Gospel Choir

[timothyclee]

Sorry if this has been covered before, but I searched the archives and did not find a thread. I'll be taking my mobile rig out to record a Gospel Choir at the church next week. I recorded the band in my studio for all the music tracks and was wondering if there were any pitfalls of overdubbing the choir at the church.

I'm not too concered with mic placement etc..but rather the how any of you have done this without bleed from the pre-recorded tracks into the mics. My plan is to have the choir conducter wearing headphones with the tracks playing and a low level mix coming through the church floor monitors so the choir can grab a pitch reference. Does this make sense, or is there a better way? Thanks for any advice.

Tim Lee

[NorseHorse]

Recording a large choir to an existing track - advice needed!

[timothyclee]

thanks...I should have take gospel out of the search query...

[DannyL]

What mics do you have available? If you really want to isolate the sound
use a real figure 8 pattern:

You would need either ribbons or dual diaphragm condensors.

I use Neuman U87's, Gefel UMT70s and so forth.

Point the mics at the choir so that the rear facing lobe faces a baffle.
Aim the speakers so that they point into the null of the figure 8.

The rejection of sounds that are 90º off axis is excellent.

Regards;

Danny

[timothyclee]

The recording went really well. I just made sure that the pre-recorded tracks were at the lowest level possible. We did 3 takes of each song and I had 3 stereo pairs for each take. This all layered up sounds like 3x's the singers. Now I will be a little more optomistic in the future.

[Remoteness]

Originally Posted by timothyclee

Sorry if this has been covered before, but I searched the archives and did not find a thread. I'll be taking my mobile rig out to record a Gospel Choir at the church next week. I recorded the band in my studio for all the music tracks and was wondering if there were any pitfalls of overdubbing the choir at the church.

I'm not too concered with mic placement etc..but rather the how any of you have done this without bleed from the pre-recorded tracks into the mics. My plan is to have the choir conducter wearing headphones with the tracks playing and a low level mix coming through the church floor monitors so the choir can grab a pitch reference. Does this make sense, or is there a better way? Thanks for any advice.

Tim Lee

Tim,

There are hundreds of theads about this subject.
You should take advantage of the TAGS I created for this forum.
Just click on any of the TAGS, gospel, choir, choral, church cathedral and such at the top of the main forum page and on each and every thread that I get my hands on...

You will find all sorts of threads about recording gospel choirs in church.

I personally love to record choirs in church sanctuaries.
IMO, it's how it gets done.

Mic placement is an important part in making sure you get the least amount of leakage, especially in your situation.

How those transducers are place is key; mics and speakers can work well together when placed accordingly.

Depending on the size of the choir, headphones can be used either with or without te monitor speakers.
If the choir is much larger than the amount of headphones available, key members in each section could wear the phones while the rest of the choir follow the choir director.

That said, I've also done this with speakers on sticks with great results.
I would not use floor wedges for the choir.
You can get much more playback volume using speakers on sticks.
My virtual gobo technique comes in very handy for this sort of capture.
...Click on that TAG to find out more

Originally Posted by timothyclee

thanks...I should have take gospel out of the search query...

...or, just use the proper popular TAGS I created, but I digress.

Originally Posted by timothyclee

The recording went really well. I just made sure that the pre-recorded tracks were at the lowest level possible. We did 3 takes of each song and I had 3 stereo pairs for each take. This all layered up sounds like 3x's the singers. Now I will be a little more optomistic in the future.

Very cool; well done!
Consider taking it to the next level by trying some of the techniques I mentioned for the next one.

[mixedupsteve]

Originally Posted by timothyclee

The recording went really well. I just made sure that the pre-recorded tracks were at the lowest level possible. We did 3 takes of each song and I had 3 stereo pairs for each take. This all layered up sounds like 3x's the singers. Now I will be a little more optomistic in the future.

let's hear it!