Recording My First Orchestra

cortex

New member
Hello everyone my name is Gwilym and i am a music technology student.
I am going to be recording a choir, six soloists and an orchestra in a big church in april and i was just wondering how i would mic it all up.
I have listened to verdies requiem in this church before and the acoustics are spot on in my humble opinion.

I am waiting on the organizers to get back to me about the exact instruments that will be there and also a floor plan to where the instruments and people will be situated. I will be going down there to do some measurements on monday so im sorry if i seem a little vague

Here are the microphones that are available to me

Shure SM58's

Earthworks QTC 1's

Sontronics Orpheuse's

Sontronics stc1's

AKG 414's

Neumann U87's

Sennheiser 421's

and more...........


Im thinking of doing a decca tree configuration with an earthworks qtc1 in the middle and the 414s as outriggers, however this may be a bit of an eyesore/ health and safety issue, so im going to have to come up with another plan for the main pair just incase. does anyone have any ideas?

maybe spaced cardioid akg 414's with earthworks omni in the middle?
or some sort of ortf or blumlein configuration

my next question is what would be a good spot microphone for different sections of the orchestra?

what would be a good microphone to use for each of the six soloists?

i think i would also like to use something towards the back of the church for ambience aswell, which mics could be good for this?

if you have any further questions please dont hesitate to ask, i will try my best to answer them.

Go easy on me peeps :):):):):)
 
Seems like a pretty cool project man. ;)

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of the mics listed so no help there.
Is this going to be a one time shot you get at this or will you have a little time for mic and placement experimentation?

If the room sounds good acoustically, I think I'd start with my best condensers in a spaced pair first and add "spot" mics as needed.

BUT....I have no experience with this type of tracking so pay no attention the the dog with bad breath.
:)

:laughings:
 
I have all of the microphones that you have mentioned but the Orpheuse.
How many Earthworks QTC do you have? For two of them in an X Y configuration would work just fine.
 
I have all of the microphones that you have mentioned but the Orpheuse.
How many Earthworks QTC do you have? For two of them in an X Y configuration would work just fine.

I have access to four of them i think. No there isn't any live sound support. I have never thought of crossing to earthworks. would this work very well considering they are omni?
would i loose the edges of the ensemble doing this?
 
For your very first orchestral recording I wouldn't advise Decca Tree as the go-to mic array. Because it forces you to do just the slightest bit more than simply find a good location for the mics; you also have to decide (either during the performance, or subsequently in mixdown) what exactly to do with the forward mic. Not that the results can't be excellent, just that I think for your first foray you want to Keep It Simple.

Especially since you say the acoustics are spot-on, I would start with a Blumlein pair using either the AKG 414s or the Neumann U-87s. See if you can get 85-90% of a finished product from that main stereo pair. Then use spot mics for whatever soloists aren't quite cutting it.

As an alternate idea: coincident X/Y (again, with either the AKG 414s or the Neumann U-87s) for the main pair, and then rig the two QTC-1s as a widely spaced A/B pair for more temporal cues & ambience.
 
Can you get a full rehearsal there so you can do a sound check, I would then set up a couple of the options and switch between them to so what works best.

Cheers
Alan.
 
As an alternate idea: coincident X/Y (again, with either the AKG 414s or the Neumann U-87s) for the main pair, and then rig the two QTC-1s as a widely spaced A/B pair for more temporal cues & ambience.

yes i like this idea. i dont think i can do the blumlein as i dont have the right sort of stands.
How far away shall i position the pair and outriggers away from the ensemble and how high, im thinking about 10 - 12 feet.
also what spot mics shall i use for the different parts of the orchestra?

cheers for your help bob its greatly appreciated
 
Can you get a full rehearsal there so you can do a sound check, I would then set up a couple of the options and switch between them to so what works best.

Cheers
Alan.
yes i will be hopefully but i just want to get a solid plan first and then i will bring extra mics for that reason
 
this is where i will be recording. im going there on monday to get some measurements and get a proper idea of the space in which i will be working
 

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Personally I would not use spot mics and would do it all with a single pair - ideally slung above and behind the conductor.

You should not need spots if the conductor is doing his/her job properly in balancing the orchestra for the audience.

Choice:-
  • ORTF pair of cardioids
  • MS rig of cardioid + fig-8
  • diffuse-field omnis in a Jecklin Disk
  • diffuse-field omnis in a Schneider Disk
  • Soundfield mic.
  • Faulkner array (if the space has nasty side slap echo but a good reverb down the church)

The choice would be down to what you have available.

