Vocal Solo Mics - Choral and Orchestral works ???

[David Spearritt]

Getting back to the thread subject ...

After all these years, I still find the miking of choirs behind vox soloists and orchestra to be a significant challenge, especially in a very reverberant acoustic (eg. cathedral, large concert hall). I guess the choirs I am working with are not the Swedish Radio choir, so the vocal production is not strong and sometimes thin.

The main issues are:

1. For correct artistic balance, I find the choir needs a lot of reinforcement, at least 4 mics, which then pick up orch too much. I have tried fig 8's condensers, but the choir needs ribbons to sound smooth. Will report back when used ribbons. This is an effective way to get isolation from the orch though, no question.

2. As mentioned in this thread, too much choir leakage in the vox solo spots. This is mainly due the cramped stage, more space is needed, will discuss with stage team more next time.

3. In a reverberant acoustic the orch mics pick up too much delayed mess from the choir, got to go seriously directional on the orch, or again use fig 8's to null out the choir.

4. As always, need significant reverb on the vox soloists mics because they are so close, again, due to cramped conditions etc. They need reverb to sound like they are in the same acoustic perspective as the rest of the sound sources.

Its a bit like recording opera, my greatest love in all recording. Challenging to get separation and control from a couple of large proximal sound sources.

As you were.

PS. And I forgot, a lot depends on the score and how well the composer has assisted with separation and ensemble writing for these sections. You can tell the great choral compositions are the ones that sound good no matter what the miking. The not so good compositions have collisions of section sound, drowning out etc.

[Remoteness]

Originally Posted by fifthcircle

For me, it depends on the amount and kind of bleed that they are giving me. If the solo mic is completely messing up my string sound with an orchestra, then I may be inclined to mute them. I won't do a hard mute, though- rather more like riding levels with slow changes to deal with sound shifts.

In the end, though, music rules and dictates what I do to them.

--Ben

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