How do you isolate individual quartet vocals?

[AlanTide]

I currently use 2 bedrooms in my house as my studio. One room is my control room, and another is a tracking room that everything from guitar, drums, vocals etc is recorded there. When you guys record a vocal quartet etc, how do you do it? DO you have just one mic for all to stand around? OR do you use individual mics for each singer? How do you avoid bleedover from each singer into the others mic? The main question I guess is for tuning vocals with Autotune etc. How do you guys record group vocals and still have the ability to individually Autotune (as neccesary)? A friend in Florida has a few baffles that he puts in between each singer, but these baffles are only chest high or so. This seems to work great for him. Just curious what you all do. Thanks

[antti]

Normally I use 1 mic in omni or fig 8.
Sometimes 2 mics in fig 8 (singer per side). Balance it to taste by moving people closer and away from mic(s). Make sure tuning & timing is on the money and that's it. Doesn't leave too many options
for the mix which I prefer anyway (not everybody though).

If I want separation then I'll have to separate them a little. Switch the mics to
cardioid pattern and make sure bleed is usable. Sometimes I've managed to better isolation by flipping phase on certain mics. I don't use autotune that much but I can see it not working properly unless you have a very good separation between the singers. I normally pitch shift things if I'll need to correct pitch afterwards but as mentioned earlier I try my hardest to get the performance nailed in the first place.

[joeq]

when I want separation on singers, horn players, etc, I use a bunch of those cubicle segments that I got from an office that was upgrading- they are about 6 feet high. I link them into a 'V' so they will stand up by themselves.

That said, for many choral vocals and horn sections I prefer the sound of a single mic or pair picking up the blend in the room.

Frankly if the singers are so bad that they can't be fixed by punching during the tracking or comping during the editing i.e. - if I was actually _planning on Autotuning them- then I would just overdub them one at a time.

[7rojo7]

and tune them one at a time too!
And Start with a guide track for each part (pre production) if it's impossible.
The Idea about vocal or any other type of small ensemble is that they play together and mix themselves together. If they're not too bad you can work it in sections. Create a couple of tracks to monitor off of, if the group slips up a part, copy from before that part to the monitor tracks after the other recorded material on the recording tracks. Play that material for the group and hit record, drop out the other tracks when they lock to it. I get my best edit material this way, when the musicians catch on anyway. Or you can cut on a click. But most ensembles have their own timings which are very nice and the limitations that a click brings to accelerando, ritardando, fermata and rubato are unacceptable.
If you have good musicians you won't have a hard time, if not try to organize it as much as you can

[warhead]

I've done a little quartet tracking and simply used 4 cardioid mics facing out from each other. This way the singers can face each other (like a "plus" sign) and cue each other and the rejection from mic to mic was adequate.

Performance comes first, I wouldn't separate them since this is how they jam 99% of the time.

War

[Bob Olhsson]

I always got the best results from one mike.

[dale116dot7]

I don't care for pitch shifting with any bleed, it makes nasty artifacts that I always hear, no matter how low they are. So I give the singers one of two choices - either total separation (set one mic in the lobby if needed), layering with overdubs, or all together but they don't have any pitch shifting options after tracking.

Almost every time, tracking together in the same room wins out, even if they need to work out tuning and come back.

If there is a louder singer, I'll put him/her in the null of a figure-8 that catches everyone else. Or if that singer and the mic for everyone else clashes (for example, one really nasal voice out of three or four others). I try to keep the mics close physically to avoid phase problems because you are going to get some - with the associated comb filtering. And I always put an omni in the middle. Sometimes the one omni mic picks up a good vocal mix.

-Dale

[chessparov]

The two most important concepts in ensemble singing are...

Balance and blend.

That's ideally up to the quartet themselves, not editing. This came from conversations with world champ barbershop quartets (like "Revival" and "Nightlife") BTW.

Chris

[chessparov]

Might the humble EV 635a omni would work well on a quartet, in a good sounding room?

Concerned as to whether it'll have enough low end pick-up.

Chris

[Dave Martin]

It should also be pointed out that what counts as 'in tune' for quartets - especially barbershop and gospel - may not be 'in tune' according to Auto Tune.

I'd go along with the recommendation for putting them all in the room and tuning to themselves. If a vocal pass sounds bad, have them sing it until it doesn't.

[kennyd03]

I'm with Dave. I usually use the double figure 8 method described earlier for these situations. I think Auto Tune is used way too much in the industry - resulting in what I call a "plastic effect" to vocals. Also, if it's an a capella group, they are singing to each other, so pitch can be very relative.

Good luck!

-KD03

[AlanTide]

that is the founder of the group, but he should have retired long ago. He just cant cut the mustard anymore. I just want to be able to isolate him from the others for pitch correction. The diplomatic way is to just do this for all 4 singers instead of risking losing a client over stating the obvious. Just curious what methods you all might have used over the years. I, also, prefer to have them all sing together using a single mic, and I still might do this. Thanks for all of the responses.

[Jules]

"It should also be pointed out that what counts as 'in tune' for quartets - especially barbershop and gospel - may not be 'in tune' according to Auto Tune."

V true, when ever I am getting into quazi B.Wilson style layered vocal stuff I some times find that I have to ask the singers to sing 'sharper' or 'flatter' than perfectly in tune on certain parts, to make it 'happen'..

Auto Tune wont work with much bleed into the mic at all.....tutt

[warhead]

Originally posted by AlanTide
The diplomatic way is to just do this for all 4 singers instead of risking losing a client over stating the obvious.

Are you producing this project? If not they're hiring you to engineer and I wouldn't state anything obvious or not. They probably realize the guy sounds bad, and if they haven't fired him it doesn't matter to you as long as their check clears.

If you're producing this, sorry...we never had this conversation.

War

[Rambler]

When using absorbent baffles to increase the isolation between musicians or singers in a room it's sometimes helpful to spread the artists apart and put the baffles behind the performers not between them.
I discovered this by accident once while recording a trad jazz band. I couldn't avoid spill in the clarinet mic, despite usind a mic with a good tight polar pattern, so I put a baffle between him and the other guys. It made bugger all difference and the musician complained he was uncomfortable as couldn't see the others.
I pushed the baffle back behind him to get it out of the way and went back to the controlroom thinking I'd just put up with the spill and was surprised to find my problem nearly solved.
Why did this work? Sound isn't light, it doesn't travel in straight lines therefore between the artists was no good and the cardiod mic was already doing that. But behind the muso the baffle stopped reflection from the wall mixing with the direct sound
Acoustic solution to an acoustic problem.
Hope this helps.

[Ol' Betsey]

Good point Rambler.

Sometimes one forgets about how much of the rooms reflection make it's way back through the front of the mic.

I generally always try and set up some sort of absorbtion behind the singer/player. Depending on what I'm trying to acheive, of course.

Slightly OT but has anyone tried those little Aurelux (or something like that) microphone baffles?

Seems like they would be more effective with Omni's or Fig 8's but I would probably be more concerned with how they affect/colour the microphones 'sound'.

R.