Choir concert excerpt - Sleep

[Mats H]

Hiya,

My choir performed a lovely concert this weekend with a lot of fantastic music. The title of the concert was "A new heaven and a new earth", which was also the featured piece by Swedish composer Sven-David Sandström.

The new thing this time is that I went out and bought Canon HF200 consumer HD camera, so I taped the concert both with the usual MR-1000 & Schoeps MSTSC64 and on HD video. All equipment fit into two bags, one for the mic & camera stands and one for the rest of the equipment.

Sleep is one of my favourite pieces of the night and I thought it might be intresting for an international audience as well. And check out the awesome picture quality of this cheap camera!

YouTube - S:t Jacob's Youth Choir - Sleep

[pan]

Thanks for sharing!

[NorseHorse]

Very nice. Where do you find such beautiful choirs? thumbsup

The AVCHD Vixias are great, aren't they?

Cheers.

[Mats H]

Originally Posted by NorseHorse

Very nice. Where do you find such beautiful choirs? thumbsup

The AVCHD Vixias are great, aren't they?

Cheers.

Thanks for the feedback! thumbsup

We have a great tradition of singing in choirs in Sweden and Stockholm is a great town for singers looking for good ensembles! I recorded a great concert with Stockholm Boys' Choir yesterday with a friend and colleague of mine and last week I documented Stockholm Student Singers and the female choir SALT.

S:t Jacob's Youth Choir is only two years old, and half of the ensemble today are new singers. It was formed with graduatees from Kungsholmens Gymnasium, a music high school in Stockholm. I was recruited by a good friend of mine and happily switched to this more mature choir.

The AVCHD Vixia (or Legria) cameras are very nice for the money! The picture quality is excellent and this one records to SDHC cards, so I did the entire one and a half hour concert with the standard battery. The only real problem is that my Core 2 Quad Q6600 can't handle real time editing with 1080p HD files. Then again, I'm not a video guy so I've only done two concerts with it so far. It's not much of a hassle.

[boojum]

Mats -

Very nice. Great space, great choir and a great capture. Yes, I liked it. thumbsup

[brle]

Outstandingly well trained choir, thank you very much!



Sascha

[d_fu]

Excellent - as usual...

YouTube - ROD STEWART- SOME GUYS HAVE ALL THE LUCK (LIVE)

Intersting about the camera also... How does it behave in low light? Does it have a decent wide angle.

[Mats H]

Hey guys,

Thanks for the kind words! I'll forward them to the choir

Originally Posted by d_fu

Intersting about the camera also... How does it behave in low light? Does it have a decent wide angle.

Unfortunately, the camera hasn't got a very useable wide angle lens and it's low light performance stretches only to semi well lit rooms. I've gotten very usable results in concert halls and churches but when only using 16W low energy lights at home it doesn't work very well, with quite pronounced noise.

The aperture size is 1.8 at it's lowest and 2.8 throughout the entire zoom range. It's got a great zoom btw, check out Canon HF** zoom range and "low light performance" vids of it on youtube. Very cool!

[d_fu]

Originally Posted by Mats H

I've gotten very usable results in concert halls and churches

I'd be very grateful for a short sample (video or individual screen) from such situations. A camera like this may be what I'm looking for for occasional video documentations. I'm currently using an XM-1, which has a good lens, but no HD capabilities...

You've got the HF-200, right? With manual recording levels and a mic input, not bad...

[leary]

mats, again a very beautiful recording. nice job!

[NorseHorse]

HF100 AVCHD concert clips:

is the TL audio C1 any good?

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/new-p...-apollo.html#7

[joelpatterson]

This is such a beautiful song-- it makes me cry.

The utter fluidity of the sound you got is fantabulous, too, and something you could backpack into the Himilayas! The miracles of modern science.

Thanks for posting this!

[NorseHorse]

Not to hijack the thread but...

Joel, care to share tech details on the recording? Stereo ribbon perhaps? Spot on the harpsichord?

[leary]

Originally Posted by NorseHorse

Not to hijack the thread but...

Joel, care to share tech details on the recording? Stereo ribbon perhaps? Spot on the harpsichord?

read above: schoeps mics were used...

[NorseHorse]

...I was addressing Joel, the mystery man. Mats was clear with what he used.

[leary]

Originally Posted by NorseHorse

...I was addressing Joel, the mystery man. Mats was clear with what he used.

oh... i see... sorry!

[Mats H]

Thanks again guys!

Originally Posted by d_fu

I'd be very grateful for a short sample (video or individual screen) from such situations. A camera like this may be what I'm looking for for occasional video documentations. I'm currently using an XM-1, which has a good lens, but no HD capabilities...

You've got the HF-200, right? With manual recording levels and a mic input, not bad...

The HF-200 has a mic in, though I'd rather not use that input. You do have manual control over gain and such things, but everything is hidden in menus, which kinda sucks when moving around a lot. The same goes for focusing and gain. A professional camera is more adaptable if you're moving around a lot and have to set focus differently. This camera works really well when stationary though.

Here are some screen grabs. Mostly raw from the output files except for the pic with the girl at the piano, which comes from a test movie I made to try out different compression techniques. Xvid shaves some detail and noise from the video files.

[Teddy Ray]

Originally Posted by Mats H

The only real problem is that my Core 2 Quad Q6600 can't handle real time editing with 1080p HD files. Then again, I'm not a video guy so I've only done two concerts with it so far. It's not much of a hassle.

