Recording "Powder Her Face"

This Opera was played in an old warehouse because La Monnaie is closing for renovation work on the stage.  The stage was very deep and at floor level, the public was sitting on something that looked very much as the tribune of a big sports venue.  The small orchestra was sitting behind the public.  Because of it's placement it needed some sound reinforcement, for the singers and the audience.  All Instruments had close microphones and a big line array was setup in front of the stage.  The singers were surprisingly well audible at the audience's place  but the set was (intentional?) well build to project the sound from the back to the front.

In addition to the close microphones, we added 2 couples of omnidirectional microphones, one above the conductor's head and another one on front of the wind-section. (saxomophone and brass)  This is one of the rare occasions where we can benefit of a real stereo array installed at a good sounding position.  Whenever the orchestra is playing in the pit and the singers are on stage, we cannot hang a main microphone pair because it is to visible and would also create shadows in the stage.  But how 'easy' the mix job becomes when you have this pair installed.  The sound of the orchestra is much more natural end you can create a lot of depht to it.

The singers all had wireless microphones and we had a backup with 7 boundary microphones on stage.  This style of music sounds good with the voices a bit closer and dryer so in the mix we mainly used this ones.

3 channels, 1 setup

The Opera was live on the Opera Platform and recorded simultaneously by the Flemish radio. The setup for this was rather easy because the Flemish radio did a live mix for the streaming platform and their radio transmission and we recorded the same MADI stream on multitrack for post production for our own streaming.

Recording 'Elisir d'Amore'

The production

This Opera of Donizetti was performed at the Royal Circus of Brussels, which is an old circus with over 1500 places.  It's our first production after summer break.  The biggest part of the set was build in the ring  where acoustics are ok for singers to be heard at every seat.  The orchestra was in the back, where once was the entrance of the ring but now is a big stage for rock concerts etc.  They were installed stage-left, so the singers also played stage-right  which means there is a big distance between singers and the audience or the orchestra.

Most of the time the singers were at the front of the set and thus about 15 meters from the orchestra.  We installed 3 microphones on the stage-front to feed a fold back for the conductor.  The orchestra was not amplified.

The Recording

To record this opera we installed a more or less traditional symphonic setup with decca tree in the center and some fill in's on every group of instruments.  4 schoeps MK4 on the woodwinds, MKH40 on brass and DPA omni's on percussion.  The pianoforte had an ORTF of Neumann KM140 and we added 2 wings of Neumann KM131 omni's on the strings.

Pictures on facebook

Because the use of water and bath foam on stage we could not use wireless microphones on the singers.  In addition to the 3 microphones installed for foldback, we added 2 hyper cardioide around the ring.  Then we added 4 KM150 on the public entrances, which are placed higher than the Schoeps on the floor.  These were very usable as a sort of main microphone array for the singers and choir but since the orchestra was behind the singers there is a lot of spill in these microphones which sounded very dull and distant.  There were another 3 shotgun microphones installed and 4 microphones hidden in the set to capture some difficult places.

The Mixing process was not easy because of the singers moving around in this big space, with a lot of fan noise and the bleed of the orchestra, but we managed to make it sound coherent.

Recording Un Ballo in Maschera

The Recording of this Italian Opera was in collaboration with the RTBF (Belgian Radio)

The Microphone setup was a standard setup with 4 DPA 4006 with APE's on the strings and 2 more fill microphones in the first violins and celli.  On the 2nd and alti we did not put a fill in because there were only 2 rows of players with right behind them the woodwinds. The woodwinds had Schoeps omni's and all brass had the Sennheiser MKH40.  We had 2 U87 on the bases.  When you only place 1 at this close distance, you don't have the impression of a group of players.  On the harp we placed a KM184 and on the percussion some more DPA.

Recording Penthesylea

Penthesylea is a world creation of the opera composed by French Composer Pascal Dusapin.  He often works with a lot of sound effects and electronic insruments in combination with a full symphonic orchestra.  For this production there was also a Cymbalum in the orchestra pit.

