Recording advice needed for BARBERSHOP HARMONY

M

MelissaCavi

New member
Hello! Anyone reading this will know that I'm new and in need of any advice. I've never taken any courses in recording or mixing music and everything I know is through a year's worth of experimentation and the little information that a friend has told me last summer.

The only program and microphone I have available to me right now is Cubase LE 4 and a Rode NT1-A Studio Condenser Microphone.
I would like to help out my Sweet Adeline (women's barbershop harmony) chorus by knowing the best way to record a tenor, lead, baritone, bass acapella quartet.

In other words, could I have some dumbed-down and straight forward advice on how to get the best recordings of the quartet using the one Rode NT1-A Studio Condenser mic?

And when it comes to mixing, what inputs would you use and what EQs would you set for the best sound?

Again, please bear with me...I'm just trying to learn!
Thank you for any help!

Melissa
 
Some simple and quick points to get the ball rolling .

Sort out the recording space , this is the space where the artists will perform .
You will need a reasonably big room ( a dining room for eg) .
Treat the space with some absorbtion , For a budget some large quilts hung up around the walls to cut right down on reflections .
The above two points are to stop the vocals sounding "boxy" (once it's there can't be removed) .

Set the mic up and record all the singers at once .
If you are all happy they got the timing , lyrics and pitch OK ....
Then record each singer doing their part individually .
So eventually you end up with 5 tracks , one will all , then 4 with on vocalist each .

Now you can move on and re-record each vocal track to capture the best from the performers .
Don't delete any tracks just mute them (if PC holds up) .
Later you can add parts of each vocal for "fuller" sound , or just cut in and out from differing takes to make a composite take that is of all the best parts .

There's a few bits :)
 
Hi, Thanks for the response!!
We practice weekly in a small church and we are able to go up in the sanctuary...it sounds good when we sing live up there, how would that be for recording? Of course we've got dining rooms/big rooms in houses we can use as well. Thanks for that tip.

Alright, that makes sense...
I'm unfortunately not confident that the quartet singers can sing their parts individually since they're most likely used to fitting themselves in with the other voices...I know they know their parts well, I just think they could easily lose it if they're singing alone, or even possibly sing it differently than they would in the quartet...

I could have them listen in headphones to a recording of them singing all together to help them or maybe have the microphone a little closer to a different person on each recording through to get all four parts predominant. That way I will end up with the 5 tracks; one with all and 4 with each vocalist being the most heard. Kind of thinking out loud now, tell me if that would be reasonable or if there is a better way! :)

They stand in formation with the Lead and the Bass on the inside and the Baritone and Tenor on the outside if that makes sense; so I know it may take some playing around to know how far/close to the microphone they should stand. But is there a certain distance you know they should stand at least to record good blend and to hear rings and overtones? I think I've got a general idea, but any tips there?

How about for a whole chorus? My chorus is slightly over 20 members and only growing, so I know I wouldn't record each of them individually. Would it be smart to just get many takes of them singing all together and piece it together with their best bits for each song?
That is, I would only do the piecing together part if I were making a listening track for audience listeners to enjoy...at the moment I'm mainly considering recording the whole chorus just for rehearsal purposes to hear how we can improve and such.

Back to the quartet...I am really bad at not deleting takes. When I'm just recording myself at home, I hear one thing in a take that I don't like and I delete it; so yes, I will take that advice and get out of that dumb deleting habit of mine!

For mixing, do you have any ideas for how to set up the EQs on the tracks to make them sound their best? To be honest, I barely, if at all, know what each slider does when it comes to setting up the EQs so I don't know if what I'm doing already would be reasonable for this barbershop quartet or not. If you don't have any ideas that's alright...you've already got me a step more confident than before. Thank you!

Melissa
 
I think you missed my point a little there .

(track 1)The first track records all four parts .
(track 2)Then the first singer records their solo part listening to headphone mix of (all four voices : track one) + some feed from the mic (themselves solo) .
(track 3)Second singer solo (track1)+(mic feed)
(track 4)Third singer solo .....
(track 5)Fourth singer .......

