F A N D A N G O R E C O R D I N G
Recording on location
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F A N D A N G O R E C O R D I N G
Recording on location |
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Many times it makes more sense to record on location, there are some advantages to it: a. It can be very expensive for a large orchestra, chamber music assembly or choir, to record in one of the studios with very large rooms with good acoustics. Space is always a challenge, but you know there are out there some very nice halls and churches with great acoustics. b. The sound of the room (hall, church) helps the type of music, is part of it. On some projects- like the Christmas carols CD for the Vox Maris Choir of the St. George Church from Toronto- check Samples - I can not imagine recording such music in a different type of location other than a church. c. Recording a concert/show into a club or a different location, with the crowd in. The recording may not be as polished as a studio release, but this is not the objective; the scope of recording is to capture the performance, the band ability to entertain, improvise and move the crowd. I personally like a lot live recordings, it is all about performance. d. Recording jazz is definitely about performance; jazz is extremely interactive, it has so much improvisation, there is a lot of dialog between the instruments. So, recording a jazz band into a club (especially one with good acoustics) is extremely desirable and rewarding. e. Recording on location saves the day in some cases also because of safety reasons: I recorded a couple of times excellent children choirs at schools- they produced a CD, then the school sold the CD for fundraising. Many parents won't agree to have their children taken in locations they do not know anything about; children need to be supervised and it is way easier to do it in school. Recording on location requires quite some experience: each scenario is different. Recording a chamber music group, a choir, a philharmonic orchestra or something similar requires certain techniques to provide both a good balance, the room atmosphere without muddying the vocals/instruments and clarity (techniques like Decca Tree, Telarc, ORTF, M&S, the use of Soundfield mics, the Holophone, the Schoeps KFM 360 designed by Jerry Bruck, etc). The mics and preamp quality and transparency is essential, think Schoeps, Earthworks (both mics and preamps), DPA, Millennia. A live stereo recording is OK for a simple demo; for a CD release the stereo recording is just not good enough! Recording jazz/rock/alternative requires capturing both the atmosphere and each instrument separately so it leaves the options open at mixing. The major challenge on recording on location is to get the best sound of the space, maintaining the clarity and the details; while in the studio the acoustic space is well known to the engineer, a new acoustic space requires new solutions, different than those used in the studio. An important aspect of the recording on location jobs is the careful planning- for both the studio and the artist/artists. Fandango studies first the space and, based on it, develops the best recording strategy. But, as a client, you can do many things to help the process, which in the end influences both the quality of performance and recording. As an egg.: try to schedule to record the songs where you have brass and reeds rather at the beginning of the session than to the end; unless the artists are pros and with a lot of experience, there is a fatigue that occurs, which can be quite annoying. |
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Questions, info, contact: florinb@fandangorecording.com or call 416 579 5569. Copyright©2001 Fandango Recording Toronto, at Leslie and Lawrence |