I need assistance recording a large group of small children, please

[Julia]

Hi, Friends.

I could use some help from those of you with mic experience.

I need to record a large group of small children singing. I have the orchestration to accompany them, which I recorded on my Boss BR8. I intend to record the children using the BR-8 as well. It's all I have, so...

Our so-called "auditorium" is actually a GYMNASIUM (i.e. accoustical nightmare). What I am thinking of doing is putting the children up on the stage, and closing the large, very heavy curtain behind us. So there will ultimately be a curtain in front of us, one behind us, and cloth "legs" on either side of the stage. Now we won't have such an accoustical problem.

From there, I am considering running microphones through a mixing board, and running the mixing board into my BR-8, and recording the children's chorus in stereo via the "line-in" source (from the mixing board's line-out?)

A friend of mine talked me into actually buying a multi-headphone amplifier, and I am going to buy or make a bunch of distribution boxes, and actually run between 20 and 40 sets of headphones (at a time) out to the children, so that there will be no noise distribution or bleed while recording.

(I was going to simply play the music and let the kids sing and record them that way, but my friend gasped said that this creates a horrendous delay, and is a really bad way to record.)

I'm writing this all-too-lengthy post on the microphone board because I am confounded about what mic/mics to purchase. I don't have much in the way of money to spend. We do have three Shure SM58's, and I was thinking that I might need a condenser mic to pick up more, from further away. (I doubt the SM58's will pick up much at all.)

I'm looking at the Studio Projects C1 mic, and a few others. But I thought I'd come to the best source of expertise I know...this board.

Could you please help me to figure out how best to accomplish this project? The kids (175 of them, total!) and I would really appreciate it very much.

Also, if I could just add...in their live program there will also be some speaking lines from on the stage. I was hoping that whatever condenser I buy for the purpose of recording might also work to pick up a few lines on stage live? Each child only says a line or two, but it's tough to broadcast their little voices out through the PA in a great big gymnasium.

I would be most grateful for any advice you all might have to offer.

Thank you so much.

Julia

 

[flapo1]

First of all.... KEEP CHILDREN AWAY FROM THE MICS!!!

You should get a pair of condensers, not shure if LDs or SDs would be better, my call is Small Diaphragms like MXL 603s or similar ones. Other dudes can give you mic placemnt tips.

 

[Shailat]

175 kids ?!?!? ....

I have no idea what your friend is talking about..delay ?!!?. Your not playing it to the kids through the PA but through the headphones correct?.

Guessing you have very little tracks on the Boss and you want to save money... I would try a single condenser in omni to keep it simple and effective. Forget the sm58's. Have them circle the mic and sing and then do the same with the next group. Pan the parts you get and it will sound wide and full. REcord direct to the Boss.

As for the single voices...can they simply step up to mics placed on the stage as they speak?

 

[sjjohnston]

How little are the kids? I don't know that I'd want to deal with 20 or 40 kids fooling around with headphones. And how do you get 20-40 headphones onto 175 heads?

Is this an actual performance? It sounds like it's not, or what's that curtain doing in front of them? If not, you can record the solo spoken lines separately and edit them in where they go.

 

[chessparov]

Julia, although I'm not an expert by any means here what I would
do;

If this is a live performance with an audience...
1) Two cardiod condensers.
If your budget is tight a pair of Studio Projects B1's should still
provide excellent sound. (although a pair of C1's are VERY nice)
2) Use the SM58's for solo singing and/or P.A. announcements
3) Drop the headphone idea entirely. It's a logistical nightmare
and the kids won't sing as well.

If it's a live recording without an audience...
Substitute a pair of omni condensers or "multi-patterns" that include omni like the Studio Projects B3.

Best of luck on your recording,
Chris

 

[Julia]

Thank you all very much...still confusing...

First, thank you all very much for your kindness in taking the time to respond to my questions here. Very nice of you to try to help me along with this project. I really appreciate it.

Someone raised a great point about how we record live performances when broadcasting the music over the PA, so what's the difference? Maybe someone can answer that for me...with my very limited knowledge of things technical, it may be an ignorant question. I to realize that this would produce a delay, but so what? (I'm asking that as a real question...so what if there's a delay...is that a bad thing from the perspective of putting the kids' music on a CD for limited distribution?) Is the sound going to be considered very unprofessional? Would it be, for instance, not suitable for limited radio play locally?

I'm still confused on the mics, but I like the idea of an omni with the kids in a circle around it, and thus the omni would pick them all up, from all around the circle. Ideally, I'd like to have something which is switchable, from omni/cardioid, and I do see that the Studio Projects line does include some.

