Mic'ing a Cathedral

[justanothermonkey]

Hi Guys,

 

Christmas is over and wow what a one it was. Just in the area and wondering what would be the suggestions for micing a cathedral from scratch.

 

The cathedral I am looking at for an example would be something of a similar size to Canterbury Cathedral (In the UK, Just In case). They have a current sound re-inforcement system with a feed that takes a couple of overheads into account, but in all honesty it is a little poor for recording.

 

I can get a speech only feed from here, but then that said it would be hassle.

 

Obviously (well I would presume so) we would like the following in the Mix

 

Vocals (from speech and readings)

Music (Organ / Tapes)

Choir and Congregation

 

 

So any ideas?

 

 

Another Monkey

Now in a cathedral (the no pets allowed sign was covered)

[paulears]

The basic idea of recording in a nice sounding space is to find somewhere where to your ears it sounds as you'd like other people to hear it, and then use a simple stereo pair in this location. x/y or M/S techniques work quite well, although there are many others that sound different, and maybe even better in a controlled system. The real snag with the cleverer ones is that you need to monitor on loudspeakers, good ones - to hear the subtle differences. So your stereo pair will work for one area, but if the prime area is the choir, but the organ is displaced in space - often quite a way away, you may need another 'collection' system there, and then the two need blending. In a cathedral size space this often means the choir are actually singing behind the organ, it being so far away as to have a definite time delay if you simply mix the two sources, meaning careful handling of the delay. Speech needs close miking, and again blending. An organ recital can sound superb on an x/y pair on a tall stand, monitgored on headphones. Trouble is, it looks naff, and if you need to add in extra mics, spaced a distance away, you really need a room you can monitor on. If the speakers have radio mics, then a spare set of receivers will let you use the PA sources, saving hassle (if they're good enough ones?).

 

Whenever I do these kind of things - spent a while recording carol services for the Beeb a few years ago - the best recordings were the simplest ones. Cathedrals sounds superb for music, rubbish for speech and also have far too many restrictions on where you can go and what things look like. Others are much more accommodating. In one CofE church they had amazing rules on where I could go, what I could do, and the visual impact of kit and cables - the pleasantest one was a RC church where the priest let me fill up a side chappel with racks and cases, and when I worried about putting them over one of those 'tomb' things in the floor, he smiled and said they were dead and wouldn't worry!

 

If they want you to be out of sight, then this is very difficult. Maybe if floor stands are out, you can rig up a flying line and suspend the mics? For what it's worth, I've never had any luck with any form of spaced microphone technique - the reverb makes imaging a real mess and you end up with a very confused stereo image and horrible delays.

[Bobbsy]

Very little to add to Paul's very comprehensive summary except to say that, when considering your microphone techniqe, an ORTF set up is one I've found often works well in a cathedral setting. I've often ended up doing this with the mics suspended from a cable slung in between two columns/pillars, something fairly common in the setting we're talking about.

 

Bob

[Chris Adam]

For discreet choir / audience micing I tend to use the AKG HM1000 (or similar) as they are tiny, condensers and cardiod. You get a minimal amount of spill from surrounding noise (although I'd high pass them quite high if near an organ and that low end rumble does get everywhere) and the quality isn't too shabby.

 

Quite rightly in many circumstances, religous venues (but not limited to..) tend to not like large diaphram mics being put all over the place. With the organ you really have little choice but to use a good quality condenser, but the choir sound will be more forgiving, and for the congregation sound, the hanging mics would be more than fine.

 

I totally agree that if it's a radio system for speech, then just get a tap into that. less hassle, less mics - hopefully less problems.

 

as a wee disclaimer for myself, I rarely use these hanging mics for live work. I'm sure many people would agree that they are about as useful as a boundary mic and give very limited results unless a huge amount of effort is taken. If anyone is looking for a solution to that problem, buss them all to a group and insert a 31 band eq and spend ages getting the balance perfected. Not easy in a lively room.

[Jivemaster]

Keep listening to the venue, see what really makes it sound well. After that it's down to close miking significant speech and more distant micing of other things to use the ambience of the venue. Go easy on gates! I have a recording (commercial CD) of Kings @ Cambridge and the gates open and close as the speakers talk and pause and the whole ambience of the building from other mics pumps horridly.

[revbobuk]

Just to extend that last reply - if you are using a mix of close mics and others, in a reverberant venue, then obviously you must watch the transitions - the spoken word will need ambient acoustic as well, or it will sound as if the speakers are somewhere else altogether.

[justanothermonkey]

It looks like I will be re-opening this topic.....

 

Firstly, thanks for all the pointers and comments, seems I have my work cut out for me more so than I was originally told.

 

I was lucky enough to get a few weeks where I could experiment with varying techniques (Hanging microphones etc). The best I found though was a mic stand with stereo pair head pointing at the choir at about 3 ft above the last row (you see where this is going) and pointing at the middle. So I gave this a shot and improved the setup a bit over a few weeks only to be asked to permanently install the system.

 

Now I half wish this had not worked as it now gets complicated! I don't have the ability to replicate a permanent install in a similar way as to the temporary one. As a result I tried moving a step up with 2 stereo pairs on stands hidden near pillars that I am allowed to mount a custom stand to.

 

The problem I will encounter now though is that to erect a scaffold rig to run the cable where "everyone" wants to will cost over £8000 without the work from everyone involved. As such I am looking into a possible wireless system. At this point I have to ask, any ideas? I am looking for something UHF which will power a condenser microphone with a standard XLR connector. I would be looking at something Belt pack style so that the leads for the mic's can be ran to a low point where then the packs could be connected and easily maintained. Is it possible to modify a belt pack system to run a standard condenser microphone?

 

Thoughts and ideas welcome

 

 

 

Cheers in advance

 

Al