Recording in an adverse environment

[Claire Buckley]

Do come back and tell us how you get on Bob.

Would love to hear...

:)

[Bob Hart]

Claire


Thanks for your assistance and encouragement. Either celebrating how I fared or crying in my cups in public if I did not, I will surely let everyone know.


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A risk of getting into a politically incorrect debate I am hesitatingly inserting this lower footer which seems to be a practice these days.

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QUOTE: "- - - - hits lower, 'ceptin' when she hawlin' off an' swingin' that castiron skillet, then bruvver, you don't be hangin' 'round, standin ye ground. That's a fool's game. You better be runnin' already.

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and one of my own.

A person can be a great Jack of all trades, except that life is too short.

SI2K. EX1. NAGRA 4L and a few other bits and pieces.

[Bob Hart]

Have built the "Decca Tree", - adjustable from about 600mm to 1000mm on each arm.

Gave it a quick test tonight with the short directional Sony mike in centre and one each C74 on the arms, oriented to use the rear lobe of the pattern as I understand the recommended arrangement. Seems to work well on the stereo. Gaining up or dropping down the centre mike pretty much does as the literature suggests.

How well remains to be seen. That revelation will happen this coming Wednesday. Hopefully I will have a warmer and non-directional mike on the centre arm by Wednesday.

Thanks everyone for your assistance in this cliff-face learning curve so far.

[Bob Hart]

Here is a link to a copy of first rehearsal and recording test.

YouTube - FRA DIAVOLO EXTRACTS WEB EXPORT.mp4

It is not really valid as an example because I levelled the channels with normalisation to 95% and put some compression on in Cool Edit, otherwise the quiet stuff was buried really low.

Left channel was a bit strong. Right channel was kept down as the horns had me bluffed. I will try riding it next week on some of the takes as the other channels don't seem to pump with it being moved.

Left channel on the first piece is a bit brushy. All channels were down on the first piece. I brought them up and gained the recorder down for the next piece and that seems a bit cleaner but still has that noise.

[Colin McDonald]

Bob, that does indeed look a very difficult place to record an ensemble of that size. You seem to have done pretty well considering, but it would be great to hear even a very short extract of the original full quality file so that we can discount any unwanted compression effects from posting on Youtube.

One problem with home made Decca trees is the health and safety aspect - is yours actually suspended above the conductor (and what's actually holding it up)?

This is the daft kind of gig that I get roped in for. I did a youth orchestra open rehearsal recording in a huge games hall (with similar acoustic to a swimming pool) using a pair of Rode NT1As in an ORTF setup about 10ft off the floor on heavy duty stands. It sounded better than I have expected but obviously not studio quality.

[Jim Andrada]

Interestingly enough the you tube page had a link to a performance by Tito Gobbi - ancient recording, noisy, terrible from a modern day recording perspective - but the interpretation was brilliant!

Fast forward to now - I'm still thinking that a good stereo pair might be a better choice. Certainly simpler to set up and lighter overhead! I'm thinking that for this one, the challenge is more to get good sound than optimal stereo image.

I'm worrying that at close range the orchestra is quite spread out side to side and I'm afraid a shotgun will wind up rejecting a lot of the instruments at the extreme ends of the orchestra (Violins for example)

There seems to be a bit of noise coming from somewhere - not sure if it would be mic or somewhere else in the recording chain - maybe H4 isn't quite up to the challenge??? Not sure at all. Also You Tube didn't do anything to improve things I'm sure.

Keep at it - best of luck.

[Bob Hart]

Colin.


The Decca tree as such is free standing on a light stand and sandbagged. It is also out of "arms reach" of falling on the conductor which might also mitigate against recording quality.


Jim.


Simpler may be better but of best mikes, I have but one of them. The Tito Gotti clip has turned up since last I ventured to youtube. There is also a lot of drift through that recording relative to the orchestral backing which makes me wonder if his vocal went down to playback of a pre-recorded backing.

Recordings onto optical film might not have been so easy to line up, especially if the playback was not easily audible to the singer once he lit up and added his own expression to the pacing of the piece.

[Jim Andrada]

Yes, I understand - we always run into the reality of not having exactly the right kit for whatever comes along, otherwise I think we'd need a 5 ton truck full of gear. I always have the same problem myself - don't quite have exactly what fits the situation but have to make do while fighting miserable room acoustics all the while.

Oh well, that's where creativity enters the picture I guess.

The Gobbi recording was utterly deficient from a recording perspective, but it was fun to listen to nevertheless. Something like the media NOT being the message, rather the message transcending the media.

Wish we were closer - I'd be happy to loan you my kit and borrow yours when the need arose if we were't on opposite sides of the earth! I'm pretty well set up for classical stuff, but sadly lacking when it comes to dialogue/ jazz, etc.

