Topic: Big voices, small hall

[WiFiJeff]

I have been recording chamber music recitals in a smallish hall (couple of hundred seats, geodesic dome roof with stadium seating) long enough to have pretty well settled what mics and setup I like for most things, especially piano and string ensembles, but voice is leaving me frustrated.  The problem is not with a particular voice range, but with bigger voices, which end up sounding harsh, which is often an accurate reflection of what I hear in the hall but perhaps exaggerated on the recording.  I've tried Blumlein stereo, SD and LD omnis on various Jecklin discs, ribbons in Blumlein, everything I could think of throwing in.  I think the problem is partly that big voices produce some odd reflective reinforcement, but it's hard to cut this out with very directional mics because these singers move around sometimes (today even going outside my Blumlein ribbons, ouch).

So what do people like for big operatic voices in small halls, preferably with a single tripod stand?  Is there something I could be doing in post to get a better sound?

Jeff

[Gutbucket]

A geodesic dome seems to me like it would present acoustic problems with early reflections. Blumlein and omnis in most configs are going to particularly sensitive of those reflections, which are probably too early to be identifiable as reverb so much as tonality changes and a sense of small-roomness or depth.  Louder sources will illuminate the reflective surfaces of the dome more strongly so the effect might then become more pronounced.  Since the path lenghts of all those reflections are so similar in a dome as compared to a typical rectangular room, the arrival time of the reflections probably aren't as spread out in time.  All that is armchair speculation of course.

I'd try configs that cut down on the full spherical pickup directionality of the microphones when considered as a pair, not as individual mics.  Instead of Blumlein, maybe a Faulkner array? Still uses two fig-8s but the aligned nulls would drastically reduce reflected sound from the sides and above, while still providing a sense of space by picking up ambience from the rear and sounding natural off-axis, though with reduced level.  I've heard that configuration can really help with pesky side reflections while still keeping a spacious and 'open' sound for classical recording.

One of the things I like about my front/back baffled omni technique we've spoken about before (imagine a cube shaped Jecklin disc, baffling Left, Center, Right and Back omnis), is that it gives me a bit more control over the balance of direct sound provided by the center mic and the level of room ambince provided by the back mic behind the baffle.  But thats an admitedly esoteric config and it still picks up all the reflected sound from the sides and ceiling.  Works better in a typical room so I'm not sure how well it would apply here.

Besides the Faulkner array, maybe try A-B spacing or Jecklin with some directional mics?  Again, since the combined pickup patterns would be oriented in the same direction, they woud tend to reduce pickup of the reflections to an extent determined by the mic pattern you choose. Think of them as omnis when setting up the config, and balance the reflections and room sound with the direct sound by choice of pattern.

Just thinking off the top of my head.. I'll be curious to hear what works for you.

[WiFiJeff]

Thanks, I'll have to look into some of these ideas. 

For piano, my setup of choice now (when I have the time to do the extra setup and editing) is four channel Jecklin with each side of the disc made up of a cardioid and an omni, which mimics my stealth setup with the DPA 4099/4063.  As with the miniature DPAs, I low-pass the omni pair and use it to bass-reinforce the cardioids. This seems to help even when the mics on my Jecklin disc are full size,  Schoeps cardioids and Josephson or Sanken omnis.  Pianos, however, don't dance around much, and I worry that if I use directional mics as my main pair for singers they'll move out of coverage (as happens even with Blumlein setup).  But going back to say Schoeps subcardioids gives up some screening out of reflective sources. 

By the way, my experience with the DPA 4099s, which are technically hypercardioids, when surface mounted (that would be me, AES affiliate and amateur audio mount surface), seems to show that the pattern broadens out, I pick up stuff from the front sides that I would expect to miss (this is good for me, they are like very forgiving blunderbusses that take down everything upfront, rather than shotguns you have to aim precisely).   Is this what one would expect?

Jeff

[Gutbucket]

Pianos, however, don't dance around much, and I worry that if I use directional mics as my main pair for singers they'll move out of coverage (as happens even with Blumlein setup).  But going back to say Schoeps subcardioids gives up some screening out of reflective sources.

Blumlein has about the narrowest recording angle of any config, eventhough it is picking up sound energy equally from all horizontal directions.  As a stereo pattern it only has reduced sensitivity for sound arriving from directly above and below.  Once the singer moves past +/- 40-45 degrees off axis the reversed polarity of the mic on the opposite side is going to start making them sound odd.  The subcards won't do that, and should actually pick up less reflected sound overall, since their reduced sensitivity regions to the rear are somewhat aligned with each other depending on the angle between them.

I've put 3 or four omnis across the front edge of the stage which worked nicely for widely spaced or moving sources since there was always one mic in relatively close proximity to the source picking up direct sound.  Panned each across the stereo field according to their placement.  That might be also be a possibly with subcards or even a more directional pattern.

I've no idea about the pattern change when mounting the 4099s on a baffle or boundary, but I'm still considering picking up one or two of them myself based on your experience.

Lee

[DSatz]

I just want to express my sympathy for your situation and for the audience members who are getting a completely topsy-turvy impression. Halls designed to make weak or untrained voices sound good inevitably make mature, full voices (that are doing all the right things vocally) sound bad.

The same is true of microphones that have (for example) a peak around 9 kHz to add "sparkle"--a professional singer already has plenty of that, and the added dollop just sounds weird and wrong.

The only thing I can think of is to use multiple microphones and relatively close miking, then mix. It sucks, but we are slaves to the acoustical environments that we record in, and can only hope for a beneficent master now and then.

--best regards

[WiFiJeff]

Thanks for the sympathy, I was really starting to think I was in a whole new acoustic nightmare of my own.  The hall I was referring to is in fact a lecture hall, designed to make spoken unamplified voices carry everywhere, but even a chamber music gem like Carnegie's Weill Hall exhibits this reflected interference to an annoying degree (a friend who is mainly a voice person calls it "Vile Hall").  And I've heard many of the young singers we get (often from the Lindemann program) sing at the Met, they sound perfectly great in the big house.  I'll try using very flat response cardioids and omnis and try a mix like I use for piano, maybe that will help.

Jeff