Seattle's Union Station: An atrium like a cathedral

[BobSchwenkler]

I had the great fortune last your to be invited to record a concert at the Seattle Union Station. The shows were curated partially in sympathy with the building's 100th anniversary.

This was the first time I've had the opportunity to record in such a big, chathedral-like space. Pretty amazing! If anyone else has got any photos of similar spaces please share, I'd love to see others and hear some stories!

The more detailed description plus sound clip and photos.

[Rolo 46]

Any train noise ?
Pretty room but is it intelligable for speech/music ?

[BobSchwenkler]

It's not serving trains anymore, it actually functions as the offices for Seattle Sound Transit.

It's got quite a long reverb time. For many people and for some types of music it might be considered too washy, but intelligibility wasn't the primary goal in this concert. It was to play music in an unordinary and compelling space. There's a soundclip on the post I made so you can also judge for yourself.

The person who coordinated the show and who composed/played here has done recordings in other similarly extravagant spaces. A nuclear reactor cooling tower (the link about separate recordings I've made, but he's worked at the same plant) and the Ft. Worden cistern (45' reverb time!), both within a few hours of Seattle.

[npulsipher]

Do you mind if I ask about the Blumlein pair that's right off the floor? I've never seen this technique and I was wondering what the reasoning behind it was. Was it simple where the direct-reverb blend sounded best? (as stated in your blog)

[BobSchwenkler]

It was mostly an intuitive guess. Closer to the floor with the intent to minimize comb filtering reflections, and Blumlein because it's a great sounding technique. My placement also ended up, upon later inspection, to be not entirely ideal, the configuration being how it was meant that the stereo image was recorded differently than the viewer's perspective and I didn't quite get this part of it right. One of the horns also ended up at the 45 degree point of the mics and the 86s don't have the most amazing off axis response in figure 8.

Had I had a little more time and a different pair of figure 8s I think I could have gotten the Blumlein pair sounding better than the overhead pair.