How to record a choir (at Xmas)
My mission: to record a choir singing Christmas Carols. Outcome: success. Method: follows.
In one sense, recording a choir is simpler than a band as you are dealing with only a few elements. In another, it is harder because you have no place to hide audible flaws. This is how I got on one long autumn weekend.
The first step is get a good choir. They must sing at about the same volume, blend together and all be familiar with the material. Then you must find a good space. Small stone churches like we used are ideal as the ratio of reflected to direct sound is balanced at the start. Larger stone spaces are OK but there is a trade off in vocal definition. Many ‘classic’ choral recordings are by cathedral choirs which sound warm but refracted with reverb, smearing the intelligibility. This is OK when the tracks are well-known carols as people recognise the melodies and fill in the gaps, plus this is singing not reciting. My choir was an operatic society and so aiming for a more defined sound with descants and harmonies not obscuring the main melody. The larger spaces in the church we used would have drowned the choir in echo and larger modern buildings use materials which do not have the warm quality of soundwaves bouncing off thick stone.
Concentrating intently - note ghost of Xmas past on right
Mic-wise I have found a stereo pair in ORTF the best for the voices, in this case AKG C451s. They were raised about 2-3 feet up and 6 feet out angled downwards at the singers, no pad but high pass engaged. This gave a strong vocal signal whilst pushing the nulls towards the ceiling where the noise of passing jets comes in. Another option is Neumann KM184s, and hire if you don’t own them as cheaper Rodes, Studio Projects, Oktava etc tend towards harsh top-end, the German mics are much silkier. Accompanying instruments you must experiment. For pipe organ I found an SE1a condenser offset by 20 degrees and pointing to below the opening of the bellows gave the best result. My AT 4033 LDC performed OK, but I preferred the less coloured sound so listen before committing. A ribbon wasn’t for me but by all means try. Most of our carols were electric piano led and I used a combo of indirect sound through the main mics and a cheeky DI which gave more flexibility at the mix. For ambiance I used a measurement mic pointing at the stone wall from a foot out and away from the choir, plus an Samson LDC in figure of 8 lower on the floor pointing up at the centre of the choir to fill the hole but I didn’t need it much as our choir was a compact 12 or so. Three tracks were done with a pair of Fathead ribbons in Blumlein at head height and the choir in two groups on either side. This was cumbersome to set up and it can be tricky to keep performers from drifting into the phased quadrants but it really does provide the “you are there” feel. With a bigger choir you could probably get away with the Bruce Swedein ‘in a circle method’, but check the result in mono for phase.
Which brings me to my secret mix weapon, phase inversion. When recording rock or pop phase is your enemy as it attacks principally the low end, sucking it out along with the excitement and power. But the low of of the human voice is not all that low, even with basses and the rumbly ambient rubbish lives down there too. As the choir was often divided into male and female voice parts I started experimenting with phase early on and found certain inversions pulled the two sections apart and gave a nice springy clarity to the sound. This took reverb really well and I added some Waves and Altiverb convolutions to the ambient mics to make the natural churchy reverb richer. Where necessary I restored bass frequencies with some gentle EQ. The end result had good stereo imaging, clarity, warmth and nice reverb tails.
So to sum up; if you ever need to record a choir.
1) Choose one that can sing in time and tune, the Hounslow Light Opera Coy did great.
2) Record in an old stone building if possible.
3) Don’t skimp on quality of the mics, and feel free to spread the love with ambient placement as they can be useful at mix down.
4) Phase is your friend, experiment with inversions on the stereo signals, and maybe try Phase Bug or Voxengo PHA-979 plugin to find the sweet spots on the alignment.
5) Give em regular breaks and encouragement. A good musical director is a boon too as he can fill the role of taskmaster.
The result is a limited edition CD, details are here if you would like a copy.
Cover design by Lee Campbell - click for details
