Recording - May 2012 - 57

This time I set up two Mid-Side arrays, each with the KM 184 D for the mid and the KM 120 D for the side. There was one such array on the piano, and another in front of the woodwinds. I also saw spot mics where you don’t usually have them. I put a D-01 up on a boom to get more of the violas, and another D-01 on a boom for the brass. That’s a large-diaphragm digital mic that can be remotely controlled to change its directional characteristics—nobody has to interrupt the session and climb up there. We can change that and other things, too, like gain, pre-attenuation, low-cut filter... all from the control room on the fly. I saw the currently-trendy blue LED light coming from the knees of a cellist—what was that all about? I put a D-01 low down against a pair of cellists, with a special clamp attached to a music stand. I did the same with the double basses, but on that clamp was a KM 133D, the same mic that I had on the five tall stands across the front. Above the first and second violins I had a boom each with a KM 184D, which is a cardioid digital small-diaphragm condenser. I had two more KM 184D mics on the percussion section, and for the harp I put up a short stand with a KMR82D, a shotgun mic. Mid/Side array on piano, Neumann KM 184D for Mid and KM 120D for Side

This time I used two audience mics, each a KU 100 “Fritz” dummy head, a replica of the human head with a microphone built into each ear. They were hung out above the seats to capture the room ambience, of which there was a lot more since we had no audience. Then there was this awesome choir... They were indeed awesome, and that was only half the numbers you usually see when the Colorado Symphony Chorus performs! We asked that there be only this many [It looked like about 50 singers at least!—LzR], or we would have had simply too much sound to deal with. They are very disciplined singers; Duain Wolfe, the Chorus Director, prepares them very well, so we knew we were going to get a good balance. All we had was four mics, one each for the sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses. All four were KM 184D mics on boom stands. For one number there was a solo vocalist... We set up a U 87 and an M 149, to give an option, and we built a bit of an improvised iso location in front of the orchestra. The only other mic was a KMS 104 for the composer for any comments or narration he might wish to record. As this issue of Recording is being edited, the word from the ad agency’s Matt Ingwalson, Creative Director at karshhagan.com, is this: “The broadcast campaign will break nationally on April 2. I think we’ll probably post them to Colorado’s YouTube channel—and possibly Colorado.com—on the same day.” Composer Charles Denler invites readers to listen to final mixes of the project at www.charlesdenler.com (on the American Symphony page). The music for this project will be a part of a full symphony to be recorded in the fall of 2012. Recording wishes to once again thank Mike Pappas for giving us access, project details and photographs. He can be contacted via pappas@recordingmag.com.
RECORDING MAY 2012

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Recording - May 2012

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