Recording live Renaissance vocal quartet

[Serendipity Records]

Good afternoon, friends,

Tonight I will be recording a live quartet performance, of female voices singing Renaissance repertoire. The venue is a church with an exquisite acoustic.

I intend to keep the setup minimal. I have a Zoom H6 recorder, 2 SM81 condensers, and one other little pencil mic. Since I cannot spot-mic the individual singers, what are your thoughts on the best utilization of my available gear?

 

[Papanate]

Side by side the SM81s - then maybe the pencil mic in the center about 8 feet back.

.

 

[rob aylestone]

for 4 singers, who have a good internal balance, then my choice would be classic X/Y, or if they space out, ORTF - that assumes the acoustics are 'big' or 'nice'. If the acoustics are less nice then spaced cardioids will increase the stereo width, but favour the outside singers. With just 4 people, I'd want the clarity X/Y or near co-incident miking brings. The difficulties are usually just getting the right distance to alter the singer vs space perspectives. With typical quartet ensemble, they usually group close, either side of centre, so maybe 1-2m away, up higher, looking down. A boom stand, fully extended with the boom vertical with a T-Bar works for me.
I hope it goes well.

 

[Serendipity Records]

for 4 singers, who have a good internal balance, then my choice would be classic X/Y, or if they space out, ORTF - that assumes the acoustics are 'big' or 'nice'. If the acoustics are less nice then spaced cardioids will increase the stereo width, but favour the outside singers. With just 4 people, I'd want the clarity X/Y or near co-incident miking brings. The difficulties are usually just getting the right distance to alter the singer vs space perspectives. With typical quartet ensemble, they usually group close, either side of centre, so maybe 1-2m away, up higher, looking down. A boom stand, fully extended with the boom vertical with a T-Bar works for me.
I hope it goes well.

The Zoom has an X/Y pair on board. My concern would be not capturing sufficient room sound with only X/Y... If I had a single room mic in addition to the X/Y pair, how should I position it? Pointing away from the group, and as coincident as possible? Or pointing straight at the group, from further away as @Papanate suggests?

 

[rob aylestone]

I do choirs and small ensembles quite frequenctly - in fact I'm also now doing video too. I have never been let down with X/Y as it gives a very accurate stereo soundfield. I'm lucky enough to have ribbon mics available too, BUT many of the churches I record in have pretty poor acoustics. Reverb, yes - but not nice reverb. In these, I record X/Y because adding really nice artificial reverb is often better than recording real rotten reverb! Locally there are three really popular church venues for natural acoustic events. One is big - and has quite long reverb times, but also has a nasty slap back from a rather large plain wall under the tower. It sounds big but the reflection is annoying. Cardioids in X/Y or spaced a little, with angle adjustments enable good capture, with spacial clarity, but a bit dry. This minimises the nasty slap back reflection. One church is nearly as big, but has a lovely reverb that decays very musically - Blumlein stereo with two ribbons or two 414's work for me there. Most times it is the male/female mix that makes my choice. Ribbons for ensembles heavy on Altos and Sopranos, and the 414s for groups with more bass content. The ribbons tend to be a bit more murky at the bottom, at a distance.

If I get faced with uncertaincy - then I will record X/Y AND A/B, just in case weird things happen and the A/B's can be used to fill in missing stuff. I'm a fan of spaced mics for big bands in naturally nice spaces. The spreading of the left and rights is more defined (and probably wrong for realism), but Glenn Miller stuff often benefits from the left/right doo/wop tricks the clarinets and saxes do against trumpets and trombones. I suspect either of the two suggestions here will work fine - just don't be scared to enhance the reverb artificially. Do it well, nobody knows.

 

[Serendipity Records]

I do choirs and small ensembles quite frequenctly - in fact I'm also now doing video too. I have never been let down with X/Y as it gives a very accurate stereo soundfield. I'm lucky enough to have ribbon mics available too, BUT many of the churches I record in have pretty poor acoustics. Reverb, yes - but not nice reverb. In these, I record X/Y because adding really nice artificial reverb is often better than recording real rotten reverb! Locally there are three really popular church venues for natural acoustic events. One is big - and has quite long reverb times, but also has a nasty slap back from a rather large plain wall under the tower. It sounds big but the reflection is annoying. Cardioids in X/Y or spaced a little, with angle adjustments enable good capture, with spacial clarity, but a bit dry. This minimises the nasty slap back reflection. One church is nearly as big, but has a lovely reverb that decays very musically - Blumlein stereo with two ribbons or two 414's work for me there. Most times it is the male/female mix that makes my choice. Ribbons for ensembles heavy on Altos and Sopranos, and the 414s for groups with more bass content. The ribbons tend to be a bit more murky at the bottom, at a distance.

