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Recording a chorus: Studio versus concert venueDate: August 6, 2009 by TIm Gillham
 Anyone with experience/thoughts on recording your chorus in a professional studio versus having someone come to the venue and record in which the concert was sung? (We've been given funds by one of our singers to do a "professional" recording.) My chorus is between 40-50 singers, and when we've previously recorded it's been done by a really good recording technician in the concert venue. I've been in a number of large choruses that have recorded in a variety of spaces (from concert halls to gyms, depending on the music) but never a studio. What should I look for/expect/avoid?
Thanks!
Tim Gillham
Replies (7): Threaded | Chronological
Robert Reck on August 6, 2009 11:16am
I took a group to a recording studio once, almost by accident. Some of our travel-festival plans did not work out (long story) and I decided we would record instead of compete.
It was a great experience. We had been working really hard on listening, matching, and tuning. The prospect of being in a "real studio" with equipment that would almost pick up your thoughts was a huge motivating factor.
The studio we chose had a room large enough for the entire ensemble. Instead of having completely dead acoustics, the room had been desinged to allow the performers to hear each other with maximum clarity and minimum ring. The group actually got better the longer we were in that room. Everyone could hear everyone, not just their neighbors. Further, listening to the play back with the superb reproduction was also very educational.
You should allow some time and money for editing. We just used two mics, but if you use more you will have to allow for mixing as well. It is possible these days that someone you know will have pro-tools or whatever software the studio uses. In that case you could mix down without paying for studio time. Part of what you pay for is the ears of the person behind the board, so the studio mix might still be worth the money.
Studio time is very valuable, so you want to have the group finely honed prior to the session. You might want to bring in a clinician or guest conductor to help with this.
Good luck!
Rob
on August 6, 2009 4:35pm
I've done both with my choir, and not been particularly happy with either, frankly. The choir is 50-60. The local studios we've gone to have been small, with low ceilings, and in one we actually had to have singers in two different rooms. I have yet to find a studio with a decent and well-tuned piano, which you might want to think about if you record any pieces with accompaniment. The problem with using our usual venue is that there's inadequate noise control (Library chimes, truck noise, noise from night classes, etc.)
However, the competence and patience of the recording engineer are worth the investment; the engineer in the first studio I used was absolutely fantastic and painstaking. His ears were amazing, and the suggestions he offered about tweaking things were right on. (Unfortunately, he died of cancer before I was ready to make another recording.)
If you record on multiple tracks, you have more options in the mix-down. But if you have a recording engineer who believes in what he/she's doing and can do it right, you can get amazing recordings with two mics. Flip side: you can do a lot less to fix mistakes if you're using only 2 mics. In any case, mixing down is a whole lot simpler with today's equipment than it was 25 years ago.
All best!
Bob
on August 6, 2009 7:59pm
Why are you making the recording? Is the recording meant to be for audience members who want to buy a CD of more music like what they just heard after a performance or perhaps prospective audience members looking for a way to hear you before they hear you? If you have one main venue and you want to sound like you always do, then hiring a good engineer in the venue will be the most straightforward, least time consuming and least expensive. You will not need lots of technical knowledge to explain your intentions to them if your goal is just a faithful recording of the group and the space. The chorus will probably not need special training or unusual positioning in your regular space. Are you happy with the previous recordings there?
There is more flexibility in the studio, but you need to know what you want--experimenting is expensive, and really time consuming multiplied by the whole chorus. A good studio could recreate your usual sound, but someone would have to explain that sound to the engineers. If you want some other sound, you'd have to explain that. As others have pointed out, you'd be able to tweak things and fix imperfections in great detail, but that takes time and extra sessions and probably separating the singers from each other. Are you near a studio that can accommodate 40-50 singers (plus instruments?)? Is there someone who could be the "producer" for a studio session?
It probably also depends on if the chorus would see the studio as an interesting new adventure or if they are more comfortable on their home turf.
--Brian
on August 7, 2009 7:10am
I've had considerable experience recording choirs in both
situations, 'strong' choirs, 'weak' choirs, and everything in
between. It is not without reason that most of the commercially
produced choral and instrumental CDs are done in a studio. But
again, this depends on the purpose of the CD. If it is a "recorded
live!" CD for the choir itself and very local consumption you could
go with a concert recording. The excitement of such a recording -
if you are extremely well prepared, and prepared for the occasional
glitch and possible intrusions from passing cars, sneezes, mic
problems, coughing, air conditioning and maybe heating going on and
off, someone tapping their feet to the music, and so on - may, but
more likely may not, make up for such deficiencies. Should you be
performing and recording the concert more than once - in the same
place and with about the same size audience - this could help fill
in bad spots. But is it worth the stress?
No, don't risk it, Some may well ask "what is art without risk?", but what can happen during a live recording isn't art! A not-so-professionally recorded concert can be a wonderful prelude to a real studio recording, and my advice would be to go with that. A "studio", of course, can be one of two places- a space constructed solely for recording, or - and this often works extremely well- a concert venue to which recording equipment is brought. I love recording sacred works, and even certain styles of non-sacred music (Renaissance, Baroque in particular) in churches as so much of it was written for such an acoustic. If you ask around, you may well find a church or other hall that has been used successfully for recording. But you should also choose a recording engineer with experience in 'location' recordings. He or she would know the pitfalls and be ina positionto offer good advice, One question to ask concerning previous live recordings would be "would this recording make it as a commercial CD?". If the answer is anything less than "definitely" then go for a studio recording. You will likely not regret it, but you could very easily regret doing it live. Good luck!
on August 7, 2009 12:10pm
I'd like to get people's thoughts and experiences when using professional (aka Union) instrumentalists for such a project as this.
on August 8, 2009 9:25am
I think some people might have misunderstood the original question. I don't think that Tim was necessarily talking about a "live" concert recording, but rather a recording in the "concert venue" (perhaps implying a hall with good acoustics) done with no audience present. Contrary to what was previously said about "most commercially produced choral and instrumental CDs" being done in a studio, in my experience, many such CDs are recorded in non-studio facilities that have the desired acoustics for the music being recorded. In the case of choirs, this often takes place in churches (perhaps synagogues or temples as well, but more typically in churches).
I participated in some of Helmuth Rilling's series of Bach cantata recordings, and those sessions took place in a church in Stuttgart, Germany. I've also participated in a number of recording sessions with the Phoenix Chorale (formerly the Phoenix Bach Choir), sometimes together with our "sister" choir, the Kansas City Chorale. All of those sessions took place in churches, and the CDs are all "commercially-produced" (released on the Chandos label) and several have won Grammy Awards.
The ensemble "Conspirare" (based in Austin, TX) has made recordings in studios. But the "studios" they used were far from typical. The first was at Skywalker Ranch (as in "Luke Skywalker" of Star Wars) at a HUGE facility designed for the film industry. Another "studio" recording they made (titled "Requiem") was actually made at the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall (in Troy, NY), which is really a performance venue that doubles as a desireable place to make recordings.
Sure, there can be problems with ambient noise in "on site" recording venues, but they can be usually dealt with (turn off the air conditioning, ask neighbors not to mow their lawns, position "guards" at the doors, etc.), and the advantages of the authentic "hall acoustics" often outweigh the perceived advantages of going into a controlled (and sometimes dead and cramped) studio situation.
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