Hello guys,

I will soon have to record a classical duo with a grand piano and a mezzo soprano singer. It will be different opera themes.

I use to record acoustic music but I never work on this configuration.

The room will be a huge auditorium . A wood floor . High ceiling. No reverb tail. on a bright side. A good volume but Not so interesting acoustic.

I love using my MK5schoeps (modified by Rens Heinje) in small AB omni to close miking voice . First I set them vertically, facing the ceiling, I listen, and then , I play with the angle, sometimes 45°between ceiling to the source I want to record. In this way I play with the off axis natural eq to get the sound I want.

Do you think guys that I can reproduce this technique when miking a mezzo soprano at 3feet of distance ?

I also have a senheiser MKH 80 . Maybe it can do a good job in cardioid as a mono spot mic...

I plan on 2 AKG414ULS for the piano in a small AB on the tail .

If the room is too bright , do you think I can use ribbon as main ?
Wich ribbon would you recommend me ?

I ve got 2 no hype LRM2b but I guess they would be a bit noisy and lack details in the upper range for the quiet stuff .

Thanks a lot for your comment.
https://alexandreflory.wixsite.com/nomad-recording

Three feet is way too close for an operatic voice.

I recorded this very thing on a regular basis for ten years; never needed anything more than a simple stereo pair about 8' back and 8' up.

Use flat-response mics with little or no tip-up at the top. Flat cards should be all you need to cope with the bright room. Sub-cards will be more flattering to the voice.

Only time piano may need to be mic'd separately is if it's closed or on short stick, which is very rarely done with an operatic voice.

I think its probably about right with a pair of closely spaced cardioids on the voice. Depends on the repertoire a bit. If its lieder or Spanish songs it will be right, Rossini maybe not.

OP said "opera themes', not lieder.

maybe I have to switch the schoeps with the MK4 caps. The hf bump in the MK5 may not be the ideal for this situation.

Do you have experience in using this MK5 caps as main AB in this kind of duo piano / operatic voice ?


I guess it will depend on the room quality.

It's not a public performance so I can put microphones without disturbing the audience .
So I want to separate spot miking voice / main AB / spot miking piano

My parc : couple TLM193
couple schoeps MK5
LRM2 Ribbon
MKH80
couple dpa 4061( wich I like a lot mount in a piano near the holes)

i'd use the mkh-80 on the singer, the tlm-193s or c-414s inside the grand piano and the mk-5s as mains (with pattern/technique depending on room, setup, distance, wet/dry balance).

Yes it seems a good idea if the singer stay in front of the audience .

How do you control the bleed when the singer want to face the pianist for eye contact ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkbkoP8tCMk

In this video, I guess the schoeps are used in AB cardioid pattern, rejecting the direct sound of the piano.

But how to preserve the air and balance of the piano miking without getting too much voice in the mike ?

is the Decca tail technique playable when singer and pianist facing each other ?

Or do you have to play with cardioid inside the piano ? I guess the reflection of the piano lid will project voice in piano microphone .
Do you move the lid or some stuff like that ?

If it was me with your nice Rens Heinje Mk 5, I would used them in ORTF - arrange the singer and main pair for the right balance with the piano and...done. Arrange your TLM 193 as a close spaced pair of cardioid spots for the singer and play with your DPAs in in the piano if you wish, but you won't need any of them if the main pair is done right.

Yes, I think it still applies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IY_FiBBxTE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12Vog4TZRtE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNhHiKReN48
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN-JCdM4or0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1ZL...=RDC1ZL5AxmK_A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXnlyLSMTxI

since when does repertoire matter for the approach?!

Because art song is not 'belted to the rafters' as opera singers singing opera selections are trained to do. The voice is used very differently and at a lower average volume.

A full-throated soprano or mezzo sounds very aggressive and unpleasant when heard from any closer than 5 or 6 feet away. That sound is meant to be heard from far away in an opera house, unlike art song / lieder that's meant for more of an intimate, 'salon' setting.

so if you're recording a singer with a broad repertoire, do you change setup according to genre/between takes? - i don't.

In my experience performers and producers don't tend to mix absurdly different repertoire in a concert or CD recording. Likely for this very reason. But one can mix varying amounts of the spots with the main pair as dictated by the repertoire.

But recording this recital would have been a challenge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi-VOyAE7OY

they mostly don't for cd release but 'mixing of genre' is often the norm rather than the exception in live performances...

...which is why i'm always using a 'robust' approach which can deal with varying situations - and then there is the gain knob... ;-)

I had recently very good result recording a great young professional mezzo-soprano with a pair of CM3 in a big church, 2m in front of her and 60cm above her head.

. . .

….or similar distance in front, but in contact with the floor…BLM style. Main problem with this approach is the barrier/blocking effect, if they’re holding a score book at waist or chest height….locating the floor mic out to one side can help with this

Your initial plan sounds fine to me. Similar to the plan proposed in the "Decca book": https://www.routledge.com/Classical-...BlCcjN9MpYvbok

I would try this first, too and maybe add the upward facing ambient pair as per Decca book.
No main pair as such.

I've seen it applied successfully in high profile videos of recording sessions of opera singers, complete with the a bit closer distance stereo pair for the singer - 3' to 4', as you thought about and some objected.

I really like your webpage and approach. I can relate.

