Yesterday, my choir celebrated our fifth year by giving a great well attended concert (full church) and inviting all previous members to a big dinner and afterparty. Just wanted to share this with you, as we gave our very best performances to date.
The audio recording was made in surround with four Microtech Gefell mics through Audient ASP008 > RME Babyface > Reaper @48 KHz. The main pair had the mics spread 60 cm apart and the rear mics were two metres behind, almost three metres wide, pointing at the audience.
The stereo version was recorded using the analog outs of the ASP008 into my Korg MR1000 @ DSD 2.8 MHz. Editing in Sound Forge @ 192 KHz.
I also filmed the concert with five cameras and intend to make a DVD or Blu-Ray from the material.
Do you know that Abenlied is the hit of my family. With my wife and my 4 children we sing it regularly. But man, your interpretation is really perfect (and better than ours...).
Beautiful stuff, that. After I listened to both pieces, I called my lovely first wife (of 35 years) over and handed her the Ultrasones. She listened. To "Ezekiel" and to "Abendlied". Twice, to "Abendlied". She does't listen to MY stuff twice...
Well done. As we've discussed before, the Gefells are lovely transducers for this work... and you've deployed them well. Keep up the good work. I've "lost" a couple of annual events of choral music over the past few years because of schedule, and the end of a festival we worked for 14 years... I'm looking for replacements... and aspiring to recordings like these. Let me know if I can order a CD or DVD of the concert, and, if so, how.
HB
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Harry Butler
Photography • Videography • Audio Visual Production www.harrybutlerphotoav.com
Do you know that Abenlied is the hit of my family. With my wife and my 4 children we sing it regularly. But man, your interpretation is really perfect (and better than ours...).
And the recording is so pleasant !
Thank you so much! It lends itself beautifully to smaller ensembles, would love to hear you perform it! For this piece we had a guest conductor, the great mr Gary Graden, who usually conducts the S:t Jacob's Chamber Choir.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hbphotoav
Mats...
Beautiful stuff, that. After I listened to both pieces, I called my lovely first wife (of 35 years) over and handed her the Ultrasones. She listened. To "Ezekiel" and to "Abendlied". Twice, to "Abendlied". She does't listen to MY stuff twice...
Well done. As we've discussed before, the Gefells are lovely transducers for this work... and you've deployed them well. Keep up the good work. I've "lost" a couple of annual events of choral music over the past few years because of schedule, and the end of a festival we worked for 14 years... I'm looking for replacements... and aspiring to recordings like these. Let me know if I can order a CD or DVD of the concert, and, if so, how.
HB
That's a compliment if I ever heard one!
The Gefells are wonderful indeed, they've become my main mics for a lot of choir concerts. Either them or a pair of Neumanns/Schoeps cardioids in ORTF. I use them for room sound, kick drum (!), acoustic bass, vocals and much more.
I'll look into making a DVD, just have to sync up the five cameras to the recording. While that might take a while, I did put a link to the rest of the concert in that ZIP file, so please take a moment to listen to the other pieces. I have a couple of favourites there as well and Eric Whitacre's "Her sacred spirit soars" is quite a thrill imo.
Thank you Mats for sharing these pieces with us. Wonderful choir and very nice recordings. My wife and me enjoyed listening to the whole concert last night.
In the video of the choir concert (Benjamin Britten) on your homepage I saw your Mic set up and was surprised, how high you placed the mics. Sounded beautiful. I ,with only little experience with choir recordings, would have been afraid of being to far away from the source. Do you tilt the mics down towards the source then?
Thanks again and greetings from Hamburg
Thank you Mats for sharing these pieces with us. Wonderful choir and very nice recordings. My wife and me enjoyed listening to the whole concert last night.
In the video of the choir concert (Benjamin Britten) on your homepage I saw your Mic set up and was surprised, how high you placed the mics. Sounded beautiful. I ,with only little experience with choir recordings, would have been afraid of being to far away from the source. Do you tilt the mics down towards the source then?
Thanks again and greetings from Hamburg
Ronald
You're welcome, it's my pleasure!