Mats Helgesson
LIVING SOUND

really? I have a q6700(my Brother in Law is an Engineer at Intel so I get a new chip every year) and it can handle anything I throw at it?

[joelpatterson]

Originally Posted by NorseHorse

Not to hijack the thread but...

Joel, care to share tech details on the recording? Stereo ribbon perhaps? Spot on the harpsichord?

You talkee 'bout the Handel's Messiah Overture on the other thread, mon cheri?

Bunch stuff on that li'l shaver (Earthworks omni's over the conductors head, pair of Groove Tubes GT 55's out wiiiiiiiiiiiide, but the reason the harpsichord plings through so midnight clear is probably the E100S, leaning over the first violin, waiting for a soloist to show up. And staring out over the open box of the harpsichord. The supposed "supercardiod" pattern is not at all "shotgunny," everything before it is fair game!

Also-- that particular harpsichord is one with multiple keyboards, and stops that do the most amazing things-- strikes a couple of strings at once, for instance, and something that was astonishing to watch the tuner do-- push a stop in, hit a key, and you get an arpeggiated dling-dling-dling!

(Handcrafted by Walter Burr in Hoosick, NY. That instrument is getting shipped to the curator of the Smithsonian, some day soon.)

[ohmoka]

Originally Posted by Mats H

Hiya,

My choir performed a lovely concert this weekend with a lot of fantastic music. The title of the concert was "A new heaven and a new earth", which was also the featured piece by Swedish composer Sven-David Sandström.

The new thing this time is that I went out and bought Canon HF200 consumer HD camera, so I taped the concert both with the usual MR-1000 & Schoeps MSTSC64 and on HD video. All equipment fit into two bags, one for the mic & camera stands and one for the rest of the equipment.

Sleep is one of my favourite pieces of the night and I thought it might be intresting for an international audience as well. And check out the awesome picture quality of this cheap camera!

YouTube - S:t Jacob's Youth Choir - Sleep

Mats Helgesson
LIVING SOUND

Originally Posted by NorseHorse

HF100 AVCHD concert clips:

is the TL audio C1 any good?

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/new-p...-apollo.html#7

Nice stuff guys.
What video format did you use to export your video clips to YouTube? What kind of file and compression?

[WVUtubadude]

Great song, and great recording!

What was the stand you were using? I have been looking for something exactly like that, but to no avail.

[NorseHorse]

Originally Posted by joelpatterson

You talkee 'bout the Handel's Messiah Overture on the other thread, mon cheri?

Whoa, did I just crossthread something? Where did you post it?

PS. Guess who scored a Canon Vixia HF100 for $65 tonight! ...with a 16GB SD card! Would have been even sweeter if I hadn't had my other one stolen.

[hughesmr]

Lovely, lovely stuff all around, Mats. Congrats to both the wonderful performance and capture!

thumbsupthumbsupthumbsup

[Mats H]

Originally Posted by WVUtubadude

Great song, and great recording!

What was the stand you were using? I have been looking for something exactly like that, but to no avail.

Thx, I believe I was using an old heavy K&M 20800 mic stand which is slightly taller than 3 metres. I also had a K&M boom on it to add to the height.

Norsehorse, congrats on the great score!

[matthewd]

Lovely job Mats.

Right choir, right repertoire, right room, right kit - it's what its all about and makes it all worth it hey?

I can't believe somebody got out of their seat during this piece though!! Was she so moved she went to get some popcorn or something? Some people just have no soul it seems!! At least she didn't get up and actually walk right in front of the camera which I have known before now.

Matt

[JonesH]

Nice, Mats!
I'd love to meet when I get to Stockholm later this spring.

For my personal taste, when it comes to Whitacre and his kin, I'd like maybe some more room. This recording has excellent clarity and localization but it might benefit from ambience mics or added reverb. Still, it's a beautiful recording in a nice room. Very nice.

[d_fu]

Originally Posted by Mats H

Here are some screen grabs.

Thanks (and thanks to Norse for some video samples, too).
Looks good. Guess I'll get one or two of these at some point.

How do you sync up audio and video, just manually? It's what I do, anyway...


D.

[Mats H]

Originally Posted by JonesH

Nice, Mats!
I'd love to meet when I get to Stockholm later this spring.

For my personal taste, when it comes to Whitacre and his kin, I'd like maybe some more room. This recording has excellent clarity and localization but it might benefit from ambience mics or added reverb. Still, it's a beautiful recording in a nice room. Very nice.

hi,

Yeah, let's meet up! My contact info is on my web site below

I wanted to keep the processing to a minimum, the only processing is 4 dB of low shelf EQ boost @ 60 Hz and a hi pass filter @ 20 Hz with PSP MasterQ to get rid of the DC offset. I thought of adding reverb but it might screw up the clarity of the faster pieces in this concert. Last time I recorded in that church I used a pair of omnis as main pair, spot mics and room mics and it was a tad too much ambience. Though it fit the music pretty well then... I just might try a bit of reverb when I get back to the studio.

[Mats H]

Originally Posted by d_fu

Thanks (and thanks to Norse for some video samples, too).
Looks good. Guess I'll get one or two of these at some point.

How do you sync up audio and video, just manually? It's what I do, anyway...


D.

Hi,

I just align the sound waves to match the vid cam's own audio in Vegas and check for phasiness when listening back. Then I check for lip sync. It doesn't drift too much and I only did one clip this time. I imagine doing a manual resync after each song in a longer concert recording to avoid sync issues.

[Mats H]

Just a picture of the church to get an idea about the acoustics. Cell phone pic.