Gear Question for Recording Opera Tenor

[ClassicalTenor]

 

Trying to take long distance classical voice lessons and not getting good enough sound quality. I understand this is not pro-level gear. so you may not be familiar with the models. I spent about $1500 total for 2 sets (one for me & one for the teacher). About to return the mics and interfaces. Would greatly appreciate recommendations on what to get. Need to keep the budget under 2,000 - 3000 for the combined setups..

 

The Goal

• Conduct classical voice lessons via teleconferencing e.g., Zoom, GoToMeeting. 
• Need natural sound that has sufficient quality for teacher to be able to guide me in vocal production
• Teacher will have identical gear so I can hear him well, too

The Room:

•  15' x 23' with 8' ceiling
• Wood floor, some glaas, some brick (fairly live)

 

The Gear

• Microphone - AKG C214 Cardiod Condenser w/ stand
• Interface - PreSonus Audiobox USB-96
• Headphones - Beyerdynamic DT990 Pro
• Garage Band with no reverb, or effects of any kind. 
• Mic distance - varied from 6" to 6" & varied gain, accordingly, but nothing helps

The Results

• Dry sound that doesn't have any of the room in it. Almost sounds like i'm in a studio
• Doesn't have sufficient quality for the teacher to be able to guide me vocal production.
• None of the squillo or ring is captured.

 

Recommendations?

[tourtelot]

Hmm, that's really not quite enough info to get the answer you are looking for but maybe I can get the discussion going.

 

The room is small to expect a lot of (any?) "room" effect.  If you sang in the room and I stood as far away as I could, I don't think I'd hear much room.  Just your voice.

 

As well, a cardioid mic will work hard to try and take away the room effect. That's what they are good at; no pickup from the rear where any room effect might be coming from.

 

And that gets worse, the closer you work the mic.

 

If you can get hold of a less directional mic, and I might go straight to a high quality omni,  move it around the room until things get better.  It might end up 6-10 feet away (the 1 meter rule says that acoustic sound should not be recorded with the mic closer than 1 meter, although that rule gets broken often, especially with spot mics, in modern classical music recording) depending on how loudly you sing, and then, of course, this invites the outside world in.  Noise from outside the room will start to intrude.  Compromises, ugh! You see those three tenor vids, all three on Schoeps Mk4 (maybe even Mk41s) but you need to remember, they are singing in ice hockey arenas with a full backing orchestra so isolation is imperative.  That is not where/how you are singing.  Compromises.  Closer mic'ing with an omni will bring up articulation, farther (or is it further?) mic'ing will help with blend.  Compromises.

 

If you must work with the cardioid, you may decide to add a bit of some sort of outboard reverb just to take the curse off the room.  Not a sin to do that; remember that you are trying to achieve an end.  I have little doubt that there is plenty of artificial 'verb on the Three Tenors.

 

Good luck, and feel free to PM me with specific questions or just continue the thread and others will chime in.  There are a few acoustic recordist here.  Many more on GearSlutz in the Remote Possibilities forum so you might ask over there as well.

 

Good luck, but I am pretty sure that you will find a method that gets you close to what you want to sound like.  Experimentation without preconceived notions is the key here.  Try some stuff that you think wouldn't work and keep asking questions until you are (mostly) happy.

 

D.

[ClassicalTenor]

David,

 

Thanks for the info and for getting the conversation started.

• The Room - Point taken about my room is not large. There will surely be no echo, but there is a bit of liveness to it when I sing, that I don't hear in the recording which sounds like almost like a recording studio (dead).
• The Mic
  • Distance: 3-6 feet seems right to me. I think I can eliminate the ambient noises (though it might pick more than I realize is present!)
  • Pattern: I don't have to use a cardiod. Can use whatever works. 
  • Articulation: as an acoustic musician, at times, I have to exaggerate articulation to ensure the audience can understand the words, so the mic doesn't have to be close to get the articulations

Does that help fill in gaps to help w/ more specific recommendations? I recognize that high quality is never cheap, Schoeps Mk4s are a bit pricey!

Thanks!

P

[nickreich]

Hi ClassicalTenor,

Like Tourtelot, I'm another member here who's work crosses over from the Sound-for-Film/TV focus of this forum into location recording & broadcast of Classical / Art Music. While he has well covered the equipment / room side of things, one aspect of your post worries me - the idea that your remote teacher is conducting these lessons in real time over a Teleconferencing style link. In general all of these services prioritise the video stream over audio quality - allowing just enough bandwidth to the audio side to adequately deal with speech. Your existing equipment will far exceed the sound quality available in your communications link. This is something I deal with regularly - remote monitoring of recording / filming sessions (and even more critically - Performer's Auditions) by musical staff or Composers in a different country over the Internet. I have not found an acceptable audio-plus-video solution for this yet with good enough sound quality (especially in both directions - if your teacher wants to 'demonstrate' a point). If you have to do this real-time (rather than transferring full-resolution recorded .wav files for critique) I would suggest you need to be looking at a decent audio-only streaming service for the Sound when you are singing - and use Skype or whatever for a parallel video link if you need it. Look for an audio streaming solution that uses the Opus Codec via Google Chrome - such as Source Connect Now or Cleanfeed. Both can be bi-directional as far as Audio is concerned, but whether both directions can be at the highest quality depends on the speed / quality of both ends' Internet connection.

 

All the best with it,

nick

[Bash]

Hi ClassicalTenor,

 

I work as a location sound recordist, but my Ma is a composer, and was a singer and vocal coach for 60 or more years. I have done a lot of classical recording over the years.

 

I am really not sure that you need reverb, either naturally from the room, or added in the recording chain. In many genres of music it is a standard practice to add reverb in order to 'hide' some of the singer's 'approximations' at pitch etc.... Surely both you and your teacher would be better off hearing things 'clean' and uncomplicated by reverb etc... When my mum was teaching back in the day - she would sit at the piano, and her student would normally stand in the crook of the piano or closer, facing her. It was a regular (medium sized) living room used as a music room. The student would have been 4-6ft away from Mum, and as we all know the human ear/brain can 'filter' out some stuff that it doesnt need, like reverb, so Mum would have been hearing the student pretty damned clean.

 

I think Tourtelot might have cracked it - I think the problem is not your kit, but something in the link/connection, that is letting things down.

 

Hoping that this helps, Simon B

 

p.s. Ma is Betty Roe, MBE, see www.bettyroe.com - check out 'The Silver Hound' 😉