September 11th, a capella

dafduc

New member
This was my from first gig as a recording engineer, Dec. 2001 - please be gentle!

We Worship You

Composition is by my friend Louis Canter, performance by the Lapeer County Concert Choir. I recorded this from the choir loft of the church they performed in - they were in the front, distance was 30-40 ft. I used 2 Shure AXS-4s (like a BG-4.1 - but a special Banjo Mart line, I think) into a VS-840. Room was REAL dry, so I added some verb.

There were some glitches in the SPDIF transfer, think I got them all, but maybe not on this version.

Louis described writing this piece shortly after the 9/11 massacre, said he was picturing the newly deceased victims lining up with the heavenly choir just in time to sing this.

This is part of a larger work, his Christmas Gloria. You can read about and hear the rest of it here.

In addition to We Worship You, I am particularly fond of "Sing a New Song" and "Lord, God", which features my good friend Anne Roszczewski (note to self - get Anne into your studio, stop putting it off!!!:mad: ). Organist on these two pieces is Dave Wigton, also a friend, and a local organbuilder.

Daf
 
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SLuiCe said:
File does not exist.

Oops - they moved it since I bookmarked it. All fixed now.

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Daf (cut-n-paste works!:D )
 
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Bring the bass up and find some better drum samples.


No, I'm kidding. Sounds really nice. Another mic or two a little closer might have been good to mix in there. I'd like to hear more choir stuff around here. I don't listen to it much on my own time, but I'd like to hear it from homeRecers. Thanks for sharing yours.
 
SLuiCe said:
Another mic or two a little closer might have been good to mix in there.

My thoughts exactly. It seems a little distant. Might be the artificial reverb too though...
 
daf!!

This is an insirational post for today, the anniversary of 9\11.
All over North America the pain is still TOO fresh.
Thanks for this Daf.

Dan
 
When 50,000 children, women and men died horrible screaming deaths from the DOW chemical spill in India, I wrote a song a little like this.

Pain, suffering and horror are good incentives for songwriting. I look forward to the listening.

And geee ... I wish I my choir would do 'Oh Hurricaine Blow' ... but they said I'd have to wait for a Hurricaine to come to town ... I hope my prayers don't get answered !
 
Not slighting the message at all by injecting a mix comment, but when it started, it reminded me of the beginning of that Stones' tune that was in the Big Chill...you know what I'm talking about, right...YOU CAN'T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT is the chorus, but something in the back of my mind tells me that's not the name of the tune. Anyway, it sounds really good. I can actually understand the lyric, which a rarity with me and choirs. I'd probably compress it, which would ruin it.
 
Sluice, Ped, Hevy, studio, rats:

Thanks for the listen, guys.

Sluice, re distance, the rest of the piece had organ accompaniment, with pipes in the choir loft. I had to find a space where I got a balanced sound, since I could only use 2 mics at once (VS-840 limitation - would've loved to have 3 or 4!). I settled for booms hanging off the balcony, pointing away from the pipes and toward the choir (to offset the closeness of the pipes) . The mix actually came off pretty well, though the organ had a bit better definition than the choir, and the opposite result might've worked better. But if I'd have put the stands down with the audience, there would've been another batch of issues.

Ped, good point on the verb - I was new at the DSP thing then, mebbe a bit heavy handed.

Studio - I'd love to hear yours, if there's something you can post.

Hevy - good to see you up and around. Thanks for the feedback.

Rats - you're right, I don't really have any friends. Happy second day of IFOR.:mad:

:D

Daf
 
I listen to tons of choral music - I've been in a lot of choirs - sounds pretty darned good just like it is. I'm surprised you didn't get a lot more noise - there's a lot of ambient 'air' sound - but it's not distracting. I'm just curious here - what would hapen if you backed off the treble in the high harmonic range? Would that cut too much out of the high voices or would it just lessen some of the 'airiness'? Or could you very judiciously use a noise gate?

Very nice music - and really nice recording - I bet the choir members happy! (That ain't a bad choir, either!)
Milan
 
Wow...what a trip.
This is cool daf, definitely not what you hear around here much. This must have been kinda cool to record. I can see you running around the church yelling..... "Come on...., more low end from you.... the chic second from the left. aw jeez, take two"
:D

Very nice man.

I read what tom mentioned re: a coupla mics up close. That's a great idea for depth. Things to ponder next time you get a chance.
 
Guernica said:
I can see you running around the church yelling..... "Come on...., more low end from you.... the chic second from the left. aw jeez, take two ...

<studioviols>
TENORS ! I'm praying for ya ... I really am ...
 
Daf, This was a very cool listen, and I think the recording was not bad either. It's pretty tricky in a totally "uncontrolled " environment. And I'm with Sluice, it would be nice to hear a few more choral recordings like this.