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Bob Hart

Here is a link to a copy of first rehearsal and recording test.

YouTube - FRA DIAVOLO EXTRACTS WEB EXPORT.mp4

It is not really valid as an example because I levelled the channels with normalisation to 95% and put some compression on in Cool Edit, otherwise the quiet stuff was buried really low.

Left channel was a bit strong. Right channel was kept down as the horns had me bluffed. I will try riding it next week on some of the takes as the other channels don't seem to pump with it being moved.

Left channel on the first piece is a bit brushy. All channels were down on the first piece. I brought them up and gained the recorder down for the next piece and that seems a bit cleaner but still has that noise.

I'm confused about what you meant when you said you have the C74's oriented to use the back lobe. Does that mean you're aiming the usual front of the mic AWAY from the orchestra? Also, what do you mean by the above "pump when being moved?" Did you take the mics directly to the recorder or did you go through a mixer? If it was direct to recorder CAN you go through a proper mixing desk next time? Your issues with gain settings would be much more controllable if you could.

Decca trees are traditionally done with omnidirectional mics or occasionally cardioids, not extremely directional mics such as your Sonys. Isn't there anything you can do to get proper mics? I'm with Jim that a pair of small-diaphram cradioids in an X/Y coincident or an ORTF semi-concident arrangement will probably give you the best results. Wouldn't even consider it with shotguns.

[Bob Hart]

The performance went off tonight as planned. David Pye, the conductor or the Fremantle Symphony Orchestra and arranger of the pieces, reset the orchestra slightly differently and modulated their individual performances to fit according to the rehearsal recordings from last week.

One of the C74 mikes has a very slight buzz on some peaks, to be expected I guess after some 30 years. It had to be replaced so I went into the debt and bought in two Rode Nt2a mikes.

There were three NT2a mikes on the Decca tree. The centre mike was switched to omni-directional, the wing mikes were switched to bipolar ?? ( figure 8 ) and arranged as per recommendations.

Best of all, Il Direttore Steve Rice was able to get a smart young fellow who knows his sound stuff to come along.

He observed the setup with the Yamaha mixer and suggested that as I was only using three channels and I had picked up some line noise last week, that I should use his Sound Devices three channel mixer along with his headset and H4n, which he had brought along "just in case".

What a relief it is to have someone along who knows what he is doing and can make it happen. Even more, an affirmation that all is most definitely not lost with the young generation.

The session went down in three takes for the first piece and two for the second and is a delight to listen to.


So. Thank you all for your helpful contributions to the project in the way of advice and also giving me the necessary poke in the arse to better respect the orchestra's endeavours with a better effort on the sound recording side.


I will post an extract in the next few days once I have copied and tidied up the edges.


My reference to "pumping" is not correct soundie's terminology. I refer to an unpleasant thing which happens if you drop level on one channel a bit too much and then try to relevel in post and the rest of the recording comes up un-naturally as well.

[Seth Bloombaum]

Bravo!

I look forward to hearing some samples! Kudos for emerging on the other side of a challenging project in good condition, with recordings you can live with.

[Jim Andrada]

Hi Bob

Congratulations! Sounds (pun intended) like you got it!

Seriously, I've been really happy with my NT2-A. I'm thinking of getting another one shortly. I've heard a chorus recording using two of them in an ORTF configuration and they sounded really good. Give it a try sometime.

With three of them you could do surround sound (two in cardioid mode facing front and back and one in figure 8 mode covering right and left.)

Or two in figure 8 mode crossed at 90 degrees in a Blumlein configuration. Lots of combinations possible.

[Allan Black]

Hi Bob, yes kudos for hanging in there and also to the band for the same.

You West Aussies certainly have a reputation for that .. just have to taste your Margaret River wines :)

Cheers.

[Bob Hart]

Well, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, here is the final outcome, each channel normalised to 95% in Cool Edit Pro at 96Khz but otherwise unaltered except for what recoding to YouTube imposes.

YouTube - FRA DIAVOLO ARRANGEMENTS FOR IBTTS.mp4

There is an artifact evident once or twice in the first piece. My jury is out on whether it is a disharmonic beat between two strong sounds like you get when two girls scream at the top of their lungs nearby or something caused by the room acoustics or my pole picking something up and resonating to it.

Any hints at minimising it would be appreciated also any of your personal preferences as to how I should massage the recordings.

The pole had foam padding at the arm junctions and at the mikes. I made suspensions but got it wrong and had no time left to remake. We put some furniture blankets up on the walls and opened what windows we could.


Thanks again everyone. Regards from Western Australia.

[Steve House]

I'm curious why you're normalizing. Varying dynamics are such an important part of the emotional expression in classical music and normalizing reduces the dynamic contrasts of the recording. If some of the music is loud and other parts soft, that's the way the composer and the conductor intended it to sound so don't try to smooth it out.