Recording a Choir
Recording a choir may seem easy in the context of a performance or recording session. However, when recording for anechoic material certain considerations have to be made.
The aim when recording this choir was to be able to split the choir into its constituent parts, each singer should be captured separately. With the app’s ability to move each singer individually it was crucial that each member of the choir could be isolated from one another. However, choir members are not used to singing alone and often sing better as part of their ensemble. Due to this bleed from other members and bleed from the acoustic of the room are limitations which needed to be taken into account. The feasibility of recording each of the 10 singers separately isolated from each other was considered but in interest of time and a better performance it was decided to record the choir together.
You can find out more about how the 'Placeholder Motet' and 'Architexture 1' pieces used in the app were composed using the button.
Location
The location which the singers are recorded in can play a huge role in how much bleed from each other is present, and how much of the room we are able to hear. This is due to the spacing of the singers and the acoustic of the room. Choosing a smaller room would make the acoustic easier to work with but would increase the spill from other singers, choosing a bigger room would make the acoustic worse for our purpose but would allow the spacing of the singers to be optimal.
Due to our microphone choice we decided on the Rymer auditorium in the Music Department at the University of York. This space was chosen due to its very controlled acoustic and ample space for 10 singers to spread out.
Microphone Choice
With each singer requiring a microphone we looked towards live sound applications for a solution. Headset microphones from DPA were chosen to allow us to isolate each singer's voice. Furthermore, we decided to position the microphones on the opposite side of the singer’s face to the middle of the ensemble, further helping with isolation.
Recording a Quartet
For a more intimate performance we recorded a SATB quartet, as we were working with fewer singers we could use a smaller space. Because the function of the app is to impart the acoustic of the guildhall onto choral material we chose to record as ‘dry’ a signal as possible. This avoids the stacking of acoustics and maintains the intent of our research. Thus, we decided to record them in an Anechoic chamber.
An anechoic chamber is one without echo or an acoustic at all. The aim of this is to record as dry a signal as possible with little to no reflections. Much like the larger choir, we chose to use the DPA headset microphones to capture the most isolated signal.