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| Home - Services - How it's done - Costs - FAQs & Samples |
Recordings begin way before the down beat. Recording techs need to set up equipment from one to two hours prior to the musicians' call. A line check is done with house staff before the sound check with musicians present. For best results, this must be done before each performance or recording session and well before the room is opened up to general admission of the audience. The picture below illustrates what has to be done before making a recording at a remote venue 1> Test the specific array at the shop 2> Pack it in the wagon 3> Set up on location, record, tear down and return to the shop.
Each recorded event is captured using digital & analog equipment equal to anything found in major music centers like NYC, LA & Nashville. Source recordings and masters have a higher resolution than the final product you typically receive, which is a “Redbook” CD master disc. This is recording for grown-ups - you will receive one regular CD-R to listen to and another, sealed, Taiyo Yuden CD-R which is for your duplication house only. You may also request, and pay for, all your files delivered on a USB drive or larger.
We use digital 24-track & 2or4-track recorders and record at 24bit word length - 96/88.2 & 48 kHz sample rate. Tracks are usually edited and mixed down to stereo unless you request delivery of all the files (stems) for mixing elsewhere. Your stereo mixed recording should be
outside mastered
for the best finished sound. The concert or sessions are recorded to two devices simultaneously as an insurance failsafe. audibell keeps the original recording for backup and archival purposes for 3 years. We capture stereo recordings at all times, favoring the mid-side, spaced omni and decca™ tree techniques, plus spot-mics as needed. We are equipped to edit and provide surround sound recordings; if you are equipped for surround sound listening, we could deliver a recording to suit your system. Pan-potted mono techniques, coupled to artificial reverberation, produces a vague, undefined image. But stereo-mic’d recordings have encoded ambience information retained in the stereo sound field which can be extracted later to multichannel. On inducement, we will record 5 channel sounds for future use. Our binaural hearing apparatus (our ears) is mainly responsible for the perception of depth and reality we hear in a soundspace. Careful mic choice and placement, which takes time, will result in stereo recordings with depth, space, clarity, and definition, giving pleasure now and in the future.
The piano may be German but not all the mics are; the 44s are made in Wheeling, Illinois - the 57's, in Juarez, Mexico. We use carefully chosen hardware to capture sounds at the highest clarity and in the purest path. We do not use equipment that changes the reality of the actual sound, such as tube drivers & sonic maximisers and rarely use compressors. These attempt to add warmth & character but also inject harmonic distortion and result in recordings which have an indescribeable "veil" over the sound when compared with their sources. For insurance purposes, we do not post our equipment list on the internet; please contact us for details and we'll be happy to discuss what's available to you and what else you might need. Come up & say Hi after a concert, just not before. Wide picture shows 1>ContraBass section mic 2>Cathedral center aisle main pair and 3>school band recital, with mic mast laterally offset and main pair boomed over conductor's head.
A word about "processing" or "sweetening" of fine arts performances. To obtain as high a quality recording as possible under the circumstances, it is sometimes necessary to adjust or remove intrusions to the sound, However, concerts are for the enjoyment of the ticket payers and performers; camera and sound recordings are not always permitted and then, only without fuss or interference with the main objective - inspired performances. Audience - coughing
Coughing suppressed
The Video snippet (QuickTime v7.6.5) compares "on-camera" sound against the richer multi-track sound. Even a static, single-camera video benefits from synching the camera to the sound tracks. The first 11 secs is on-camera sound and the remainder is audio synched to picture. Camera sound versus recorded sound
We don't mind taking a look at stuff you've already had video'd or recorded, to see if we can match it up - we do a lot of it.
You can hear & see short sample clips here: FAQs & Samples.
Air conditioning contributes a constant background hum but without cooling, audience & performers are uncomfortable. Coughs & sneezes, cell phones & buzzers, police sirens, street-car rumbles and bored babies all make interesting post-production editing.
The following sound snippets are from a woodwind performance in January 2010; there are coughs at 3 secs, 14s, 16s, 24s and a viola bow is dropped at 30secs.
In the suppressed version, the cough at 16s and the bow drop have been retained while the 24s cough has been shifted from beneath the main mics to the upper balcony.
It's not possible to remove it all but with time and a little extra expense, cleaning it up avoids a ruined take. In a recording session, we'd do the take again.
We will try to clean up coughs and chair scrapes from existing 2-track recordings, too, but in a recording session, we'd do the take again.
Usual rates apply plus an hour set-up fee.
Delivery can be however you need it.