Recording the Pewsey Belles

On Tuesday evening we travelled to Pewsey to record The Pewsey Belles.  This is a relatively new choir formed by Lesley-Anne Hornbogen and Felicity Dainton.  I was then brought in to become the musical director, although if I’m honest I feel that is rather a pretentious title so won’t use it again in this post!   The choir was formed in April 2011 and is made up from ladies who live in and around Pewsey in Wiltshire.  Albeit I am a little biased, the ladies have done extremely well in such a short space of time.  As such I decided we should do a short recording.

The aim of the recording was to firstly show the ladies just how good they sound and secondly to generate some audio samples to be used on the choir website which, it is hoped, will lead to more engagements for the Belles.

The recording itself was carried out on location in the Wesleyan Church Hall in Pewsey.  As a venue it could be argued it wasn’t perfect. Lots of windows, quite a tall ceiling with lots of wooden panelling and very little to damp the sound.   However, as a location recording company part of our remit is to find ways to record in less than ideal spaces.  If we just recorded in a purpose built studio all the time it would be far too easy!  Added to this I wanted to conduct the choir and we don’t have a pianist.  In order to do this we pre recorded the piano tracks so they could be played whilst recording thus removing the need for a pianist.

Pewsey Belles Recording

Set up ready to receive the choir

The plan was to record 5 songs. 4 with accompaniment and 1 without.  In total we had the hall booked for 5 hours from 5pm – 10pm and the choir booked to record from 7pm to 9.15pm.  This left us with 2 hours to unload and set up an 8 channel recording with talk back and video facility with all cables properly secured and safe passage left for the choir of 30 to get in and out of the venue safely.  In addition staging was assembled.  At the end of the recording session we then had 45 minutes to take everything down again, back up the data recorded and repack the vehicles.

I’m pleased to say the recording went exactly as planned and right on schedule.  Our next task is to do some mastering back in the studio with the aim of publishing the tracks within the next couple of weeks.  Watch this space!

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Editing work for Michelle Falcon

This week has been mostly spent in the studio editing a recording a few weeks ago at Real World Studios with Michelle Falcon, a Bath based professional Viola player.

Michelle Falcon

Michelle Falcon

There are often misconceptions about the differences between editing, balancing and mastering a recording.  For us following a location recording the first process is to edit the raw data to produce rushes. In essence all we do here is take out the rubbish – we don’t mean bad performances simply recorded data which is of no use – eg talking between takes, drinking tea and false starts etc.    Once everything is marked up we then present the musicians with the data from which they can choose to make the final master.  Sometimes we make this choice on a client’s behalf if we are asked to produce the album but often it is either the musicians themselves or a musical director in the case of a choir who will listen to all the various takes to decide which is best and should be used in the final CD.

This week then, I have been editing some tracks recorded by Michelle Falcon, a combination of Viola solo with some Viola and piano accompaniment which we recorded on location at Real World Studios.   From this I now have a selection of tracks which have been very roughly balanced so that Michelle can choose which takes will make it into the final album which we hope to put together in a couple of weeks time.

Once Michelle has decided on the takes to be used, the next part of the process is to stitch together any edits in order to create the final track. This is then approved by Michelle before we get to the mastering process and produce her demo CD.

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What will 2012 bring?

2012 is perhaps one of the most anticipated years in recent times for those of us in the UK.  The two key events of the year being the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the London 2012 Olympics.

As a recording company this presents a number of exciting challenges for us.  Ok so admittedly at the moment we don’t have any involvement with the Olympics, but that could change!  I did investigate the opportunities surrounding the Olympics a few years ago but a lot of contracts were for the types of recording we don’t really specialise in. However, one thing we will be taking a close interest in is the Cincinnati 2012 World Choir Games.

The other major event of the year is the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.  Now this, we do have some involvement with and are currently working with Grenville Jones and the Jubilee Time after Time project to help promote the official Charity Song, “Diamond Day” written by my good friend Tessa Cox.  Schools throughout the South West are being encouraged to put on concerts featuring pupils and perhaps their grand parents singing together a performance of Diamond Day.

