Dear Listers,
Here is the compilation concerning recording your choir, for you all to
enjoy & use:
Thank you very much for your time & help -
Tova .
reshefit(a)netvision.net.il

Tova Reshef / Choral Conductor, Artistic Director:
Pa'amon Children Choir, Viola Vocal Ensemble,
The 7th Inter.Pa'amon Festival for Children & Youth Choirs
- Jordan Valley, 10-12th February 2005.

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If you count, at least, with the following, you are ready to go:

1. A mixer- with phantom power -
2. A condenser Microphone - they start from $100 (Audio technica)
guitarcenter.com
3. A PC - at least 80 gigs of hard drive and 500 ram, preferable Pentium
III.
4. Recording software - I recommend "Sonar" www.cakewalk.com

you may have access to a mixer and a PC, what you would nee to invest
for now is the software and the Mic. It would be no more than $400. one
time investment, then you will be making high quality Choral CDs and
recovering your investment. I have tried it and it works very nice.

Good luck,

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Actually, what I do is connect the mini-disk player to a cassette recorder
or a cd recorder and re-record the concert on to that. Since our small
mini-disk recorder doesn't have any "line out" outlets, I run a cord out of
the earphone jack and into the "line in" jack on the other recorder. I
happen to have an additional box that I go through to add some echo to the
sound but you certainly don't need that.

As to your asking too many questions, I have been teaching 37 years so I am
used to answering lots of questions. Don't hesitate to ask anything. If I
don't know, I won't hesitate to tell you.
Musically yours,

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We usually leave a little of the applause on the recording because it gives
more of the flavor of the "live" performance. We could have extraeneous
noises removed professionally but that is expensive and we don't mind them
that much. We especially like it if the applause is very loud and that
gives more positive feed-back to the singerswhen they listen to the
recordings. We do pause the recorder before the applause is over and
restart just before the down-beat of the next song. It is possible to edit
the recording yourself for tranfer to cd and simply stop the recorder at the
completion of each song before the applause and talking start. You need to
decide what you want or what you can live with.
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Be sure to look at the existing ChoralNet resources on this topic:
choralnet.org > Technology > Recording Tips
Especially the one called "Recording your choir," which has detailed
equipment suggestions.

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Tova, I'm in the process of doing the same thing, only I want to record our
organ with the choir and separately. The microphone is the most crucial
part and can cost from $300 to $7,000 (a good Audio Technique or shure will
run about $400) Then you need a mike preamp, to get rid of the "digital"
dryness ( I recommend the ART MPA Gold $500) Obviously then you need a CD
recorder (or digital recorder) about $400. Do not buy too cheaply...the
sound will be terrible. Check out ZZounds or the Musicians Friend, or
better yet Sweewater.Com (very professional equipment at reasonable prices..
highly recommended) After all of this you'll need to have the CD duplicated
-about $2 per CD.
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Contact Peggy Morales at the Dallas Brook Mays Music Company, education
department. She has a great package for recording, which includes an
excellent stereo microphone, a CD player/burner (you can plug the mic
directly into the burner for live recordings), cables, and a tripod stand.
I have used it to record live orchestra, my children's choir, and in the
classroom at school for self-evaluations by the students

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We like using a mini-disk recorder with a stereo mike. Ours happens to be a
Sharp but Sony makes excellent portable mini-disk recorders. Any big box
electronics store like Circuit City or Best buy should be able to help you.
The quality is excellent and you can't beat the portability.

Hope this helps.

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