Setup for a choir

[ExpressYourself]

Hi everyone,

 

A while back you were all very helpful when I was looking to buy some mics and mixers for my choir. Well it's our first concert on Saturday and I was wondering what the best position was for the mics.

 

I bought a pair of Behringer C-2 condenser mics and some telescopic stands.

 

Should I try and suspend them above the choir, or have them in front somehow?

 

Thanks

[david.elsbury]

I'd have them in front of the choir. Why? Well the mics pick sound up from the front. If they are hanging, then to pick the best sound up you would have to be singing with your heads towards the ceiling- or if you sang facing forwards, you wouldnt pick a lot up.

[bassnote]

people tend to sing out of there mouths not the top of there heads so, having the mics pointing at there mouths is always the best idea.... so - I would put the two mics in front of the choire on tall stands.

[ExpressYourself]

Thanks guys, perhaps I misunderstood a reply to a previous post where they said position the mics as high as possible. From your responses it seems I'm being a bit dense!!

 

So if they are in front, at risk of sounding dense again, do I have them at mouth height or higher or lower?

 

And how far in front of the choir should they be?

[Bobbsy]

Well, in an ideal world (think recording studio) you'd try to put them directly in front but aesthetics also have to come into it. For a choir I generally mic from above but with the mics angled downwards so the point at the choristers' heads (or at the centre row if they're tiered.

 

How far back? Well, your mics are directional so you'll need to look at the diagrams that came with the mics and work out how far back they have to be to pick up the entire choir and not "spotlight" the members directly in front of the mic.

 

Bob

[cedd]

Last night I worked with a choir of 12 at the Leeds Uni Carol Concert. 800 punters there, choir singing over a brass band. Men on the back row, women on the front.

I had very pleasing results (to my ears) with 4 mics - 2 x SE1a's on a high orchestra stand, coming from the back, over the men's heads. The mics were positioned pointing back at the men, probably 3ft above their heads and 3 ft out in front. I then had a pair of large diaphragm condensers (not ideal aesthetically, but all I had) on normal mic stands about 3ft in front of the women. I had great gain before feedback (took me by surpise actually) and was able to mix the men's and women's parts to get quite a nice balanced mix. We were more than able to "beat" the brass band in terms of level. The large diaphragm condensers were behringer jobbies. Performed fine.

 

Also got to use my JTS microboom mic for the lecturn, sounded fine for a cheap mic. I reckon a pair of these in front of a choir would also be pretty good. They come with 3 capsules, are low profile and aren't a lot of money at all.

[ramdram]

IF, rpt IF you have time, then you could start off as suggested then move the mics, incrementally, keeping rough notes, to sort of fine tune the position.

 

Suggest too, but you will know this anyway, to let the choir sing a couple of items so they are warmed up and getting into the thing, before you start moving the kit around.

 

Obviously all spaces are different and all choirs are different so there are probably an infinite (hyperbole...) number of position for the mics...and of course when you have the audience around the reflections will be not so obvious.

 

You might look here:

 

http://www.prosoundweb.com/article/winning..._church_choirs/

 

And don't forget the rule of three, ** laughs out loud **.

 

HTH

[Bobbsy]

You can be slightly more scientific about working out your mic placement to get coverage of the full choir.

 

I had a look at the polar pattern for the C2s and they are a full level for up to 60 degrees (i.e. 30 degrees either side of the centre line). If you know the layout the choir will be using (and, assuming rostra, this usually governs the width) it's pretty simple with a piece of paper and a protractor to work out how far back the mics have to be for each of them to cover half the choir with little or no overlap in the centre. If the choir is on multiple tiers, don't forget that the 60 degree coverage applies vertically as well as horizontally.

 

You haven't mentioned the rest of your sound system but, if possible, I usually try to reinforce choirs in stereo (panned somewhat left right but not hard panned) to minimise the amount of comb filtering and allow me to at least partially ignore the aforementioned "rule of three". However, a lot depends ond the layout and placement of the choir and the type of room you're in. YMMV, as they say!

 

Bob