visual intrusion.

Viewing the plans I noted that the ABC (national broadcaster) had been provided with a nice control room overlooking the stage (DigiCo desk, everything done via MADI) together with an adjacent announcer's booth with its own window to the stage. I could forsee that that freelancers might run into difficulties getting their own gear into the ABC room, much as had happened at the Wigmore, so I suggested enlarging the announcer's room a little to provide enough space to install a portable rig, connected to olde world analog patchbays for those arriving without MADI compatible gear. That's worked out well in practice. It's also possible to use the control room for the 'Salon' performance space downstairs (seats 150 - main hall seats 1000) which has a few analog lines and MADI outlets.

Chief practical complication is the remote controlled mic preamps that the flown mics connect to - even if you are not using the DigiCo desk you must still set the mic preamp gains on it. As I understand it, the preamps can't be controlled just from a PC via MADI.

While the Melbourne Recital Centre is pretty state of the art, that actually imposes some technical discipline that you don't necessarily encounter at the Wigmore, where you could roll up with almost anything and not scratch your head at what you found there. Setting up at MRC requires close co-operation with their (very helpful) technical staff, and fitting in with their timetables. But the last thing you need is a mic stand.

[Haigbabe]

Originally Posted by Ozpeter

Yeah, perhaps a diversion is in order...

It's also possible to use the control room for the 'Salon' performance space downstairs (seats 150 - main hall seats 1000) which has a few analog lines and MADI outlets.

Thanks for mentioning this Ozpeter!

It's probably a good idea for this conversation/poll to to refer to each hall by its name in regard to its recording suitability/flexibility/pros/cons.

The larger hall is the Elizabeth Murdoch Hall. The smaller room is the Salon. They both have very very different characteristics.

And they both have their challenges, in my humble opinion.

Cheers,

Haigbabe