Amplification

Some instruments were amplified, some with effects.  On the Harp there was a Beyer Dynamic M88, we choose this microphone to eliminate as much as possible the bleed from the cymbalum.  On the Flute there was a KM150 and in front of the conductor was installed an ORTF Schoeps. Some singers had wireless microphones for amplification too.


In the hall we installed a Yamaha  CL5 with a Dante connection to the audio playback Computer and an optocore connection to the amplifiers and fold back system.  Apart from a full FOH system, there were on each level 8 d&b E3 for surround sfx and on stage 8 d&B T10.

Recording

On the Strings we had 4 DPA 4006, on the Double basses a U87 and a C414.  Flute, Clarinet, Oboe and Bassoon had a KM184 per section.  French Horns,Trumpets and Trombone had a MKH40.  For the Cymbalum we picked a DPA 4006 and for the Harp we added a KM184 close to the M88 that allready was installed.  On the PErcussion we installed 2 x C414 and 2 x KM140.  There were also 2 x 4011 as a large spaced pair, pointed away from the musicians to have as much as indirect sound as possible.  In the Hall we hung  a pair of Schoeps MK2 and a pair of C414 for surround sound.

On stage we installed 6 Schoeps MK4 on the footlight.  The 2 cardio's in the center were 90° (NOS) .  This works well when you need to capture a choir on stage.  In addition to this there were 2 Schoeps Hypercardio and 2 x MKH416 in the set.  Unnecessary to add that all singers had a wireless microphone.

Recording Jakob Lenz

Microphone setup

During the entire show there was water running down the stage, so the usual 'boundary layer' microphones were placed on top of the footlights.

With this setup we never had interference problems with the fluorescence lamps.

 The wireless transmitters were protected against the water on stage by plastic bag.

Orchestra

The orchestra only counted 11 members and was at a rather high level.  We installed a kind of LCR around the conductor with 3 DPA 4006 and added a U87 for the first Cello.  3 Schoeps wide cardio for the Wind instruments and 2 DPA 4006 with APE for the percussion. On the Clavecimble we installed a Schoeps ORTF and finaly one Sennheiser MKH40 for the Trumpet and trombone.  In the hall we hung as usual 4 microphones for ambiance on the first balcony.

Recording Medulla

Medulla is an intergenerational opera-adaptation of the album by Bjork.

Ninety young singers from 12 to 18 years and five soloist of +50 were set in a white square to be accompanied by one percussionist and pre-recorded electronic music.

Tree child-singers and the five soloists needed headset microphones for live amplification and on the percussion there were 2 overhead microphones (sdc) and 2 beyerdynamic M88;  One on the bass drum and one on a floor tom.  This Dynamic Microphone works very well on both instruments for the amplification.  For the Recording I found the sound of the floor tom missing the attack and I think a MD421 on top might be better.  Around the stage were placed 10 sdc microphones to send to the in ear monitors of the conductor and the percussionist.  For the live recording we added 2 more Neumann KM150 hypercardioides and 2 Sennheiser MKH416 shotgun microphones.

Stereo Mix

All sdc were mixed trough a multiband dynamic processor to reduce proximity effect and contact noises on the floor.  These microphones captured the children's choir, the soloists and the percussion and a lot of the room's ambiance.  No additional reverb was needed on this part.
The soloist had their own wireless microphones for amplification and these were send to a separate reverb to match with the other voices.  On the percussion  I added a short and clear reverb, the live electronics had no reverb .

There is a lot of dynamic in this piece and so I used a limiter on the master bus and a parallel compression bus.

CD Release Au Monde

Our Recording of "Au Monde" (april 2014) is out on disc by Cypres Records and has won the "diapason d'or" in 2015

Cypres - Au Monde

Recording don Giovanni

I just finished the mix for the streaming of Don Giovanni.

this production was set on stage by the polish Director Krzysztof Warlikowski.