Question: Would I need a stereo pair really? Two mics being double the cost of one mic, I really need to understand the advantage or need of having a pair, if I do.

If not, then which switchable omni/cardioid gets the biggest nod from you with experience and expertise? C1? B3? Another mic from another company? Thanks for keeping my low...er...non-existent budget in mind.

Shailat suggested that I record direct to the Boss BR-8. I would appreciate an understanding of why that would be preferable using a mixer, because really, recording direct to the Boss would be so much easier. The reason I was going to use a mixer, was for the purpose of sending a larger number of mics into the mix. The BR-8 records only 2 channels at a time...that's it. IT's a very limited unit. (Ever try recording an entire orchestration WITH VOCALS on a 100MB zip disk???!!!!) It's horrendously limiting.

I really so appreciate this discussion, and your patience and generosity in contributing to it. I know you all have so much more experience with sound and recording, and my questions must seem so simplistic and silly. Thanks again for taking the time to educate me. We all appreciate it very much.

Julia

 

[darrin_h2000]

If the accompnyment is on tape, use the B1s and point them away from the stage monitors, use the curtains to muffle that. there will still be a little bleed so use the HPF on the mics or preamp. this should take care of most of it.

 

[philboyd studge]

I recorded a similar choir situation a year or so ago, only about 70 kids however. They performed at an arts festival that had ongoing entertainment, so stage, mics, and sound guys were already in place. Anyway, I used a mini disc recorder rather than my hard disk and simply came out of the mixer. Why not use the hard disk and get better quality? Simplicity. Lots of things can go wrong in live recording and Murphy's law has a way of creeping in and you only get one chance. In your case the BR-8 should work fine (it's 16 bit compressed I think).

For mics I believe the sound guys used a pair of AT 4033's. I'd reccomend a pair of small diaphragm cardioid condensers (Oktava 012's or the like) over LD's due the necessary distance from kids. For narration and announcments an SM58 would be fine. Shockmounts are a must.

Here's some information on mic placement in pdf form that might be helpfull:
http://www.shure.com/pdf/booklets/studio.pdf

After recording I put the songs on the computer using Sound Forge 5.0 for editing and after working up graphics and such, produced a hundred CD's or so. The school district was very pleased with the results.

Good luck.

 

[Julia]

phiboyd, a question re: your post, if I may?

Thank you very much for your response, and for sharing that great information.

I did have a friend offer to loan me his mini-disc recorder for recording the kids, so I found it interesting that this is what you refer to doing in your post. Since I'm not familiar with mini-disc recorders, I'd have to ask you...are you suggesting that this would be a better method for me to use, or are you suggesting going straight to the zip drive of my BR-8?

Also, you said that after recording you put the songs on computer and edited using SoundForge. Were you able to dump them to your computer as individual tracks? (Separate stereo tracks, or as a single unit?) I don't understand how you edited the songs once they'd already been fully recorded, unless you're simply referring to tweaking the entire song as a single unit a bit with the editing software...adding a little EQ, doing this, doing that...to the entire song as a unit?

Also, why do I need shockmounts?

I just saw a pair of Octava's on Ebay, but I'm not familiar with them, so I haven't considered them much beyond that as yet.

Also, the BR-8 doesn't have phantom power for condensers so...

Thank you again for sharing your recording experience with me.

By the way...did you get the delay I've been cautioned about due to the simultaneous recording of the outside musical accompaniment and the children's voices?

Thanks again!

Julia

 

[Beezoboy]

Definately do the stereo recording two mics. Why? It is simple. Do you cup your hand over one ear and only listen to your chorus with one ear? NO. Having 1 mic will sound like that. 2 mics will give a sense of stereo space that our ears are used to.

Definately give up the headphone idea.

Here is the deal. I work for a university here in Georgia, and I record the music dept groups almost every performance. I have done it for 3 years and have had some very nice results. We were using AKG C3000B's and had pretty nice results, but not as detailed as I would like. Now we have switched over to, MXL 603's and they sound very good. Much more detailed and better stereo images.

Of course we are recording to a MOTU 828 and a laptop running digital performer, so our medium would be a little higher quality than what you are getting. Either way though, you can achieve some very nice results with just 2 mics.

If you could find a church or a local performance hall with a spare saturday, you would definately be able to get a better recording.

Good Luck
Beezoboy

ps - e-mail me if you have more questions beezoboy@yahoo.com

 

[Julia]

Other recording venues...

Thank you, beezoboy. I have written you an email detailing a few more questions I have, and I thank you very much for the invitation to do so.