The placement comes from experimentation in this particular church. The mics are omnidirectional large diaphragm mics, but slightly tilted down, pointing at the back row. Don't know if it makes much difference but we have a breathy soprano in the far left, so it might help. They're placed so that the choir is within a 90 degree semicircle and height is adjusted so that there is better balance between the male and female voices. Too low and the male voices lose power to the ladies due to realtive distance. This time I didn't use a boom on the tall stand, so the mics were about 3:30 metres up.
Also, by placing the mics farther back, I get rid of some of the first reflections thanks to the fact that the sound disappears behind the small choir organ to the right and podium to the left.
Thank you very much for your generosity, Mats, in sharing your recordings.
The choir sounds astoundingly well, as well as singing exquisitely.
May I ask: which Microtech Gefell mics did you use. I suppose they were omnis? Were they all the same model?
Reson for asking is I will be recording two live performances with my Choir - Söngfjelagið, next desember 1 singing a variety of Christmas music.
I have 4 Line audio CM3's and two old AKG 160E dynamic omnis as well as a Rode N2_A and one more condenser of a lesser status.
Anyone have experience using the AEA R84 Large Ribbon Mic as main pair for choir?
Wonder if I should rent something more fancy?
Best
Arni
thx! I used four Microtech Gefell M296, omni-directional 1" microphones and I'm quite familiar with this particular room, which works well for both omni and cardioid mics. They're ruthfully accurate and fortunately my choir sounds pretty good. However if there are harsh voices or people who have very pronounced esses, your CM3s might just be the ticket. I find that they smooth out some details, while retaining a very open and full-bodied sound.
I wouldn't use the Rode mic or dynamic mics for choir recordings, reasom being that the Rode is kinda harsh and the dynamic mics lack detail. I've used a Royer SF24 for choral recordings but find it very picky about the room. Cardioids is a safe bet imo, so I'd go with the Line audio mics and call it the day
Do you hand drugs out to the audience? So they keep bl**dy quiet and do not cough?
Amazing realizing this is recorded in a FULL church.
Chapeau, Bravo, fantastisch, superb!
I gave them all the Izotope RX pill...
I usually go through my concerts, removing all coughs (if possible), some background noise and traffic, clicks, thumps, slams and what not. It takes about 3-4 hours and I do roughly 500-1000 edits.
They're ruthfully accurate and fortunately my choir sounds pretty good.
Mats, providing us with splendid recordings doesn't give you the right to invent a new word. :-)
Your choir is certainly good enough to withstand mics that are ruthlessly (= without pity or compassion) accurate. You could, though, transfer this newly-minted "ruthfully" word to the CM3's...for these mics, by - ruthfully - lacking that ultimate accuracy, may be kinder to certain choirs or venues.
Just teasing..and I ruefully confess to derailing this thread.
Mats, providing us with splendid recordings doesn't give you the right to invent a new word. :-)
Your choir is certainly good enough to withstand mics that are ruthlessly (= without pity or compassion) accurate. You could, though, transfer this newly-minted "ruthfully" word to the CM3's...for these mics, by - ruthfully - lacking that ultimate accuracy, may be kinder to certain choirs or venues.
Just teasing..and I ruefully confess to derailing this thread.
:-
Of course you're right... Ruthless. But then English is only my second language. By the way, the CM3s are only a fifteenth of the M296s.
Mats, hope I'm not steering the thread of course, but about Izotope RX.
I have a copy.
Use it as a plugin for removing continuous noise etc..
Now my question. When doing your 1000 edits - do you us Izotope RX as a plugin or do you us it as a standalone app.
And if the latter, do you export the song from the DAW, and if so, which format of the sound file do you work on.
Regards
Arni
I use the standalone standard application (can't afford Advanced) and work on the final 2 track one our .WAV master before dithering and/or final cutting. It's much faster to work with compared to using the plugins. Sometimes a frequency section needs denoising, sometimes some EQ, sometimes declicking and it all changes constantly. Using plugins for this would be too time consuming. I rarely apply noise reduction to the entire signal, much more often to a specific spectral band. It's all about what won't harm the original signal.
Usually I do the editing with Grado RS325iS headphones to hear the really fine details. Unfortunately, it's impossible to remove all noises from the recordings without affecting the music, so some gunk stay.
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