Mahler symphony number eight. The venue was Green Park Station, in Bath, which is a big old steam railway station, not used as such any more, with an impressive curved iron-and-glass roof.
The recording was at the last minute upgraded from just a Schoeps stereo mic, to a total of eight channels: The Schoeps stereo mic on fig. 8 just above and behind the conductor. Two spot mics (omni 451s each side of the conductor), to catch the widely-spaced soloists. To make things difficult, the audience's separation from the conductor and the soloists was only one meter. I used two more omni 451s to cover the orchestra, electric pipe organ, and celeste synth. The final two omni 451s were each side of the choir. The desk was an Alice 828 with it's direct outputs connected to an adat. Apart from the limited choice of mic positions the only other problem was acoustic high frequency noise from the 40k lighting rig's dimmer-racks, off to stage right.
Mozart's flute & harp concerto in C, K 299. This was recorded in an old art-deco cinema in Bath. I used a Schoeps stereo mic in fig. 8 configuration behind the conductor, with omni 451s as spot mics.
The projects were mixed from adat via my Spirit Live 4, into two inputs of an ancient Pro Tools setup and Macintosh 8100. The conductor and I edited between the performance and the rehearsal, with SDII. Mastering was done, courtesy of Terra Incognita, Bath.
Mahler Mozart