By the way...great idea about recording elsewhere. It inspired this fried brain to remember that we do have a chapel, so perhaps that would be a more adequate space for recording purposes?

Thanks to all of you. Please keep the thoughts coming. This is very educational for me and will, I'm sure, benefit the kids immensely.

Julia

 

[darrin_h2000]

Use the minidisc as a backup just go monitor out to it just in case of a failure on the boss.

 

[Shailat]

Now I'm gettting a little confused.

From my understanding you are going to record a choir of 175 kids NOT LIVE but like a recording session...correct till now?
You are going to play a playback in their ears through headphones while having them sing..correct?

Then I still suggets you go with one mic in Omni recording the kids at a batch of 40+40+40+40 (aprox). This way you eliminate the bleeding of the playback through a PA system and the acoustics that sound shit as you mentioned.

You will then have 4 tracks of vocals and you can pan them in various settings to get a nice full sound and even drop one of the worser takes and still get along fine with 3 or two takes.
Try recording the better singers 40+40 and then the others but lowering them in the mix to make it sound full but good.
Trust me that with a single mic in Omni you will get good results as long as you make at least two takes.

If this is a live performance recording then why bring up the issue of 40 headphones? A live recording is a totaly different ball game..
I'll stop here to make sure I DO understand what your trying to acheive.....

 

[Julia]

Thanks...you pretty much have it right...

and I really appreciate your help.

Actually, for the bulk of the CD, I'll only be recording a class or two at a time, generally 20-40 children. Each class, or group, has their own song.

Ultimately, for the closing of the show, I'll need to record all 175, but I'm not sure that's even going to be possible. God knows I'm not about to get 175 sets of phones on 175 little heads, for example!

For a stereo recording, still just one OMNIdirectional mic?

And which OMNI do you recommend, if so? Most are saying to record in a stereo pair. I don't have the slightest bit of microphone knowledge, other than to say that condensers require phantom power and can pick up sound further away. That's about it, until now, I hope.

Also, I'm limited to tracks and time with this darned BR-8 which, in fact, I'm going to try to sell so that I can instead record them using a BR-1180CD, because that has a 20gig hard drive as opposed to a 100MB zip disk! Ugh.

But until someone out there scoffs up my BR-8, that's what I have to record with.

Also, I am getting varying opinions on this, but really...do I need to put headphones on these children? I understand about bleed, and if such bleed renders a recording completely unprofessional, then sure I'll do whatever I have to do to make it right, including getting 40 headphones out to the kids at a time.

BUT...think about it, especially if you have children. Can YOU imagine kids at the ages of 4 through 11 singing with big, earcovering headphones??? They will freak out not being able to hear themselves "accurately", I fear, and will lose their tonality also. What tonality they posses, that is...which in a 4-year-old isn't much...due exception noted for Shirely Temple.

Thanks again.

Julia

 

[pipelineaudio]

you better have a belt, or paddle at your disposal

 

[Son of Mixerman]

IM going to chime in here because Im not really clear on whats going on. I see 3 different things happening in this scenario. We have the Kids, the Orchestra, and a bunch of head phones.

Is the Orchestra pre recorded? If it is its going to be really hard. Mostly because the recording of the orchestra will have a different bunch of reverbs times than the kids. If it a total live performance I would have different mic on them, and using omni patterned mics help reduce possible phase problems. You don't need head phones for anyone except the tracking person. The kids if they are singing together don't have to worry about bleeding because its what you want in this case. If the orchestra is pre-recorded then get a PA and record it at the same time with kids. It will blend better that way. Don't try to record 2 set of kids on to the same song because it will sound really mushy. I would use an X-Y pattern cardioids facing the PA speakers(or orchehstra) facing away from the kids and an omni LD condensor facing the kids. Just my opinion.

SoMm

 

[philboyd studge]

Re: phiboyd, a question re: your post, if I may?

Thank you very much for your response, and for sharing that great information.

I did have a friend offer to loan me his mini-disc recorder for recording the kids, so I found it interesting that this is what you refer to doing in your post. Since I'm not familiar with mini-disc recorders, I'd have to ask you...are you suggesting that this would be a better method for me to use, or are you suggesting going straight to the zip drive of my BR-8?

Also, you said that after recording you put the songs on computer and edited using SoundForge. Were you able to dump them to your computer as individual tracks? (Separate stereo tracks, or as a single unit?) I don't understand how you edited the songs once they'd already been fully recorded, unless you're simply referring to tweaking the entire song as a single unit a bit with the editing software...adding a little EQ, doing this, doing that...to the entire song as a unit?

Also, why do I need shockmounts?