So far we have put together a recording of the song, a backing track and score which can be downloaded from the Jubilee Time after Time Website

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On Location vs Studio Recordings

This week we received a call from a potential client asking us if we could re record a single line of spoken audio to be used in an advert which had previously been recorded wrongly by another recording company.

Well apart from wondering why the client couldnt go back to the studio they had used in the first place we were obviously happy to try and help.  The client was based in Bath and was very keen for us to record them until I mentioned that we would bring everything to them.  This client seemed shocked by this and was clearly expecting to visit a studio.  Whilst in theory we could carry out a recording in our mastering studio, at the time it was all set up for some editing we are working on hence offering to visit the client at their premises.

As a location recording company we specialise in recording on location, as the title suggests!  In some circumstances however, it is  difficult to change a clients perception.  After all. what is a studio? Essentially its nothing more than a normal room which has been treated to possess suitable accoustic properties for recording.  There is also the perception apparently that studios have better recording equipment.

It’s not my purpose to start a long debate about studios vs location recordings as there are a number of factors which could affect this. However, one of the things we plan to work on during 2012 is a wider range of demo tracks to illustrate the quality we can achieve on location.  As well as the recording rig we also carry a range of accoustic panneling so we can transform any space into a suitable environment to record in whether thats for a voice over or a full symphony orchestra.

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Can’t see the Conductor? Not a problem

When setting up to record the main consideration must always be balance and correct microphone placement in order to achieve the best possible sound.  Our most recent recording was a choir with piano accompaniment.  Whilst we close mic’d the piano we had no way in the particular venue to completely isolate the piano from the choir mics.  Ideally we would have placed the piano in front of the choir, and thus behind the mics to minimise the bleed but because the choir needed to see projected words this wasn’t possible as the piano would have blocked their view.

As a result we had two choices.  Place the piano to one side or alternatively behind the choir. If we had put the piano to one side then we would have incurred balance issues with any bleed on the choir mics not matching the left/right balance of the close mics on the piano.  We therefore decided the optimum position for the piano was behind the choir (which was 100 strong standing on staging) as this would minimise any bleed on the choir mics but not give us a slightly off balanced image.

The problem with this solution was the pianist then couldnt see the conductor which of course is far from ideal!  We solved this problem by setting up a video camera focussed on the conductor which then fed back, across our on site wireless network, to an iPad sitting on the piano, thus giving the pianist a clear view of the conductor.  As we were already using the camera to feed back to our engineer who was located in an adjacent room there was no additional work required to provide this neat solution.

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The week before Christmas

With our last recording for 2011 ‘in the can’ we are spending the last few days before Christmas in the studio catching up with some editing work and preparing for next year.  All in all its been a good year for 4 Part Music.  We will post a review of the year in the next few days, if only to remind ourselves of the highlights of the year.

Next year should be an even busier year for us. We already have recordings booked throughout January so we will be hitting the ground running once we come back after the Christmas break.  A lot of people in business see Christmas as either a time for a complete break, or as a hinderance to their workflow.  At 4 Part Music we see it as an opportunity to reflect on the year just passed, and plan ahead for the year to come.

Running a business is always a challenging experience and for most one long learning curve.  You can learn as much, if not more, from what went well as you can from what didnt go quite as expected.  For the most part 2011 has been a year full of new challenges and exciting opportunities, many of which we hope to develop in 2012.  We have also learnt a lot and will use this valuable experience to help us grow the business next year.

That said, 2011 is far from over and there is still editing to be done and rushes to be uploaded.  So for now, its back to the studio.

 

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Christmas in my Heart

With Christmas rapidly approaching, we thought it was time to get festive and put forward our offering for the Christmas number 1. Ok so we admit we probably won’t beat Gareth Malone’s Military Wives this year but there’s always next year….

Here’s a clip from the song Christmas in my Heart, written by Tessa Cox, orchestrated and arranged by Jules Addison and recorded by 4 Part Music in Prior Park College Chapel in October 2010.

Christmas in my Heart

Click to play

The full song is available for purchase in iTunes by clicking here and every penny from the proceeds goes to Help for Heroes.

 

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Recording at Colerne Primary School

Yesterday we found ourselves at Colerne Primary School to record about 100 children singing Tessa Cox’s song, Diamond Days.   This is part of a project we are working on with Grenville Jones and the Golden Oldies Charity, more details of which will be announced soon.

