Recording a Choir and 10 Piece Orchestra ORTF

[Papanate]

I am Recording a Choir and 10 Piece Orchestra and have chosen the mic technique ORTF - but there is a challenge - i’m am 60 feet away - there is no option to put them close enough - I’m using AKG 214s - the Board is a A&H SQ7 - I have 4 Choir Mics hung over the choir - and the Strings on the right side are mic’d up - 1 Ribbon Mic on on the 2 Violins and 1 Ribbon Mic on the 2 Violas - Condensers on the Cello and Double Bass - additionally I have two SDC room mics to the far left and right of the room - The Brass is on the left - and the Conductor doesn’t want any mics on them (even to record).

I am curious - should I just use the ORTF setup or a blend of all the mics - keep in mind I will have no Rehearsal or time to judge the setup - If I can multitrack that’s easy - I could just record and be done with it - as of now I only have a two track record.

What say you guys?

 

[Bstrom]

Wow -what fun!
There should be an enormous amount of info online from mic makers and pros to get a bead on mic choices and positioning - it's been done so much already.

 

[Papanate]

Wow -what fun!
There should be an enormous amount of info online from mic makers and pros to get a bead on mic choices and positioning - it's been done so much already.

I am not in need of mic positioning - they mics are where they are - this is a Church and things like the Choir mics are in place - the room mics as well.
I only have the Mics they have - there is no choice.

BTW The Ribbons are MXL R40s and the Condensers are TLM103s.

 

[Bstrom]

I am not in need of mic positioning - they mics are where they are - this is a Church and things like the Choir mics are in place - the room mics as well.
I only have the Mics they have - there is no choice.

BTW The Ribbons are MXL R40s and the Condensers are TLM103s.

Gotcha - well, you have good gear to work with. I'd just start recording and get a bead on the 'room' and how those strings sound when micked.
Phase will be an issue. Hopefully adequate gain won't be.
I'd love to hear your results and what you had to do to make it work.....

 

[R D Smith]

Sounds like you only have access to the church's mixer stereo outputs. Is there anyway you can come up with another interface to break out the individual mics before/after they go into the mixer so you can record them separately in your DAW?

 

[rob aylestone]

Scrap the ORTF (or indeed any coincident or spaced pair). The distance means it will be a swampy mess and will lag at least 50ms behind the close mics. Time alignment will be a total impossibility. I suspect if those mics can be output separately in the SQ7 and recorded multi-track, but I don't know the way the SQ7 works - my Midas and Behringers can just have a macbook hung off them for recording. If the priority is neat visuals, then they don't really want the audio recording for anything important. Accept this, and do the best mix you can with what you have. I learned long ago that if the recording is sort of 'an extra' the effort you put in is rarely worth it.