Overdubbing With a Choir...

11811

I've come across the opportunity to record some choral parts with a 20 piece choir for some tunes i am working on at the minute.

Basically Im looking for a few pointers in terms of the logistics of it, hopefully I'll have access to a decent space for it, probably a small church.

Its more the synching the choir to the recordings I'm having difficulty figuring out, whats the typical set up for this, would you provide a backing track for playback or would a well conducted score be sufficient?

DamagedTrax

a great conductor. if its essential that it be spot on then a click in the conductors ear may be of help.

studiorat

A good conductor obviously, but the problem is that they will find it next to impossible to stay in tune. If they do start in tune with the track chances are they will drift up or down unless they can hear the track.

20 sets of headphones would be one option, the other would be to send the mix out into the room via a speaker or a pair of speakers. When the recording is done you can then reverse the phase of the signal and send the track out again. If nothing has been moved when the choir and track recording is played alongside the track only recording the track will cancel and leave you with only the voices.

11811

Hmmm yeah I figured that this would be the case, trying to figure out how to get around the problem of getting 20 people to hear the playback... Am going to have to come up with 20 headphones??

studiorat

No you could do the phase reverse thing I mentioned in the previous post.

11811

For some reason I missed that bit of the post, long day staring at a monitor!
Cheers I'll look into that. Probably be the handiest.

TroutMask

The phase trick won't fully eliminate the track due to reverb & reflections. You'll need an ersatz control room isolated from the choir with a pair of decent monitors and a good producer/conductor. The producer can assess the takes quickly for tuning issues & overall blend. Do the parts in segments and try not to tire the choir. Once you get an acceptable take - move on. Roll tape during warm-ups & run-throughs.
If the session is a success - great! If not, don't despair. Simply rebook a smaller group comprised of the best singers in the choir, squeeze them into any small studio, and re-record. Layer the parts, 'verb it up, and it will sound great. I've done this, and it works really well. A lot of those massive sounding symphonic pop tracks were actually recorded in smaller studios.
You'll have more control over the choral parts esp. the reverb: a massive church reverb sounds great on a choir but does not always work if the same choral recording is added to a track.

PaulBrewer

I did this before with the church choir in Tullamore - we came up with a solution which worked pretty well .

Click and track to conductor, then piano only to choir for pitch and additional time 'info'

I tried the phase thing but with such distance and reverberation it didn't really work (complicated even more by stereo recording) - however putting a couple of monitors on the outside of the choir (as far away from mics as possible) facing away gave satisfactory results.