For now the main priority was to capture a high quality recording of the song, sung by the children of Colerne Primary School.   The recording was also filmed in order to be put on You Tube. We will let you know the link once it’s available.

The recording set up was fairly straightforward yesterday as we were only recording choir and piano. However, because we set the piano up behind the choir (separately mic’d) we also had to put in a live video feed for the pianist so they could see the conductor.  This is something we do more and more of in order to position the musicians / instruments in the optimal layout for recording purposes.  It’s quite a straightforward set up which runs off an iPad that just sat neatly on top of the piano.  We also use the same video feed back in the engineering room which gives us the chance to see whats going on.

All in all we had a great day working at the school and our thanks go to Rob Parsons and Grenville Jones for giving us this opportunity.

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On location at Real World Studios

On Friday this week, we will be recording Michelle Falcon at Real World Studios in Box. Michelle is a professional freelance viola player based in Bath and London who we have worked with on a number of occasions over the last few years.  This latest project gives us the opportunity to record her in the reknowned space which is the Wood Room at Real World Studios complete with its 6 foot Yamaha C3 piano.

Wood Room, Real World

The Wood Room

Whilst the recording will therefore be carried out in a studio, to us this is still a location recording. We will be taking all our own recording gear and setting up on site just as we would normally do.  We are not implying that the equipment at Real World Studios is inferior (we are not actually in a position to comment having not seen it yet), but we know our rigs were carefully put together for this type of recording and can therefore gaurantee (as far as possible) the results which will be obtained.

Following a provisional meeting with Owen at Real World Studios, we have been made to feel welcome and I’m hoping this will be the first of many similar recordings we do in conjunction with Real World.

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Do Microphone Pre-amps make a difference?

I’ve read a number of articles recently concerning the effect that different quality of recording gear has on the final recording and most seem to be written from the point of view of someone defending poor quality equipment on the basis that relative to the cost the increased quality is minimal and therefore not worth paying for.  Other positions put forward are that in the grand scheme of things the pre-amp is not as important as, say, the quality of the microphones.

This latter position is a difficult one to answer. There are so many elements in the recording “chain” how do you rank them in terms of importance?  I have to admit that I actually don’t know, but to my mind (and I’m not the techie at 4 Part Music) it seems a bit silly to use the best quality microphones and then a poor quality mic pre amp or low quality cabling.

Obviously, as with most things, it usually comes down to budget.  I’m not going to begin to offer advice or promote certain products above others, mostly because I am not an expert on every type of hardware currently available.  Our view at 4 Part Music has always been to work with the best quality equipment we can and if we are considering any new piece of recording gear we always carry out a number of tests with it before purchasing (where possible).

As things currently stand we have four 8 channel microphone pre amps from two different manufacturers (for those interested these are 2 RME Micstasy units and 2 Millennia Media HV-3Rs).  The Micstasy’s are by no means cheap units but they are considerably cheaper than the HV-3Rs.  Quality wise, there is a difference as we have discovered by using identical equipment and then swapping the pre-amps. However, the difference is very very very slight and quite honestly you would only know if you compared one with the other.  Nevertheless, the HV-3Rs do, in our opinion and teamed with our other equipment, give a slightly better sound.

You may well ask, if thats the case why do we have 2 Micstasys as well – why not just have either 2 HV-3Rs or 4 HV-3Rs.  Well firstly, 4 HV-3Rs would be quite expensive but more importantly they are much heavier and as a result much less portable.  If we are recording a large choir or orchestra, this is not a factor, However, sometimes we record very simply podcasts or audio books where quite honestly the quality difference really doesn’t matter to the same extent.

This brings me to the crux of the argument though. What is the definition of better?  Well to my ears there is more detail from the HV-3Rs and the sound is slightly clearer.  Of course all of this improvement could easily then be lost or destroyed in post production. So, buy way of conclusion in my opion, yes the microphone pre-amp does make a difference and the additional costs are worth it, BUT only if you then make similar quality decisions for the rest of your recording gear.  And the thing is, because the quality difference is so slight between one pre amp and another, you could lose all the benefit of the better pre amp by substituting something as seemingly insignificant as a cable.

 

 

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