Last night was the Queensland Wind Orchestra's Innovations Concert, and... WOW was it a fantastic show! The amount of energy that the performers gave and the emotional atmosphere that they were able to create together totally exceeded my expectations. The pieces in their repertoire that were more emotional was especially wonderful to listen to - Lonely Beach by James Barnes, Close Encounters of the Third Kind by John Williams, and Frozen Cathedral by John Mackey, were played with such intensity that the last of the three even moved me tears!
Our set up time was by far the most efficient and the quickest that we've ever done - we were very proud of this. We also made sure that our leads were kept very neat, and took lengths to always hold our cables down with electrical tape and pedestrian cable covers. My role was to set up all the mics on stage, making sure that the leads and mic themselves were not in the way of the musicians, and that all mics were set to the right range that we had discussed in meetings prior to the bump in.
As mentioned in my previous blog, we had changed the set up in response to things that we had tried in previous rehearsals.
The front line mics were kept virtually the same (2 X DPA 4011As - Cardioid),
including the overheads above the conductor (2 X KM184s - Cardioid), but the back line mics had to be moved forwards to compensate for the timpani's being placed closer to the audience (and on rises), which was different to how they were placed in rehearsals. These mics had also been changed to 2 X AKG
C414s on an omni-directional setting, which the team had discussed sounded better than cardioid because it was less intense on the percussion section. We had gone with the AKGs over the NTA1s because we hoped it would give us a warmer tone when mixing later down the track.
The room mics were also changed to be a bit further back from the stage (just after the first row of chairs), and were pointed upwards towards the centre of the ceiling and were a pair of NT5s.
The Old Museum's Concert Hall has an expansive ceiling, which includes many intricate and ornate carvings. We thought it would be interesting to capture how the sound and its reverb bounces off of these surfaces, which is why the room mics were directed this way.
Below you can see a rough diagram of how we set up the mics and what ground we were trying to cover with their recording settings
Due to limited venue space, we were monitoring the sound in a space to the left of the audience, tucked away in a little corner. Although it would have been ideal to monitor in a different room than the sound source, this meant that we could sneakily enjoy the concert ;)
I was extremely humbled by this experience, I very much enjoyed this opportunity and it's safe to say I learnt a lot - especially about mic choice and placement. I think the event went very well and I was happy with the amount of professionalism we showed during the gig.
The Next Step
will be to mix and master the tracks for promotional use by the QWO. Stay tuned for a blog on this sequence!
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