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Gear / Technical Help => Ask The Tapers => Topic started by: acidjack on June 24, 2009, 10:18:35 AM
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Planning to record modern Icelandic composer Johann Johansson at a venue here in NYC Thursday. I've recorded a lot of shows, but never classical, so I want to be sure I'm not screwing this up....
Setup will be DPA 4061 (Coresound HEB version)>R-09HR.
Things I am not sure about:
- Whether show is seated or standing (it's listed as GA, so no assigned seats, though I understand sometimes this venue puts seats out)
- Whether the sound will be amplified
Either way, I'm assuming it won't be loud enough for line-in.
The Coresound HEBs have the phantom power in-line with the mics; as far as I know, if you don't plug in the phantom box and just plug the mics directly into the plug-in power on the recorder, nothing happens (haven't tried this at home, but I'd think that is the case).
I assume the right move here is to go ahead and use the mic input, turn plug in power ON, and set it to "LOW". If I can't get decent levels using "low" during the opener, then move to "high".
Is that right? Am I going to have any problems using the plug-in power if the mics already have phantom?
Also, am I making the right choice on mics for this? My assumption was to use the 4061s and get close, because they have the best detail, and hopefully a classical audience will be quiet. But, I could run my more directional AT853 cards or hypers.
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Classical is seated venue.
I would use the box that comes with the mics and turn R-09HR mic power off and go mic in.
Some instruments might be amplified a bit.
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Recording classical music is quite tricky because of the huge dynamic range of an orchestra. Some parts will be very quiet, and if you set your levels then, you will be way over when the percusion section kicks in - assuming it's a full orchestra, and not a chamber orchestra, which won't have such high peaks. I would suggest recording at high resolution, and keeping your levels pretty low, then you can boost the volume later without increasing noise. Also get as close as you can. Because the music volume is low, if you are too far back you wil get all the coughs, sneezes and other ambient noise. Go battery box, mic in low sensitivity.
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If you are stealthing, go with the omnis - if the music is quiet, then you will pick up lots of handling noise with the cardioids.
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Recording classical music is quite tricky because of the huge dynamic range of an orchestra. Some parts will be very quiet, and if you set your levels then, you will be way over when the percusion section kicks in - assuming it's a full orchestra, and not a chamber orchestra, which won't have such high peaks. I would suggest recording at high resolution, and keeping your levels pretty low, then you can boost the volume later without increasing noise. Also get as close as you can. Because the music volume is low, if you are too far back you wil get all the coughs, sneezes and other ambient noise. Go battery box, mic in low sensitivity.
This will not be a full orchestra - nor I think like a typical classical performance such as the symphony. It's in what is normally a nightclub that hosts more jazz/electronic type acts (medeski martin & wood played there recently). They apparently sometimes have seats, sometimes not...
In any event, this is all great advice - I'll go mic in/low at 96kHz and keep the levels low...
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Yup..much better to run light and boost later if need than to deal with the buttah.
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Set levels so that the applause is just below clipping, that will probably be the loudest part. I've got to imagine this will be seated. Get there early and sit in the very front.
BTW, the DPA mini-mics run on plug-in power (~5-9VDC) not phantom (~48VDC), important to clarify so you don't blow them up someday by using a phantom supply. Since power will be provided by the 9V battery in the core sound box, you should turn the plug in power of the recorder off. You will need to use the gain of the preamp section of the recorder to get the levels where you want them.
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The Coresound HEBs have the phantom power in-line with the mics; as far as I know, if you don't plug in the phantom box and just plug the mics directly into the plug-in power on the recorder, nothing happens (haven't tried this at home, but I'd think that is the case).
That's correct. If you don't use the HEB battery box and just plug the mics in, you won't get signal. I made a little adapter for my HEB 4061's to complete the circuit, allowing me to plug my 4061's directly into a recorder or standard 1/8" battery box. I just got a 4 pin mini-XLR male connector and completed the circuit between a few of the pins. Works well with my Church ST-9100 preamp.
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The Coresound HEBs have the phantom power [plug-in power] in-line with the mics; as far as I know, if you don't plug in the phantom box [9V battery box] and just plug the mics directly into the plug-in power on the recorder, nothing happens (haven't tried this at home, but I'd think that is the case).
