Recorded a Symphonic Winds Orchestra

[006]

Got a cool gig recording a High School band, not like a band band but you know with fucking trombones and French horns and clarinets n shit?, the other night. I'm actually surprised at how it came out, czech eet owt:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/794136/winterconcert/7 - Carol Of The Bells.mp3

Oh and a pic of my view from the FOH position on the balcony for teh lulz:

(sorry for shit phone cam quality)

It was super easy. Anybody with a laptop, a few condensors (even just two would work) and an interface, of course, should try to contact high schools in their area to do this sort of thing. I had 2 mics on stage (one left, one right, about ~70 ft apart) and 3 mics on the balcony (~30 ft apart from each other, over ~80ft total spread, the balcony was close to 100ft away from the stage) all going into the Soundcraft mixer they had already. I just went direct out of their board into my 8Pre and hit record, really easy. All I had to do was align the tracks (varying distances from the source will add lots of delay obviously) and add a smidge of EQ, limiter on the 2bus and it's done. I made over $150/hour that night

 

[Plankis]

Sounds really good. Very impressive for such a simple setup.

 

[006]

Thanks!

 

[Metaltastic]

Nicely done dude, seems like there's a really high noise floor though?

 

[006]

Thanks dude. I'm pretty sure it's their Soundcraft mixer that has the high noise. One of their 60ft cables I used on the balcony right mic was fucked, incessant buzz no matter what, completely unusable so I trashed that track. I tried other channels with that cable too and it was definitely the cable. The mixer plus air conditioning, ambient noise from people being near the mics on the balcony and needing compression adds to the noise there. I know I don't get that high of a S/N when using my mics with my cables at home so... Regardless, it still sounds good and can be overlooked I think. I know the band will be extremely happy with it, the "head" of the band parents already heard it and was blown away (lolz) so it's all good. I have scheduled with them to do more concerts so it's just something I'll have to deal with.

 

[Metaltastic]

Yeah man, I listened to MORE than enough cassettes back in the 90s to not be bothered by a little unobtrusive hiss (that pretty much disappears once everything gets going anyway)