Thanks for your comments.

My hesitation have to do with the brightness and reflecting characteristics of the venue.

The floor will be very huge and empty with only a piano and a vocalist.

I think about ribbon or "soft treble" microphone but maybe I can do something to the floor.

Putting some chair, some blankets or stuff like that to tame this huge reflective surface ...

Here a picture of the venue

Opera, and opera repertoire recitals are generally performed in spaces with large, bare floors.

Show what the rest of the hall looks like. Appears to have nicely diffusive walls.

If I did this, and it was in a good room, I wouldn't spot it. I'd put the mike pair where the piano sounded good and then move the singer to where the singer was balanced with the piano and perhaps a bit dryer.

If you have to spot the singer, three feet is a bit close, but remember that the spot is just helping fill things out... most of the sound is still in the main pair and so if the spot mike is a little harsh and brittle that's okay because there's not going to be a lot of spot in the total mix. Even so, my inclination when doing this sort of thing is to use the tightest possible dynamic microphone like an MD441, and keep it down at waist height so that you get plenty of the sound coming off the chest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlt-2iQ6kzQ

Vocalist about thirty seconds in, microphone is an N/D 468 because I had run out of MD441s for spots and the 468 is lower profile on video. Vocal mike is about six feet from the singers mouth. There's a touch of vocal mike in there but as you can hear most of the sound is coming from the rear pair. I will also occasionally still use an RCA BK-5 for this job too.
--scott

A rug or thin carpet between the singer and her spot mic would help to cut down on any comb-filtering (due to path length differences between direct from mouth to mic, and mouth to floor to mic reflection). It doesn’t need to be a large rug/carpet.

If you’re going to use floor located BLM miking the carpet either isn’t necessary…or could be counterproductive and unhelpful

Seen lots and lots of session photos of opera recordings; none show a rug on the floor between the mic and the singer, and all were done in spaces with hard floors.

And they probably did it something like that - same space, same singer, another pianist, another repertoire, but I guess the same approach.



Decca tail pair(s) on piano (probably 2 different characteristics to choose for different styles - operatic vs. "american songs" perhaps?), spaced Schoepses plus something in the middle on the singer (redundancy? or to tame the singer's movement or for different styles?)

Distance from the singer as mentioned in the Decca book - ca. 3' to 4' away...



btw - the recording of that recital won Grammy in 2016 for the "Best classical vocal solo performance"...

btw - thanks for the quality recording session videos above... that beautiful sounding Jonas Kaufmann video makes one feel sad for probably never ever being able to afford (and justify buying) two M49s.

If that is the actual production sound, I would not use it as a fine reference.

Also, MD441 is a fine mic, love it dearly, my main performance mic, but for capturing classical singer I wouldn't have it as the first choice, if I had a pair of Schoeps at my disposal, which proved to work for many people in the past.

I don't think the floor would be anything special compared to any other venue, if they have some curtains to pull over the back wall might be welcome (or not) and the bare flat surface chairs... but no way to know, without hearing it...
It is big enough, too... with walls far apart... and some uneven elements on them to help the dispersion, probably to minimize side reflections... and placing the singer to face towards the audience direction - to project into the biggest space...

Those would be my considerations as a similarly rookie recordist of such things...

I wouldn't complicate - the spaced pair on the singer at ca. 3-4' , also trying between cardioid and omni, since you have the MK5s... and as you said - trying the angle, maybe placing them a bit lower, at chest height, angled up, but if using omni, it might probably be better to place them higher, to avoid too much floor reflections and also more 3' distance than 4' then... Listening is the key, anyway, where it sounds good is good...

This pair will also capture the distant ambient sound of piano and you only fill the sound picture with the nicely balanced Decca tail pair (that can produce a surprisingly dry and balanced picture) on the piano...

And perhaps add a pair of upward facing amient mics - for decorrelated reverb - adding it to taste in the mix. And if room is not pretty, adding a nice artificial reverb...

That is my thinking, but I have no experience with classical singers and piano, only listening experience and recording other stuff in similar configurations.

I wouldn't put rugs under the piano! But it's been done occasionally (see the Wigmore Hall concert video above). I don't know. If you can experiment, but not sure about that one. Embrace the room sound; the set up you envisioned originally, will get you a rather direct sound...

I also liked the suggestion of M50k to just use a single pair at a big greater distance - but I think you will more easily pull it off with closer approach, since that is also your usual style as I see on your website...

From my own experience I know, that it is rather difficult to move to more "spacious" approach from recording jazz and world music directly and being used to that sound and way of doing things...

The path length is long enough that that floor reflections just get added into the early room reflections; the comb filtering is all at much lower frequencies than we would worry about. You might still use a rug if you're trying to get a drier vocal sound but most of the time these days I get concert halls that are already too dry.
--scott

It's processed as hell and badly encoded but I think the overall balances are still there. Welcome to the online video world!

I'm not suggesting it for "capturing" the singer, I am suggesting it for a little bit of fill added to the singer. Almost all the sound is coming from the main pair, which indeed should be a pair of Schoeps or DPA or the like. In this case, the spot mike on the singer is going to sound unnatural because it's not there to stand on its own.
--scott

Auditorium du Conservatoire de Sète ?

thanks for your comments. It's helpful to have multi-brain visions !
Yes it is the conservatoire de Sète .