That's correct.. <snip>
Except for the mention of phantom power, which I've corrected in bold. Don't zap your nice mics. ;)
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Set levels so that the applause is just below clipping, that will probably be the loudest part. I've got to imagine this will be seated. Get there early and sit in the very front.
BTW, the DPA mini-mics run on plug-in power (~5-9VDC) not phantom (~48VDC), important to clarify so you don't blow them up someday by using a phantom supply. Since power will be provided by the 9V battery in the core sound box, you should turn the plug in power of the recorder off. You will need to use the gain of the preamp section of the recorder to get the levels where you want them.
Thanks for the correction of terminology - I had been interchangeably referring to the 9v power of various "battery boxes" as "phantom" for a long time. Now I know :)
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Except for the mention of phantom power, which I've corrected in bold. Don't zap your nice mics. ;)
I figured he was just interchanging terminology, since the heb power module he is using is just a 9v bb. Thanks for the correction though, frying the mics would be bad.
I was really just quoting to confirm that the Heb's won't work without a power source due to the way they were wired. Here's a couple pics of the adapter I made to allow the heb's to plug directly into a recorder, or a 1/8" battery box:
(http://home.comcast.net/~idiotek/heb1.jpg)
(http://home.comcast.net/~idiotek/heb2.jpg)
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Hi
I don´t record with DPA mics (a pity ::)) but I record classical music operas etc. DON´T use the high sens setting on the edirol otherwise I´m pretty sure your recording will distort. This happend to me recording with AT943 and bbox mic in on the edirol plug in power off with high sens setting although the level only went to -6dB. Better use the highest level 80 in low sens mod thats no problem and afterwards amplifie the recording.
Surely I can not exactly say how this would be with your mics but I had this experience one time.
Regards pafnuzzi
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Please, never use "High" setting for live music. Ever.
Take care ;)
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Please, never use "High" setting for live music. Ever.
Take care ;)
Thanks to all for the advice. FWIW, I actually did use "high" once for a pretty much completely unamplified singer-songwriter show. It went fine with AT 853s direct into the edirol, but again, it was not a very loud show.
In any event, I taped the classical thing last night. Pretty tough b/c Johannsson himself uses keyboards and stuff that produces louder sounds, but there were also parts w/ just a string quartet. In any event, other than a little volume tweaking in the beginning, it came out great. I'll post some clips here hopefully this w/e once I've done my editing.
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By the way, if you want to get the flavor of my results:
MP3 download of entire show here (plus a Feelies show I recorded recently): https://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=UmNKZGl1YSs5eFYzZUE9PQ
FLACs on DIME (with samples) here: http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?returnto=%2Faccount-cp.php&id=255204
Recording classical (or in this case, quasi-classical) was fun. The 4061s are really suitable for it and produced great fidelity on the strings. I'm sure 4060s would be even more ideal if this was your regular application.
FWIW I did run mic in, power off, low sens setting. Because there were amplified keyboards and the strings were mic'd, I got plenty decent levels.
Thanks again to all for the helpful advice. Also, if you have any interest in contemporary classical music, I recommend checking Johannsson out. His albums Fordlandia and Englaborn are both excellent.
Planning to record modern Icelandic composer Johann Johansson at a venue here in NYC Thursday. I've recorded a lot of shows, but never classical, so I want to be sure I'm not screwing this up....
Setup will be DPA 4061 (Coresound HEB version)>R-09HR.
Things I am not sure about:
- Whether show is seated or standing (it's listed as GA, so no assigned seats, though I understand sometimes this venue puts seats out)
- Whether the sound will be amplified
Either way, I'm assuming it won't be loud enough for line-in.
The Coresound HEBs have the phantom power in-line with the mics; as far as I know, if you don't plug in the phantom box and just plug the mics directly into the plug-in power on the recorder, nothing happens (haven't tried this at home, but I'd think that is the case).
I assume the right move here is to go ahead and use the mic input, turn plug in power ON, and set it to "LOW". If I can't get decent levels using "low" during the opener, then move to "high".
Is that right? Am I going to have any problems using the plug-in power if the mics already have phantom?
Also, am I making the right choice on mics for this? My assumption was to use the 4061s and get close, because they have the best detail, and hopefully a classical audience will be quiet. But, I could run my more directional AT853 cards or hypers.
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Cool music, sounds really good. More discussion on recording with these has been going on in the team classical thread.