Now you can mix tracks 2 to 5 to and use them as your headphone mix ... so re-record vocalist one , play them tracks 3+4+5 in headphones(no longer track1(all of them) and three solo performances from voc2 ,3,4) and record track 6 ...and so on .

Does that make any more sense ?
Sorry this might be easier to explain with diagram

---------- Post added at 12:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:18 PM ----------

Double post alert .....

As for the venue ....
I would go for a "dining room" size at first .
It's easier to control ambient noise .
It's more convenient to facilitate , and also better that you run through your practice recording there than in a church with twenty people looking on (less pressure) .

Whilst a church will certainly have acoustics and reverb .... they will not be removable from the recording once there ... sometimes an up close personal sound suits a song . Also , might have to do some investigating to find the sweetspot for recording in such a room .

For recording a choir of twenty people ... you are gonna need more than one mic for sure !
At least a couple of SDCs and you Rode (LDC) ... plus enough pres , A>D channels , mic stands and leads etc .

Mixing ... don't worry about that at all yet , leave all the EQs at a neutral position , concentrate on recording a nice clean , pleasing sound before reaching for those dials .
Once you have captured the sounds you want , you can play around with eqs , compressors , reverbs all you want (reading up on such things and understanding is good idea) .
Many make the mistake of "cart before the horse" , is so much as they p!ss about with eqs and stuff trying to make a rubbish recording sound good . This will not work , record a great sound and you can sometimes improve it with EQ etc , and you can often make several good recordings play nice together with eq ETC.


Argg , my couple of simple tips run into a wall of text !
Much of the above is IMHO , others may disagree , certainly many can offer help especially in websites of tutorials and such (I am old fart so net noob;) )
 
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Oh, yes! That does make more sense to me now. I am rereading the directions you gave me for recording the parts to etch that into my brain now. Thank you!

Okay, that's what I thought. "Dining room" sized room it shall be.
Definitely, I would not do quartet recording at rehearsal time/day/location. We would get together on our own time to do this for less pressure!

And for the whole 20 of us...I'll jot that equipment down for future reference. Thanks!
Okay, no horse before the cart...got it! Once I'm at that stage, I'm sure I will have a new load of questions!
Do you have any favourite learning materials besides the manuals that comes with all of the equipment I've gotten?

You see, I started collecting the little equipment I have and getting an interest in all of this because of a friend I met through a mutual love of a musician. He goes to school studying musical engineering and he taught me the bare basics of using Cubase and stuff like how to not break my microphone. Ahaha! He was my main source of information, he's extremely talented, but we don't seem to be in touch any more so I wasn't exactly sure where to direct my questions. I've gone to music shops looking for equipment/advice and haven't really gotten answers or even what I'd been looking for because they don't really know very much either where I'm at. Apparently.
So now that you kind of hopefully see why I'm in a noobish state, maybe you know of some good tutorials I should watch/read.
And no worries! Your opinion has already been very helpful. Thanks again!

Melissa
 
MelissaCavi said:
Oh, yes! That does make more sense to me now. I am rereading the directions you gave me for recording the parts to etch that into my brain now. Thank you!

Okay, that's what I thought. "Dining room" sized room it shall be.
Definitely, I would not do quartet recording at rehearsal time/day/location. We would get together on our own time to do this for less pressure!

And for the whole 20 of us...I'll jot that equipment down for future reference. Thanks!
Okay, no horse before the cart...got it! Once I'm at that stage, I'm sure I will have a new load of questions!
Do you have any favourite learning materials besides the manuals that comes with all of the equipment I've gotten?

You see, I started collecting the little equipment I have and getting an interest in all of this because of a friend I met through a mutual love of a musician. He goes to school studying musical engineering and he taught me the bare basics of using Cubase and stuff like how to not break my microphone. Ahaha! He was my main source of information, he's extremely talented, but we don't seem to be in touch any more so I wasn't exactly sure where to direct my questions. I've gone to music shops looking for equipment/advice and haven't really gotten answers or even what I'd been looking for because they don't really know very much either where I'm at. Apparently.
So now that you kind of hopefully see why I'm in a noobish state, maybe you know of some good tutorials I should watch/read.
And no worries! Your opinion has already been very helpful. Thanks again!

