Recording - February 2013 - 64

Recording DeVotchKa and the orchestra
In February of 2012 the Denver-based band DeVotchKa proved that it has a big enough following to fill the 2600 seats in Denver’s cavernous Boettcher Hall, home of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. The band members are Nick Urata (vocals, guitars, Theremin, trumpet, piano), Jeanie Schroder (acoustic bass, sousaphone), Shawn King (drums, percussion, trumpet), Tom Hagerman (violin, viola, accordion, piano). This somewhat unusual instrumentation presents extra challenges that the band’s own sound crew is used to handling. On their website you can read how much this gig meant to the band members. I’m lifting this off devotchka.net: “DeVotchKa have been recording and performing for over a decade. We have been working towards this moment ever since the band began,” remembers Nick Urata, lead singer and frontman.” That’s a long time to prepare for such a gig, and the band’s own Tom Hagerman took it upon himself to write the orchestrations! With that much effort behind it, you want the gig to go right. Well, the CD came out in November of 2012 (Live with the Colorado Symphony, Cicero Recordings LTD).

Nick Urata, Lead Singer and Frontman
How do you feel the recording went? Nick Urata: We had a great team of engineers on performance night, they all had experience with the orchestra and the room. We had coverage over each section, woodwinds, brass, etc. and nicely placed room mics, to get the feel of the space and the audience. That really gave the recording some life and color. Did the band members have to make adjustments due to the orchestra? The biggest challenge was integrating the live drum kit; no matter how much plexiglass you put up, you can’t stop the bleed. To our drummer Shawn’s credit, he played as gingerly as possible, which for a drummer is the worst torture. Yes, the band’s fans sure are a lively bunch! We used just two mics, but not just any mics. It was a pair of digital mics, Neumann MZD 8000, and they live inside a “dummy head” we lovingly call Fritz. That head, the Neumann KU 100, has ear canals modeled after the human head, and with Fritz hanging above the audience, about halfway towards the back and facing the rear, we got plenty of audience ambience.

Mike Pappas, Recording Engineer
Mike, did you use your usual complement of mics? Mike Pappas: We worked together with the band’s sound crew, they brought their mics, and I miked the orchestra with ours. We also rented Countryman Isomax 2 mics, the cardioid –60 dB models, for the fiddles, and they were clipped to the bridges. Was it a problem to have so many analog mics while your main set is digital? Not at all, we had 48 channels of analog going to Grace preamps with A/D converters. Across the front of the orchestra I had 5 digital mics, the Neumann KM133D. I see that you did away with those extra tall mic stands… We bought a truss, hung it across the front of the stage, and hung the five mics from it; it cleans up the stage, while the mic locations are still what they were before, a left-center-right trio, and—because the stage at the Boettcher Hall is so extremely wide—a left and a right wide flanker. Did I see a shotgun pointed at a harp? Absolutely, and not just the shotgun but two mics clamped together for a mid-side pair, KMR 82D (mid), and KM D body with a KK120 capsule (side), so I can eliminate bleed from adjacent instruments if I need to, but go wide and full, too. [See the photo.—LzR] You captured the lively audience with just two mics?
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RECORDING February 2013

http://www.devotchka.net

Recording - February 2013

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