Classical recital, can I salvage?

[sbendy]

I did a job recording a classical recital (my first job of this kind). It was in a circular concrete and brick room, 17 meters in diameter and with a domed ceiling.
Musicians were seated in a semi-circle around one half of the room and performed from their seats.
This recording is taken from two microphones in an XY configuration positioned about two meters from the apex of the semi-circle and the vocalists in this recording were more or less in front of these.

I have uploaded three versions. The first is the unaltered recording. The second is the recording with the gain boosted by 12dB (this brought the loudest point in the recording, applause which occurs later on, up to zero). The third has the same gain boost and I have also used a spectral gate to attenuate the low frequencies of the footsteps and the white noise in the upper frequencies (past the point occupied by the bulk of the vocals).


I would like to know how I can make this sound better to the standards of live classical recording and what I can do to get a better recording next time.

Sorry if not a mastering question, I will move it to another forum if so.

 

[Robus]

I know nothing about this kind of recording, so this is just a reaction. I listened to all three and it was interesting. Obviously the mic placement or input gain was a fail. You recorded them so low that you hear all kinds of room noise when you boost it. I'm betting you can't fix this. The standard for classical music recordings is super high. Also it is not a nice sounding space. Try again next time. Are they used to being recorded? Can you ask them to cut out whatever is causing that background noise?

 

[Bobbsy]

I know nothing about this kind of recording, so this is just a reaction. I listened to all three and it was interesting. Obviously the mic placement or input gain was a fail. You recorded them so low that you hear all kinds of room noise when you boost it. I'm betting you can't fix this. The standard for classical music recordings is super high. Also it is not a nice sounding space. Try again next time. Are they used to being recorded? Can you ask them to cut out whatever is causing that background noise?

Yup. The problem is that your recording levels are so low that adding enough boost also gives tons of room noise, electronic hiss and foot/furniture sounds.

I did have a play with the noise reduction in Adobe Audition (after boosting the levels a lot), doing five small passes at gradually increasing FFT size. This, plus rolling off the LF to eliminate some of the bumps and bangs, did seem to help. Finally, I played at bit (also in Audition) with using the Spectral spot healing brush on some of the impulse noises.

If you want to have a play, you can download Audition CC 2015 for a 28 day free (unlimited) trial. To my ear, it does help.

 

[rob aylestone]

Welcome to the amazingly difficult world of ambient recording. It's sadly the kind of recording we all did, I'm sure when first trying this particular field of recording. Frankly, I doubt you can do more than you've done.

After the recording isn't the time for fixing it and unlike close miking and typical studio recordings, repairs are always a major snag.

I can guess, but I expect your real problem, as you now know, is the room and mic positions. You cannot, unlike studio work, make guesses at what mics will hear. You need to try them after listening to what a sensible guess produced. In fact, I won't do a location recording of this kind now unless I can set up in a small room with shut door with a pair of monitors. Very often, you are listening for those annoying creaks, groans and outside noises before anything else. You also really need to hear the room too - then introduce your performers. Clarity and balance is everything. Two words in your preamble jumped out that made me think it was going to be bad before I even listened. Circular and dome ceiling. Recording in a satellite dish. Hard walls too. Apart from messing up the levels, the actual sound might have been fiddleable. Almost certainly the room acoustics are nasty enough to mean artificial reverb is going to sound better than real, unless the room did sound nice at some location, but I doubt it. Did something happen to make the levels so low, or did you just not notice, perhaps being busy and just seeing the record light flashing?

A shame, but you won't do it again. Once your 'cleaned up' version has a little extra reverb applied, maybe they might be happy? Depends on them I suppose - but I doubt there is very much can be done.

 

[Massive Master]

Side-noting and have not listened --

If room noise is being boosted, it's not due to low recording levels. Boosting the volume is boosting everything.

If there is too much room, the mics should have been closer to the source. The source:room ratio is going to be the same no matter the recording level.

 

[rob aylestone]

Looks like he started multiple topics on the same thing!

 

[bruiser1964]

Not helpful I know, but is that ducks in the background?

 

[sbendy]

I did have a play with the noise reduction in Adobe Audition (after boosting the levels a lot), doing five small passes at gradually increasing FFT size. This, plus rolling off the LF to eliminate some of the bumps and bangs, did seem to help. Finally, I played at bit (also in Audition) with using the Spectral spot healing brush on some of the impulse noises.

Thank you, I have now this with a (somewhat) decent result to a few other songs in the session.

Not helpful I know, but is that ducks in the background?

Seagulls.

---------- Update ----------

Looks like he started multiple topics on the same thing!

Yep. Sorry, wasn't sure where to post initially.