# Your Most Interesting Live Recording



## hjones4841 (Jan 21, 2009)

What is the most interesting live thing or event that you recorded (audio recording)? What equipment and microphones did you use? How were the mics oriented? Was it for yourself or did you share it with friends?


----------



## hjones4841 (Jan 21, 2009)

I will start...

About the only things that I made live audio recordings of were of piano and choir concerts at church. I used a Sony portable mini disc recorder with a pair of lapel style omni directional mics. I don't remember who made the mics (or if I still have them) but they had an extremely wide freq. response.

I sat in the audience with the mics clipped on my shirt collar, under each ear. I was surprised at the amount of stereo separation I got with the mics that close.

I made one copy of the recordings for my sister to hear, who lived out of town.

Someday I want to record the train at Durango, CO, but haven't been back there with any recording equipment. Truly a unique sound when that thing pulls into the station.


----------



## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

I would have to say my biggest recording and by far the most interesting was at our church a few years ago. I was put in charge of the front of house mixing for our Christmas production that ran every year for over 39 years. We did 12 shows running over 2 weekends.
This is not your ordinary production by any means and involved miking a 40 piece orchestra and a live 250 voice choir that stood in a 40ft tall Christmas tree. 
For the house board we used a 52 channel Heath & Allan mixer And for recording we used 4 ADAT 8 channel decks.
On the miking side we used many different types but the choir was miked using 12 Sure SM81's and for the orchestra we used wired lapel mic's on the string section and several more 81's on the flutes and clarinets. Drums were the usual 6 piece mic set and several area mic's on the horn and percussion section using some sure 58's.
All in all it took me 4 productions to get the mix right and it still to this day worked out to be one of the best live and recorded productions we ever did.


----------



## hjones4841 (Jan 21, 2009)

Ahh.. another church sound system guy. I did that for about 20 years until the church made it a staff position - was offered that but was not interested.

Before our church orchestra had built up, our choir director hired musicians from the local symphony to fill in the gaps. We used to record the choir concerts - nothing fancy, basically a house mix with a couple of ambience mics hung from the ceiling. 

I was setting up the mics for the violins when one of the paid musicians asked if we were recording it. I said yes. At the end of the concert, a couple of them came to the back room where the recorder was and confiscated the tape, saying that the contract did not specify recording rights. We explained that the tape was for church archives only, but they left with a nice 10 1/2" reel.

That was certainly their right, I suppose, but it did leave a sour taste for those of us who had volunteered countless hours to put the concert togther.


----------



## tonyvdb (Sep 5, 2007)

hjones4841 said:


> Ahh.. another church sound system guy. I did that for about 20 years until the church made it a staff position - was offered that but was not interested.


Yup, been doing it for 27 years since I was 14. When I first started we used a Kelsey Protour 48 channel board and wow that was a monster to run.
We moved to a new building 2 years ago and bought a Yamaha M7CL Digital mixing console, very nice to use but not for the younger kids just learning (just to many things to get lost in).
We still do not have someone on staff to run this regularly so I do it once a month and enjoy it.


----------

