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Hello,
I need suggestions recording a 32 men choir, 4 sections, some songs with a solo.
I' think we'll place them in a small church.

Any idea on miking?

We have these microphones:

2 AKG C414
1 Neumann U87
1 Neumann KM 183
1 Neumann KM 184
1 Electro Voice RE20 and others dynamics Shure, Beyerdynamic.

Personally I'd go for, U87 for the solo voice. 414's as a spaced stereo pair, not too close together, not too far apart. 184 and 183 out in the room as ambient mics, try facing towards and/or away from choir.

That's where I'd start, then adjust if anything sounds weird.

Then RE20 on the kick drum, Beyer 201 on the snare top, SM58's micing up the cars outside and other things you don't care about.... etc etc etc

i didnt notice anything in your question about drums? why was that answered?

i recorded a mens choir in a church just like this few years back....

you have four sections so a stereo pair of 414s may not give you the control you might want from song to song or in the bulk of a song. if this is important to you might i suggest the u87 aimed at your tenors and bass, and one 414 aimed at you altos and one at your sopranos. if the 414 on the sopranos sounds brittle i would switch it out with u87.

if its nice sounding church use your km183 (omni) as an ambient mic. then use the km 184 as an area mic and solo. good choir soloists are going to serve as their own "compressors" and they will move around alot so place the mic well above their head and face it towards the bridge of their nose.

good luck.

I have recorded a couple of choirs with limited mics, and I would highly recommend staying away from the 414's when capturing a soprano section - The last choir I did was with a stereo pair of 414's (that's all they had at the site), and I couldn't find a way using placement to naturally roll off some of the brittle top end those mics tend to have. It sounds like you have a pretty decent selection to choose from, so I think you won't have any trouble getting them to sound quite nice.

How many tracks are you working with, and what kind of media are you recording to? Do you have any outboard preamp or compression?

congleton wrote:i didnt notice anything in your question about drums? why was that answered?

Ohhhh it was a joke!

Hi,
thanks once again for your answer.
I add only:

the choir is only 32 male NO instrument.

Tracks are not a problem, we can go up to 12 - 24bits/96Khz or 24 - 24/48

So I thought to good stereo placement using the couple of 414. I have generally good stereo results plus mono-compatibility with ORTF. The difficult here is to give a well-blended and balanced sound having all the other microphones different in make and brand. Capturing the sound closer to source and mixing after the 4 different sections or solo with reverberant ambient give more control on the final result.
What you think?

Height and distance will be your friends in this situation. See if you can get hold of one of those crank-up aerial masts and put your stereo bar on top.

tarandfeathers wrote:Height and distance will be your friends in this situation. See if you can get hold of one of those crank-up aerial masts and put your stereo bar on top.

Yes,
we have 2 stands that go up to 5 meters, but I think I'll try even more distances hanging up stereo couple from the ceiling or between 2 walls if there is a way to stop the microphones without they oscillate in the air during recordings...