If I get faced with uncertaincy - then I will record X/Y AND A/B, just in case weird things happen and the A/B's can be used to fill in missing stuff. I'm a fan of spaced mics for big bands in naturally nice spaces. The spreading of the left and rights is more defined (and probably wrong for realism), but Glenn Miller stuff often benefits from the left/right doo/wop tricks the clarinets and saxes do against trumpets and trombones. I suspect either of the two suggestions here will work fine - just don't be scared to enhance the reverb artificially. Do it well, nobody knows.

Thanks for the input!

I think I shall use X/Y as the main setup, and perhaps ORTF as a secondary/experimental configuration. Looking forward to this; the singers (who I’ve sung with on a number of occasions) are excellent; one, in fact, intends to begin her masters in vocal performance at York next year.

 

[rob aylestone]

There is a facebook group centred on classical recording and there is some totally crazy advice given. Things with sort of science supporting it but totally undetectable. ORTF is a very common subject. The spec for ORTF is very precise.
I have always found the DPA university info to be very helpful. Have a look at this page if you have not already discovered it.
DPA stereo info

170mm between capsules, angle is set to 110 degrees.

Trouble is very often I would have constraints on the position of the mics - so X/Y at 90 and ORTF at 110 had important sound sources off axis on both techniques. ORTF having a sort of hole in the middle because the centre between capsules was in the null. My solution, which is totally wrong officially was to angle the capsules in so the centre was covered. Stereo width dropped of course, but it works. I rescued one recording by using the audio from a video camera, way too far away - A bit of fiddling in spectral layers to reduce the reverb a bit, and it worked fine. I have even recorded a classical singer in a less than wonderful church in mono - but with two different mics and then simulated the reverb in the video edit.

My experience is that almost all recordings of live performances in church type venues are compromised by the same things. Coughs and physical noises, passing ambulances and phones. Never has the mic technique employed ever been distinct enough to say if it is 100% Blumlein or M/S - or any of the others. I have the M/S capsule for my zoom. Very rarely used.

This clip might be revealing. Recorded in mono, but with a ribbon for fig 8 and a 414 on cardioid. What you cannot see is that the pianist is actually in the USA, and the singer in the UK - there is no piano in the church at all. The church acoustics were really dead. I had hoped the fig-8 might have been useful, but it wasn't. You are hearing the 414. The singer has the piano track in IEMs - she was really good with the technology. However, even the piano is fake. The recording I was sent was recorded in the pianists apartment and was quite unpleasant. She sent me a MIDI version and what you are hearing is a VSTi. reverb is the bundled reverence plugin within cubase - it's great for churches. This one is an English chapel. So a totally bizarre recording. Breaking all the rules. Sounds OK though!

 

[Serendipity Records]

It turned out better than I could ever imagine. I have yet to listen in the (makeshift) studio but I ran some tests beforehand and it sounded awesome.

I ended up having the Zoom X/Y pair ~2m away and slightly above, relative to the singers:

Then I did something funky a bit further back:

I realized I don’t have the necessary mounting hardware for a proper ORTF pair... so I had a weird cross between ORTF and A/B with the SM81s, and the lil pencil condenser pointing away and up for shits and giggles / room ambience.

Audience noise stayed reasonable, and we did not have any proverbial ambulances go by. I am curious to find out how the random coughs etc came across. I know the X/Y pair was very focused and can probably be used as the sole source on a final mix but I’d rather not use artificial reverb if I can avoid it... the room acoustics are amazing and it would be a shame to waste the rare occasion to utilize a natural space!

I will post .mp3 examples shortly.

 

[rob aylestone]

Excellent - If it sounds right, it is right - just invent a posh name for the technique and promote it as something. That's what a large number of recordings actually are I suspect.

 

[Serendipity Records]

Soooo...

I’m at the editing stage, and the mics further back have a bit of delay (not noticeable as such... but phase issues?)

Should I be aligning them manually or nah? It sounds ok but what’s the “proper” way to do this in your opinion(s) -- to align or not to align?

 

[Papanate]

Soooo...

I’m at the editing stage, and the mics further back have a bit of delay (not noticeable as such... but phase issues?)

Should I be aligning them manually or nah? It sounds ok but what’s the “proper” way to do this in your opinion(s) -- to align or not to align?

I was stupidly thinking it was a group and not a quartet - glad you didn’t listen to me.

 

[Serendipity Records]

I was stupidly thinking it was a group and not a quartet - glad you didn’t listen to me.

Guessed that was it... still, I did use that idea of a room-ish mono mic further back.

 

[TalismanRich]

Soooo...

I’m at the editing stage, and the mics further back have a bit of delay (not noticeable as such... but phase issues?)
Should I be aligning them manually or nah? It sounds ok but what’s the “proper” way to do this in your opinion(s) -- to align or not to align?

If you have a good reference point, then try aligning them manually to match up. There's no right or wrong answer.