Live streaming

We did a live transmission on Mezzo TV and simultaneously a multitrack recording with Protools.  The Live mixing desk was a Yamaha 02R96 connected to an optocore system.  That same Optocore network provided a 64-MADI 48/24 stream to the Protools.  This way we could select whatever microphone we wanted in a specific order on the desk and record more options (and timecode) on the Protools rig.  On the stereo-bus was an Empirical Labs FATSO which did about 3 dB of gain reduction to achieve an LRA of 18.5.  Without this we would have exceeded the norm of 20LRA.

We needed to supply -23LUFS and a max Peak at -4dB PPM and I think we were at -22LUFS, so that's fine. A TC Reverb 4000 was used on preset 34 "Deep Vocal" with a decay time of 2.6 sec for the orchestra.  On the voices we used a shorter reverb of 1.8 sec in the desk.

Microphone setup

On the string section were 4 Schoeps MK4V, which were used for fold back on stage for the singers.
Also the Mandoline and the clavecimble were amplified so they needed cardioid microphones.
Both had a stereo microphone; the mandolin had an MS configuration with an old Schoeps so the center microphone was used for the fold back and the stereo signal could be used for the recording.  The clavecimble had a Schoeps MSTC (ORTF).  On the double bass was a Neumann U87 and on the timpani was a Neumann KM184.  We installed also 2 "wings" with dPA 4006 to have some fill in for the orchestra.  Also the Clarinets had a DPA but all other microphones in the pit were Schoeps MK4, MK4s or MK4V.

In the hall we suspended 4 AKG C414, two near to the pit and two further to the back of the hall but we did not use the latter in the mix.  On stage there were 5 Schoeps MK4 as directional boundary microphones on the proscenium.  2 additional KM150 were placed each side of the stage for the Bühne Musik and a central hypercardioide Schoeps in the center, hidden behind a prop on the floor.
At last we taped a wireless dPA microphone to a table on stage to pick up the singers in the final scene where the Comendatore comes to dinner.

All singers had Wireless Microphones but we tried to use as much as possible the boundary microphones because they give a more natural and open sound.


Mixing Process

Mixing was done in collaboration with a Musical Producer, send by Belair Media.
Only One compressor was used on the orchestra bus.  This was a fairchild emulation that only reduced 3 dB on the orchestra.  All other dynamic compensation was done by fader riding.  We spend the time necessary to get the delay compensations right for all microphones and did not use any EQ except some HP filters.  This approach was new for me but worked out fine.  We did some EQ automation to accentuate some sounds from props or the set.  On the bus with boundary microphones I setup a multiband dynamic processor to take care of the proximity effect.  This way the distance to the microphones is compensated in the low band and the high band.  The mid band is not processed.

The reverb on the orchestra and the singers are two Waves Trueverb "Vocal Spread" preset whit which we played around to get the right colouration.  2.6 sec for the orchestra and 1.6 for the singers.
To open up a little the voices on the wireless microphones, I added an Mid-Side plugin after the short reverb and lowered the center with 6dB.


Fighting comb filters

When recording singers who are moving on a stage of 12m by 20 you need to have wireless microphones.  As soon as the singers are farther away than, lets say, 3 meters from the boundary microphones you will have too much ambient noise from vans etc. and more reverberation than direct sound. Half of the time there was a wall that cut the stage in half and so acoustics were ok to work with these microphones as much as possible.  But then some singers are on the floor in front of a microphone while others are at 5m.  So the differences are too big.  In this kind of situations you d'like to open only 1 microphone at the time to prevent comb filters so you work on the wireless microphones.  Other times the singers are that close that one singer is singing in the wireless microphone of the other singer.  If you open both singers microphones, you will have comb filtering too and so you have to choose which one of both sounds best.

More pictures can be found here