I just saw a pair of Octava's on Ebay, but I'm not familiar with them, so I haven't considered them much beyond that as yet.

Also, the BR-8 doesn't have phantom power for condensers so...

Thank you again for sharing your recording experience with me.

By the way...did you get the delay I've been cautioned about due to the simultaneous recording of the outside musical accompaniment and the children's voices?

Thanks again!

Julia

Minidisc recorders are simple, once you've got your levels you just press record and walk away like you with tape. It'll divide things into tracks if you wish but it really doesn't matter since you'd be converting everything to .wav files anyway.

In most live situations I've done so far I'll use my Tascam 788 and the minidisc as backup. With the 788 I like to get the songs separated on the fly and sometimes I'm not fast enough spooling up a new song file.

I use a digital input to the computer sound card and then record and edit the stereo files at 24 bit and later take it down to 16 for the CD or make another remix for mp3.

Why shockmounts? Condensers pick up everything, you'll be hearing things you never knew existed and your 175 are going to sound more like ROTC marching practice than a choir without shockmounts. http://www.tensimount.com/

The editing process is pretty simple. First, I get the beginning and ending the correct length and mute the tracks till the song begins, get a clean fade when the song ends, maybe look at a few ambiance types of reverbs for effect, look for unusual peaks in the waveform and quiet them down, then normalize to 97% of peak volume so that it'll be loud enough on the CD. Live recordings can get rumbly so there may be some EQ in there as well.

How would I record your kids? I'd use the 788 (like your BR-8) and a minidisc for backup. The advantage goes to the hard disk recorder here because you'll be using two mic inputs, a stereo in, and a third mic for announcements and such and you can later get a nice mix of everything, whereas with the minidisc, all you have is two track stereo. With the two mics I'd try a position about 10' apart and 25' away from the kids and pan them out 15 degrees apiece. I don't have a lot of pairs of mics so I'd try the C-1's and the 012's and probably settle on the Oktava's....the small diaphragm condensers tend to work better at long distances. As I understand it you've got prerecorded accompanyment, so I'd want to get a direct line in from that. I wouldn't worry too much about things washing out from monitors bleeding over into the mics, 175 kids will take care of that.

 

[Julia]

Re: the orchestral accompaniment...

Thank you all very much.

Unfortunately, yes...the orchestral accompaniment will be pre-recorded.

Again, this will not be a recording of a live event. This will be done prior to the live event, actually...in an effort to create a CD for distribution AFTER the live event.

However, I do all of the orchestrations myself, track by track by track, and thus the "orchestra" of sorts cannot be recorded while the children are singing along with it.

I'm trying now to understand better what I'm sure is a wonderful suggestion of playing the orchestration and recording it via a mixer while the children are singing (with their mics also through the mixer.)

So, if I mic the PA speakers, then while the kids are singing along there will be no bleed? While if I don't mic the PA speakers and just let the kids sing along to the accompaniment, there will be nasty reverb bleed, etc? Do I have that right? Putting a mic near the PA speakers will take care of the problem? Or am I misunderstanding?

Would I leave stage monitors right out of this scenario?

This is stressin' me out...I need to work with small groups of large children rather than large groups of small children! Thank you all again, very much.

Julia

 

[philboyd studge]

You don't want to mic the speakers, you want your sequences (I assume they're sequences) to go direct via a line out to your recorder an addition to going to your p.a. monitors for the kids. Monitors should be aimed away from the mics and towards the group in an arrangement similar to the mics but closer, maybe even on stands. The idea is to minimize sound from the speakers to the mics.

 

[Son of Mixerman]

Julia,
Take your track by track orchestration and make a cd of that alone, no effects just dry and 4 tempo click at the start of each song. Then set up a PA that faces the group of children your going to record with cardioid patterned small diaphragm condensor mic's in the X-Y setup. Next you face the Omni large diaphragm mic towards the children. What this does is simulates the children playing to a live ochestra while they sing live, it intermixes the rooms reflections together so you have a coheasive mix, they share a common reverb from the room. Micing the PA with X-Y will allow you to pan the ochestra off to the left and the right enough for the Children to sit in the middle of the mix. The omni mic will allow some bleed from the ochestra into the childrens track. The cardioids on the orchestra will reject the children from doubling up and causing phasing issues. Move the mics around to get the best interatcion between the PA and the children. You ultimate goal is too simulate a live recording as if the bad and the kids were all happening at the same time. Is it clearer now? P.S. Ive recorded children before and have done some experimenting. I definitely have found that a multitracking approach with headphones is asking for a nervous breakdown. Play the CD through the PA and record it and the children. 3 tracks...

SoMm