Recording Daphne

Richard Strauss’ Daphne was Recorded in collaboration with "Musique 3”.  Since we have had a problem with a part of our preamps and convertors, we were limited to 48 channels of microphone preamps.  This was particularly a challenge because of the set.

On stage there was a big stair and so we could not benefit of the usual installation of microphones at the footlights.  From the moment a singer goes up for more than 1 meter, his voice is no longer captured by the directional boundary microphones.

The setup was to rely as much as possible on wireless microphones for the singers and to install some back-up microphones hidden in the set 'in case off’.

The orchestra was recorded with 4 Omni SDC’s  on the strings and 2 in a large spaced pair.  Another
omni Schoeps was installed for the 2 harps and for the big drum.  All other microphones were cardioide.  Schoeps for the woodwinds, Sennheiser MKH40 for the brass and a U87 for the double bass.  In the hall we installed 4 AKG C414 in wide cardioide for ambiance and 5.1 mixing.



At La Monnaie we have a real church organ on stage and this was captured with one omni Schoeps.  In the mix this channel was duplicated and delayed to give a sense of stereo.

apart for a limiter, there was a multi-band compressor on the orchestra buss to control the low medium of the percussion when things got really load.

Finally there were not much problems with the wireless microphones and we used the stage microphones only for the choir and the off stage horns.
On each Wireless Microphone was a gentle compressor to control the fortissimo.  Some automation on the EQ was applied wen singers put on a hat or sing with their head on the floor.

We used a long and dark reverb and in addition a short and brighter reverb for the voices. For the choir off we added some delay.

Pictures of the Recording session can be found here

We often work with delay compensation for the different microphones in the pit and on stage.  For this purpose we perform a 'clap' at the conducters place in front of the orchestra.  In the pit I often do not delay all the mics but I did delay the woodwinds, brass and percussion.  The on stage microphones where delayed but not as much as the clap would indicate and the wireless mic's were delayed at the same amount because the singers do anticipate when singing at a large distance of the orchestra so in the venue they sound together.

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