Recording - May 2012 - 56

The calm before the storm—note the composer’s table and the vocalist’s “iso booth” (packing blankets)

Interview by Lorenz Rychner

Recording a full symphony orchestra is not everybody’s everyday gig, unless you’re somebody like Mike Pappas, who does this throughout the concert season at the cavernous Boettcher Hall in Denver. If you’re interested in orchestra miking, you may remember our report from the September 2010 issue where we described how Pappas uses a surprisingly sparse setup to mike a live symphony concert. The audience hardly notices the setup, mostly consisting of five tall stands across the front of the Boettcher’s very wide stage: A center-left-right trio, flanked on each side by an additional stand. The concert grand is miked with a mid/side array. Then there is Fritz, then binaural microphone head that hangs halfway down the hall, looking towards the rear, to capture, well, the rear, mainly for the 5.1 mix version but also for a bit of audience perspective in the overall mix. Pappas’ emphasis on those occasions is on using top-quality mics that have enough “reach” rather than on spot miking every player in the orchestra. Then in the February 2011 issue we reported how Pappas faced the challenge of recording the full symphony plus a Jazz quartet backing a featured vocalist, the famous Dianne Reeves, for broadcast in both a stereo mix and a surround mix. Although this called for more mics, he again used fewer mics than one might think. Still, there were plenty— all the instrument mics were supplemented by two handhelds for the vocalist (one a redundant panic mic on an entirely separate signal chain), one vocal mic each for the four members of her quartet, and a wireless announcer mic for the guest conductor—none other than Marvin Hamlisch. Today we briefly report on yet another occasion to which we were kindly invited by Mike Pappas—this one a recording session, also at Boettcher Hall but closed to the public. This time the orchestra, augmented by the Colorado Symphony Chorus, performed original music destined for an ad campaign by the Colorado Tourism Office. Charles Denler (charlesdenler.com) composed the music; it was orchestrated and conducted by the resident conductor of the Colorado Symphony, Scott O’Neil.—LzR
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RECORDING MAY 2012

Mike, I saw many more Neumann microphones, mostly digital models, than I’m used to seeing when you record the symphony. What did you do differently? Mike Pappas: Yes, many more, because visually it didn’t matter how many mics were up since there was no paying audience. What mattered was that all the sound that needed capturing was captured adequately, in minimum time once the clock was running. So we went all out. I saw the usual five stands across the front, and the mid-side array on the piano. Those five in front were the KM 133D mics, digital mics with their own internal A/D converters. Their capsule bodies and diaphragms are titanium, and the spheres are laser-engraved plexiglass. They get their reach from being practically omnis low down, to about 1 kHz, then above that they become gradually cardioids—by 16 kHz they’re hyper-cardioids.

http://www.charlesdenler.com

Recording - May 2012

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - May 2012