We just wrapped up the initial recording sessions with the Crown College Choir in Knoxville, TN. The entire 160 voice choir has finished their part of the recording, and tonight we do it all over again with a smaller ensemble of about 14 voices. This ensemble will sing along with the recorded vocals of the full choir in order to add a closer, cleaner sound that will make the final mix sound much fuller and on-pitch (assuming these 14 voices are as good as they are supposed to be). Once completed there will be a total of 348 voices (two passes of the full choir and two passes of the ensemble). It may seem like overkill, but the fact is that a single pass recording of a choir sounds much weaker than it would sound in person. It takes the extra time and effort to get a recording that sounds accurate and has the fullness people expect when they listen to a CD. These picts from the magnificent camera in my Blackberry show you my setup in the middle of the auditorium and the microphones on the stage. We are using 6 mics across the front of the choir--2 Neumann TLM-103's, 2 Neumann U-87's and 2 Rode NT-1's. Don't try to find any rhyme or reason in that, it is what I had access to. You will also notice the two mics on the tall stands in the middle. These two AT-4050's give me a more distant stereo pair that really smooths out the overall sound. Sorry I did not get any pictures while the choir was up there--just too busy to think of it.