My own choices would be:-
  • ORTF = pair of Sennheiser MKH 40 or MKH 8040
  • MX = Sennheiser MKH 30/40
  • Jecklin/Schneider = pair of Sennheiser MKH 20 or Neumann KM 183 (183-D in my case)
  • Soundfield = SPS200 in my case, but any Soundfield mic. is a good one
  • Faulkner Array = pair of MKH 30 (or Neumann 120s)

I hope this helps.
 
Personally I would not use spot mics and would do it all with a single pair - ideally slung above and behind the conductor.

You should not need spots if the conductor is doing his/her job properly in balancing the orchestra for the audience.

Choice:-
  • ORTF pair of cardioids

    I hope this helps.


  • How about ORTF with AKG 414's or Neumann U87's?


    do you know if the akg 414s have interchangeable threads so i can mount it on a stereo bar?

    everyone has such different oppinions on this matter, its getting hard to choose :confused::confused::confused:
 
If it's a good orchestra, a stereo recording with two nice, well placed mics is more than enough to give you a good recording. I recorded the Phoenix symphony for a while and we would drop a couple of 414s in omni mode from the rafters about 30 or 40ft apart, about 20ft above the orchestra. Of course, this was a symphony hall so it'll be a little different in your case but aybe do something like that (perhaps with the 87s or Earthworks?) for your bread and butter hard left and hard right. Put another omni (or two) far back in the cathedral, maybe compress it a bit and use it as you would a reverb aux send. Depending on how good the conductor is, you might want to put up some section mics to have a little more control of, say, the soloists.

I recorded an orchestra one other time in a very large room and we used some nice omni pencil mics (I can't remember for the life of me what they were) in ORTF not too far behind the conductor, raised up about 20' in a room with 30' ceilings.

Do you have access to high booms? Take advantage of space and distance.
 
414s in omni mode from the rafters about 30 or 40ft apart, about 20ft above the orchestra

Do you have access to high booms? Take advantage of space and distance.

I spoke to a recording engineer from the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) and he said that using spaced omnies can cause some undesirable effects unless they are seperated by exactly 60 cm.

Yes I do have acces to big booms, so i should be able to get it about 20ft high =)
 
yes i like this idea. i dont think i can do the blumlein as i dont have the right sort of stands.
How far away shall i position the pair and outriggers away from the ensemble and how high, im thinking about 10 - 12 feet.
also what spot mics shall i use for the different parts of the orchestra?

cheers for your help bob its greatly appreciated


10-12' high sounds like a good starting point. I usually start w/ the main pair 4-6' above the conductor's head and 8-15' behind him... assuming you can do a sound check, then adjust forward or back depending on how the direct/ambient balance plays out. Remember that crossed cardioids (either X/Y, ORTF, or NOS) will by definition pickup centered instruments off-axis, so if your mics don't have very uniform off-axis response you may want to pull them back a bit farther than you would with an M/S or Jecklin array.

If you decide to go w/ the additional omni outriggers their distance behind the main stereo array should be inversely proportional to their spacing; i.e., if they're 3' apart you could put them 6' behind the X/Y pair; if they're 20' apart I'd put them on the same plane as the main pair. But again, in this configuration I'm suggesting, those omnis are just there to provide additional ambience cues, so whatever arrangement compliments the main pair without interfering with its imaging is fine.
 
I spoke to a recording engineer from the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) and he said that using spaced omnies can cause some undesirable effects unless they are seperated by exactly 60 cm.

Using spaced omnis can cause some undesirable effects period. Doesn't mean it always will, just means you need to be judicious in their application. But there's no magic spacing where those undesireable effects disappear for all frequencies at any distance from the source.
 
floor plan forum.jpg
If you decide to go w/ the additional omni outriggers their distance behind the main stereo array should be inversely proportional to their spacing; i.e., if they're 3' apart you could put them 6' behind the X/Y pair; if they're 20' apart I'd put them on the same plane as the main pair. But again, in this configuration I'm suggesting, those omnis are just there to provide additional ambience cues, so whatever arrangement compliments the main pair without interfering with its imaging is fine.

How about mixing a spaced pair with the ORTF
please see the diagram i have provided

1&2 = AKG 414 ORTF

3&4 = Earthworks QTC 1's

is this ok?
how am i going to account for the 321 rule when the distance from the source is about 13 metres?
 
How about mixing a spaced pair with the ORTF

The reason I suggested X/Y rather than ORTF for the main pair is because your spaced omnis are going to provide more than enough interaural time difference, so you want a very stable center image from the main pair. The true coincident nature of X/Y achieves this more reliably than any near-coincident array ime.


how am i going to account for the 321 rule when the distance from the source is about 13 metres?

By using your ears. And the faders on your mixer.
 
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