Recording live Renaissance vocal quartet

[Serendipity Records]

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.

Agreed, that one singer is a bit overpowering! lol. I pitched the recording session idea this afternoon, no reply yet... fingers crossed!

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.

Haha, I prefer the ORTF myself. I used EQ’ing to favor the X/Y for focus and ORTF for overtones and color. I’ve had trouble making hall reverbs sound good in the past... skill issue? I don’t know. What I do know is that a medium-tail plate just glues it all together on the fundamentals rather than build up on the air frequencies, which is what I was going for.