Micing a Choir

steelphantom

steelphantom

New member
I have two Studio Projects C4s that I'm looking to use to mic my church's choir. They are set up in three rows on risers, going from low (in front) to high (in back). They are in kind of like a little alcove in our church off to the side. The ceiling is very low, so micing them directly overhead isn't going to work. Which capsules do you think I should use, and how do you think I should place the mics? I'm going to mess around with them tomorrow at their practice and see what kind of results we get.
 
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I have done some mic'ing like that, and find that unless the choir is pretty much separated from the musicians, you'll get uncontrollable sound from drums, gtrs... all that loud stuff. The real trick is getting the mics close enough to the singers...especially in the aforementioned situation. Even to the point of giving some key singers a mic, and letting the rest of the choir "fill in". So...maybe a half dozen mics or so for that scenario.

An xy setup is kinda useless IMO in most cases, because a single mic works just as good and you might be better off using split mic setups instead, observing the 3:1 rule for sure and getting those mics as close a possible.
This is all of course you don't need the stereo sound, which in your case doesn't seem as important as just getting some volume.

Now... JUST the choir, going for a nice recording, an XY setup would be excellent. Live sound reinforcement... I view things a tad different.
 
It's going to be the choir singing along with the organ and some piano. No other instruments. Would an XY (cardiod capsules) configuration still be ok in that situation? What about a single omni mic in the middle of the choir? Or even two omnis spaced out a bit and pointed inward slightly? I'm doing this for the first time, so I'm definitely open to all suggestions.

mixmkr: Could you explain how you would do a split mic setup in my situation, and also what you're talking about when you mention the 3:1 rule? I'm pretty sure it has to do with gain before feedback or something like that, but I'm not positive.

Thanks, everyone.
 
A split mic setup would be analogous to putting one on the left side and one on the right, pointing towards the choir. The 3:1 rule in its' basic description is keeping the mics 3 times the distance away from each other as compared to the distance they are from the sound source. Think of putting two drum overhead mics up, but having them split apart. But, each mic is closer to the drums by 3 times than they are from each other. What can happen when not observing the 3:1 rule is that the overall freq. response from the output of the mics can be greatly altered to due phase cancellations and nasty stuff like that when the mics are combined back together at the mixer. Specifically, frequencies where the distance between microphones represents a 1/2, 1 1/2 .... wavelengths, there is phase cancellation big time. These frequencies can really drop ...almost to the point of not hearing them. For frequencies where the distance between microphones represents an even 1, 2 or 3.... wavelengths, there is the opposite effect, in that these frequencies are twice as loud making the mics output sound harsh, shrill, tinny,...etc all those negative terms.


Omni directional pickup patterns "could" work...but you are more suseptible (sp?) to things like feedback and picking up UNwanted sounds coming from directions other than the choir...as slight as they MAY seem.

Lemme put it this way.. mic'ing choirs borders on one of the MOST difficult situations in live sound, mainly because of extraneous sounds, not getting close enough to the source and getting full coverage.

If I had ONE shot at mic'ing the choir, and ONLY the two mics, I would split them apart, as describe above, get them as CLOSE to the choir as possible, and go from there. Otherwise, one mic in the middle would be similiar, but figuring you could get closer to more people with two (or more) mics. I would use a unidirectional pickup pattern and NOT an omni, as you might be actually supprised how loud those church organs can get (that's another subject as the old ladies love 110dB pipe organs but can't stand 95dB elec. guitars!). Actually, I would be more concerned about feedback with the omni mics.

You have some good mics. Hopefully, you'll be able to position them OK. Experiment, experiment, and a good luck. However, with my God, you don't need luck. He gives you great abilities instead :)
 
You stil haven't clarified if you doing sound reinforcement too, but I will assume you are not, you are just recording. I would use omni caps, spaced or baffled (jecklin disc). Period. It sounds WAY better with a large ensemble with organ in a large space. The organ is not extraneous noise, it's part of the performance.

You don't want to get too close to the choir, otherwise it sounds like individual voices and not the choir. Walk around until you hear a natural balance, and put you mics there, up high is generally better, although your low ceiling could cause problems if it is reflective.

If BigRay was still around, he'd link some very nice recordings he has done with omnis on organs/choirs.

If you are set on cardioid, I would lean towards ORTF over XY.

If the choir has any say in how you set up (one or two members at least may try to heckle you), they will refuse to believe that a single distant pair of mics will work. That is because they are probably more familiar with sound reinforcement. Set up dummy mics to placate them :p

If you have to do recording AND live sound, and you only have one pair of mics, I would follow mixmkr's advice.
 
Is this for the house mix? Is so are you running the FOH stereo, mono, or L/R-Center ?

I think the mic and mic placement would depending on the FOH setup if this is for FOH.
 
mshilarious said:
You stil haven't clarified if you doing sound reinforcement too, but I will assume you are not, you are just recording. I would use omni caps, spaced or baffled (jecklin disc). Period. It sounds WAY better with a large ensemble with organ in a large space. The organ is not extraneous noise, it's part of the performance.
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This isn't for recording; it is for sound reinforcement only (i.e. just to get the choir to come out of the church's sound system). Also, as I said before, it's not a large space, really. It's a tiny little alove on the side of the church that the choir is stuffed in. There are probably about 25 members.
 
steelphantom said:
This isn't for recording; it is for sound reinforcement only (i.e. just to get the choir to come out of the church's sound system). Also, as I said before, it's not a large space, really. It's a tiny little alove on the side of the church that the choir is stuffed in. There are probably about 25 members.
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OK then, do what mixmkr said :)
 
mixmkr said:
Now... JUST the choir, going for a nice recording, an XY setup would be excellent. Live sound reinforcement... I view things a tad different.
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phew... mshilareous....ya had me worried for a second ;) I thought I said something right earlier... but ya never know at my age!
 
mixmkr said:
phew... mshilareous....ya had me worried for a second ;) I thought I said something right earlier... but ya never know at my age!
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XY wouldn't be horrible, but I tend not to prefer it, that's all. And I have a *slight* bias towards omnis :D
 
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