And there's no way you can damage things. Unlike tape, where once it's cut... it's cut. DAWs today have non destructive editing. Sound travels at about 1ft/mS (.34m/mS), and it looks like about 2m between the two stands. That would be in the 5-6 mS range. Move it 5mS and if it sound bad, undo and repeat. If you can find a transient spike, you can line up the peaks of the transients exactly. You can also check the absolute polarity if you can match up a transient. You'll know if a polarity is flipped.

 

[Serendipity Records]

Below are sample unprocessed stems.

X/Y:

“ORTF”:

Mono room:

Same sample; mixed (EQ and levels, nothing more because... hey, it’s classical music), but without reverb:

Same mix, with a touch of plate verb to thicken the tone; the reverb was applied to the “ORTF” channel. I did not want to add reverb initially but had to try and could just not live without that candy.

The master buss (sorry, I don’t have it rendered at the moment) has very subtle EQ, and a limiter which boosts the overall volume but only kicks in for the applause. All the EQs are simply high-pass filters plus broad-Q minor adjustments. No compression, saturation, etc.

I will review with fresh ears in the morning but I am very pleased with this so far.

 

[DM60]

First, nice recording and really liked the voices. So source was very good. Question, I agree with the verb but wondering if the room had no natural space or you couldn't capture it. From the pics, it looked like the room should have plenty of space. Using the middle mic to give it some room? Just curious question.

If sounded good. I think after you tweaking a bit more will continue to perfect it. Nice and thanks for posting your results.

 

[rob aylestone]

This is great - I took the X/Y, then ORTF and the other tracks and ran them through one of Cubase's visual tool that6 I use a lot and it really helps compare what you nhear to what you can now see too. The X/Y as voices come in and out is quite distinct between the predominant voice slightly right and the other that balances it left, but less dominant. In the ORTF - the space the voices take up is different - not better or worse, just different. I find seeing a very useful tool. Then the mixed one - some of the stereo shifts there are a little more 'abrupt' - sort of switching between placement? Then the gentled version with reverb. Conclusions? Not as 'stereo' as my ears suggested. Each listen I hear new things. The mono track revealed the space to be much like some of mine - not a big reverb field at all - a smaller churchy style but not excessively big. The ORTF section shows that weird 'hole' in the middle that technique sometimes reveals.

 

[Serendipity Records]

First, nice recording and really liked the voices. So source was very good. Question, I agree with the verb but wondering if the room had no natural space or you couldn't capture it. From the pics, it looked like the room should have plenty of space. Using the middle mic to give it some room? Just curious question.

If sounded good. I think after you tweaking a bit more will continue to perfect it. Nice and thanks for posting your results.

There is some of the mono room mic mixed in there; however, apart from this one song during which the audience is exceptionally quiet, that mic was picking up a ton of audience noise. I will try to boost it a bit more -- indeed, I did not want to add any artificial reverb initially, because for this kind of recording I’m a bit of a purist/snob. I love natural acoustics and wish I could make that a bit more prominent, but the room recording is below the level of the more direct sources.

That said, I want to pitch the ladies a proposition for a controlled recording sesh, because as can be expected, the live performance was not “perfect”.

This is great - I took the X/Y, then ORTF and the other tracks and ran them through one of Cubase's visual tool that6 I use a lot and it really helps compare what you nhear to what you can now see too. The X/Y as voices come in and out is quite distinct between the predominant voice slightly right and the other that balances it left, but less dominant. In the ORTF - the space the voices take up is different - not better or worse, just different. I find seeing a very useful tool. Then the mixed one - some of the stereo shifts there are a little more 'abrupt' - sort of switching between placement? Then the gentled version with reverb. Conclusions? Not as 'stereo' as my ears suggested. Each listen I hear new things. The mono track revealed the space to be much like some of mine - not a big reverb field at all - a smaller churchy style but not excessively big. The ORTF section shows that weird 'hole' in the middle that technique sometimes reveals.

Interesting, thanks for this! I do have the TR5 Metering suite but was not really paying attention to the stereo field all that much, besides using the ORTF to fill out the sides a bit. If I were to do this again, ideally in a controlled / non-live setting, I think I’d put the ORTF further back (and therefore have the room mic further away as well).

 

[Serendipity Records]

Having reviewed the mix just now, and in accordance to your comments, I’ve pushed the room mic up a touch in the mix; also, this render does have the master chain enabled (EQ and inactive limiter / boost).

 

[DM60]

That one person, pokes out. If you get them back together, you might have to move them further back to get the balance. The background really adds to the music, but the other vocal pushes them back.

Still, very good.

 

[TalismanRich]

Listening to the two variations, I almost like the ORTF the best. I don't really hear the middle hole that RA mentioned, but I kind of like the tonality of that one a bit better than the X/Y.

None of them sound bad to me. It's tiny preferences. I think the added reverb is hardly needed. I don't know that I would use a plate reverb. A small hall would probably be more realistic. The last mix with the room mic stronger clearly conveys the natural ambience.