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.