Twist
 
Not having any experience with this type of music or the recording of it, I can't really offer any mixing critiques but, it did sound about right to me, dafduc.

Nice recording and no Auto-Tune detectable at all on this!! Cool!

Very impressive!

Cheers! :)
 
Instantly, chills up and down all over ... goosebumps ...

The initial intonation is absolutely superb, and I've stopped at 00:14.

Balance between the male and female voices is quite nice.

At 00:35, the unison 'you' is spot on.

At 00:37, the tenors show tremendous focus here, higher in their ranges and completely exposed they do a fine job.

You are lucky to have talent like this to work with.

At 00:47, excellent and confident entry from the alto.

At 1:03 a difficult suspension doesn't throw them off, all most of this first listen is intonation critique.

At 1:26, the unison is excellent.

At 1:38, it's just excellent.

The chord at the end, the approach, the dissonance and the release ... superb, so human.

You might consider using an EQ on the tip-top end of the sopranos, with an ' EQ envelope' that serves to automate a notch filter design, and roll the sopranos off at 00:26, at 0:56-0:57, and at 01:19 ... for that high note ... I know in SONAR you can apply an EQ with an envelope and increase the function of the EQ at that high point, in other words, the linear graph of the EQ peaks at that high point where the soprano tend to 'ring' with sibilance on their highest note and supresses the frequencies of that 'highest note' only at that moment.

You might be a man with a low voice ?, You can get more sparkle, generally, by 'enveloping' the highest note of the sopranos, and then you will have 'EQ headroom' to push the upper mids without making the listener wince with the punch of the Soprao's high notes. Again ... (for my clarity in thinking as well as re-documenting this), you will be 'notch filtering' the soprano with an automated EQ filter drawn with a quickly ascending and then a quickly descending envelope, (a fast peak), that will not affect your pumping of the upper-mid, and mid-mid which could generally give you more of the color from the tenor and alto.

I feel it's a little biased towards the bass voice, but by bringing out the mids, and notching the soprano, I think you will feel more confident with your bass mix.

Always give a choir the 'bubble gum - cough drop wrapper - page turning' speech, never forget that speech, it is a gentle way, with a little humor to remind everyone to relax and 'release' anything that might distract both physically and psychogically.

The congregation benifits from this also, they will be more aware of 'tiny noises'.

I once saw a choir director prep a performance for recording with some children in the choir by telling everyone to reach into their pockets and take out a piece of candy and give it to another member of the choir, and then for them to make 'sound effects' while they unwrapped the candy with their sheet music ... wrattling the sheet music, and then of course there was laughing and throat clearing, and he began immidiately after the last few throat clearings ... each choir member was provided with a small plastic tumbler of water with a tiny piece of lime rind in it, just a sliver and they were encouraged to drink that and gargle as they entered the choir loft as soon as they began coming in.

The performance was of course stunning, and the pianists stack of music on the organ of course fell off near the end of the performance ... during a 'vicious page turn' ... lol, always need a page turner for a recorded performance.

BRAVO !!! BRAVISSIMO ... ENCORE !!!

Hey, did I hear Sluice, and MC Guitarz, Erland, Chris Harris ... twist, peddulist ... in there ... somewhere ;-)

Good job !

Thanks for sharing.

Peace,
Pat
 
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This is good . A very good practiced choir.
ya think they could sing" lift....lift up..." and let you sample it? :)
Really nice...
 
Wow! Big Thanks to everyone who listened!

Chris - yeah, compressing was tempting, but "you just don't do that" with choir recordings. And that WAS the title of the Stones song. You must be either really young or really forgetful...;) - thanks for saying nice things.

MCG - Y'know, I don't remember if I EQd this or not. Been too long. I think I was afraid of muffling it, though. I like the airy sound, and the AXS-4s really accentuate that. Thanks for the listen.

Guer - yeh, I didn't get a sound check, but this was the second night of performances. Had a song length issue on opening night, lost the final movement. It WILL be 2 mics only until I upgrade the field rig - which isn't in my plans now. Thanks.

twist - thanks, man. It was a challenge, but it was fun.

Ghost - thank you. The Autotune manual says it won't really work on choral stuff, or even doubled vocals very well. Messes up its pitch detection. Their whip-crackin director was THEIR Autotune.:eek:

studio - Thanks for the detail. Probably just my personal preference - but I don't think you can have too many basses in the choir. More is always better! I'm a high (crappy) tenor, BTW. As to EQ tweaks, I prefer to leave them alone and document what really happened (even though I added reverb and maybe EQd).

Toki, my main man - nah, I doubt it. Not my choir, and they got the Vivaldi Gloria (not sure which - I have recordings of 2) this year - so there won't be a moment of practice to spare. They're a little, um, white, anyhow...;) Thanks for giving it an ear.

Daf
 
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