Melissa
Click to expand...

post a souncloud of the song when done

this forum is great welcome to the community



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fataltone said:
post a souncloud of the song when done

this forum is great welcome to the community
Click to expand...

If it were my quartet, I would without a second thought, but since none of the four people will be me (yet!) I'm not sure they'd want it posted but if they do then I will share!

I do have a soundcloud with some of my own stuff on it that anyone can go see.
I just signed up to this forum today and they think that my links are spam! Ergh if you type in MelissaCavileer on soundcloud and find my cover of Bang Bang by Nancy Sinatra, Lion King Broadway stuff, or Barbershop Tags, you'll know that's me! Sorry I can't send a link.
Just don't hurt me if the production is terrible!
 
If they really sounded good together I'd probably record everything with one microphone. With these groups, they're all usually very controlled and you shouldn't have any one over taking another, except for the lead. I do think a good space will make all the difference. I just don't feel it's the same to capture everything separately and mix it back in. What I'd do is use another microphone somewhere further away so it's be sort of like a reverb microphone. Again, this really depends on the space you're using and how well the group is together.
 
Hi Sleepy!
That may be what I do for starters anyway because I'm not sure they want a perfect product. The director may just want a good quality recording(s) to hear each other and see what they can do to improve and what not. If that's the case then I'm not going to sweat mixing loads of tracks of the individuals together into one. Also I am concerned about preserving the natural barbershop sound which can easily be lost in a recording if too many separate layers/voices are added in and on top of the track of them all together.

So like you said and same with the person above, I will test around for the best sounding room to record in for sure and depending on what the director wants (educational purposes vs. an audio track for people to listen and enjoy) I will decide what exactly to do. And if the quartet is spot on within a few takes of singing all together, I might not even want to worry about mixing in more tracks of the individuals.

This is just good for me to hear multiple people's opinions of what they would do if they were to record a barbershop quartet because I originally didn't have many good ideas of my own. So thank you!
 
It's a shame that you only have the one microphone - I'd be inclined to consider an AB recording setup if there were two mics available - pretty much what sleepy has suggested but with two microphones at a distance from the ensemble and separated by a fair distance themselves. In a church setting, this would be best done with the ensemble at the front of the church (in the nave) and the mics near the back (last row of pews) at the extreme left and right (3 seats in from the outer end of each pew).

If there were four mics, then I'd be looking at an AB for room sound and and XY nearer the front for direct ensemble sound.

XY is almost exactly what it sounds like; the two microphones are crossed over so that they look like an "X" with their capsules pointing towards the ensemble. The mics should be on a stand that is about 1/3 the way down the central aisle from the front of the church.

You would record each microphone separately and later mix to taste, using the XY as the main source and the AB as the room reinforcement. I've done this in several locations including school halls, gymnasiums, cathedrals and small rural churches to equally great success....

With one mic, the best solution is to sit it in the same spot you would an XY setup (1/3 the way down the central aisle) and record both room and ensemble.

you're not in Sydney, perchance???? name looks familiar is all....
 
I also highly recommend you a second mic to capture stereo information.

The M/S microphone technique is a valid alternative too (especially if you want to record several takes and want to keep control of the stereo-"ambience" when you try to mix them all together). It's a very flexible and mostly fool proof recording technique - and you can later manipulate the "S" part independently (which is a great advantage).
 
Well there you go !
Can tell that I record bands and not quartets !
Looks like the guys got pointed you in the right direction .
 
I know, it is a shame that I only have one microphone. I'm only 17 and without a job at the moment so I'm pretty limited for now but all of this advice and information is good for future reference. I do plan on continuing to buy things in the hopefully near future. Again thank you for this advice.

You will probably think this is funny but I'm not anywhere close to Sydney...I'm in Idaho USA of all places!

Sorry for such a late response, I for some reason stopped getting notifications in my email for this thread so I didn't realize there were more responses here!
 
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