Stacking tracks recorded in reverberant hall - experiences?

[666666]

Let's say you want to record a 4-person vocal group in a great sounding hall, of course the best way to do this is to put the four vocalists in the hall, set up some mics and record the group singing together.

HOWEVER, let's say you wish to create a 4-part vocal piece but have just one vocalist on hand... and wish to record in a great sounding hall. Of course the parts can be easily overdubbed by one vocalist (4 separate tracks), BUT the natural reverb of the hall will be "quadrupled" in this case. You'll have the sound of the HALL from the four separate takes, ultimately blended together.

I've never tried this, but I'd predict that, at least in the examples above with only 4 parts, the difference between having 4 vocalists do the piece (one take) and having one vocalist do it (by overdubbing, 4 takes, and mixing together) would not be TOO severe. There would surely be a difference, but I'd think it would not be extreme enough to make the end product sound goofy... or am I wrong?

So my question, for those who have ever tried this (overdubbing in a live hall), what are your experiences? Can multiple overdubs be done in a live sounding hall and then blended together without serious ill side effects? OR does it turn out sounding wacky and unnatural?

By the way, I'm not planning on doing a 4-part vocal piece with just one vocalist, this was just a theoretical example. But at some point I may need to do a few overdubbed things in a live sounding environment and am just wondering if it will be even remotely possible to achieve any degree of success or if this just doesn't work.

One thing that does come to mind... IF there is any degree of "noise" in the hall at all, assorted minor ambient noise, etc, this noise will be multiplied times the amount of takes, so this is surely a downside... but I'd think that as long as whatever noise might exist is extremely minor, multiplying it by 2 or 3 wouldn't be overly harmful. Again, experiences?

[rumleymusic]

I don't think you need to worry about reverb somehow compounding on itself on separate tracks. The differences would be small, and the decay complimentary on each track, almost as if they were together as a group.

One thing that does come to mind... IF there is any degree of "noise" in the hall at all, assorted minor ambient noise, etc, this noise will be multiplied times the amount of takes, so this is surely a downside... but I'd think that as long as whatever noise might exist is extremely minor, multiplying it by 2 or 3 wouldn't be overly harmful. Again, experiences?

That is a concern. But since the noise waves will not match up perfectly, you are not looking at a 2 to 3 X multiplication, maybe a couple of dB more per take.