Recording in church

[MStarke]

Dear all,

I am having a concert in October and considering to record it.
Not having the highest expectations, it should just be a nice memory to the participants.
Still I am hoping if some of you guys might give me some guidance.

Following situation and equipment:
- Trombone ensemble with 4 to 7 players
- Playing in a classical church setting, probably with some distance between the players (Covid restrictions)
- One ribbon (with a simple preamp to get the required gain) and one condenser microphone (both rather on the cheaper end, might get a Royer ribbon before the concert) with an interface for two/stereo inputs

I have the following idea:
- Placing the ribbon close to the ensemble, trying to get more or less the same distance to all individual players
- Placing the condenser further away, kind of in the middle of the church
- Mixing/levelling the microphones in order to get the best mix of "direct" sound and room sound

Some thoughts:
- If I had two similar (ribbon) microphones I would probably locate them both closer to the ensemble
- I generally prefer the ribbon sound over the condenser for trombones, but would hope to get some room for adjustment/additional color by using the condenser in addition

Please be gentle I have no clue what I am doing here. I have only just found how to make the ribbon sound alright at home in my office.

Would be great to get your ideas!

[AndrewMeronek]

Placing the mics simultaneously at varying distances can cause syncing problems when you "combine" tracks. Simplest is often best: pick one mic and use that. Churches often are terrible acoustic environments due to heavy reverb anyway. The specific distance will just depend on the acoustics of your church, although keep in mind that too close and you end up not picking up the entire ensemble, or get one or two instruments dominating. I take it there is no opportunity to test some different locations in rehearsals?

[robcat2075]

Book the performance space for a rehearsal before your concert, bring your recording equipment and test all the mic setups you can think of, playing the same excerpts for each test.

Go home, listen to them, and pick the one that sounds best.

[harrisonreed]

If possible, I would try to use two mics that are the same type, ribbon or condenser, and put them in a stereo A/B or X/Y configuration (ab for omni, xy if they are in cardiod. Not sure how the ribbons would fit into that). With only two inputs, I would err on the side of caution and go in relatively close to the ensemble, maybe 3-4 meters above the ground and 3-4 meters out in front. You'll have to test it out to see what sounds best. I'd forget about a room mic at a further distance unless you have 4 inputs and 4 mics. The idea of mixing together two inputs to get the right balance of wet/dry is a lot more tricky in practice than it sounds. As Andrew said, you need to do a sync which might include using a clapper ahead of time out bring meticulous about your placement, and using math and charts to get the right delay in the daw for it to sound right.

You can always add reverb if you need more, in your DAW, but you can't take it away. And churches will hang on to the upper frequencies for a long time in their reverb. Human ears might not pick up on it (churches seem to sound great when you sit in them), but the mic might latch onto the upper frequencies, and suddenly you're sounding like you're playing in a bathroom.

The ideal mic for this project might well be the Line Audio CM4, made and sold in Sweden. You can get a stereo set of these for about $225, and they sound insanely good. If you're in Europe, you can get them pretty fast, but it took forever to get them shipped to the states. There are MANY semi-pro and pro sound engineers who use these as their main pair when recording any chamber ensemble.

[LeTromboniste]

Is it a boomy church? If so, you might not find your "room sound" input useful, i.e. if your mic near the ensemble is already picking up more room sound and reverb than would be ideal.

In an ideal world you'd want at least an overhead stereo pair but with two such very different microphones it is likely not going to sound so great.

In a pinch, might want to consider setting up a Zoom H4n or similar as your central stereo pair and then using the two other mics for closer miking or as a spaced pair or one for room sound if it's useful.
Actually I'd be curious to hear what happens if you set up a Zoom at 120°, with the condenser set up right below it to cover the hole in the center.

[MStarke]

Wow, that's some great and quick responses!

I will probably be able to do some testing in the church in advance as we are partly rehearsing there.
However I don't want to spend too much time on this. It's more important to me to actually play - first bigger concert after 2019...

Very first takeaway seems to be that the idea of a "room" microphone is not the best, but it would be recommended to bring available microphones relatively close to the ensemble.

Harrison, thanks for pointing to the Line Audio CM4! Didn't know that before - looks interesting. However until now I am really a fan of ribbon mics. My condenser is an Oktava which is roughly in the same price range and said to be very good for its price as well...

The idea with the Zoom is also great. Potentially we will do this in parallel, including video.

[harrisonreed]

Yes, you have to use what you have and what you like. I only pointed to the CM4s because they sound pure and beautiful, and are very inexpensive. And you can fit two of them, each in their own case, with clip and windscreen, IN ONE PANTS POCKET!!?!

Here is a rehearsal recording I did using a spaced A/B pair of CM4s out in front of a brass band. You can hear every individual instrument, though the drums sound awful. Usually you would mic the drums separately of course. But you can basically hear every detail here. No, I would never record anything for public consumption this way, but you can get a good idea here.



And a slightly different EQ:



Anyways, good luck! You're getting great advice from the others.

[jbeatenbough]

Back in the day, I was regularly doing this as the sound guy for my church. One of the things that helped me the most was to run the signal through an eq before recording. I would use a pink noise generator and eq it for flat (I had no budget for acoustic room modifications). Then test with the ensemble. This process helps much because those big rooms always have a dominate frequency and if you can push that down some in the eq, it make the recording sound more like what you actually hear when you are in the audience.

I also agree on advice early in this... either use 1 mic or a matching pair in stereo setup... For a group taking up much of the "stage" area, start with the mics about 1/3 of the way from the stage toward the back and then adjust.

Have fun and good luck. Oh, don't forget to share the recording with us!

[MStarke]

The concert was Saturday and went really well. It was so great to play such wonderful music after such a long break from any serious/bigger concerts. Last big one I had before was 2019 in the Berlin philharmonic hall, so this was a long wait.

I did the recording as some of you recommended. Located the microphone (Royer R10) basically in the middle of the ensemble so that distance was more or less the same from all the bells. I put a preamp between the ribbon and the interface, allowing phantom power and a stronger signal. Until now I only have the raw data and will do some adjustments, but overall this seems to have created a good recording.

Logical, but still a bit surprising when I first heard it: Due to the church acoustics we played relatively short. As the microphone did not pick up much of the room sound, this sounds a little bit too short in some places. But I think I can add some room sound in Audacity to make this better.

I will share some of it once I am done!