Irish Chamber Orchestra

This is a recording of a performance by the Irish Chamber Orchestra in St. Multose Church (West Cork, Ireland) during the Kinsale Arts Week. As this was a live performance only a single stereo pair was permitted while other microphone placements also had to be discreet. Unfortunately being a full hall there is also the odd cough on the recording…

The recording rig consisted of a Digidesign 002 paired with a Focusrite Saffire as an ADAT preamp unit and was used to record the majority of the orchestra while an Mbox2 Pro was used to record the ambience at the back of the hall using an XY pair of AKG C1000s. At the front of the hall there was an ORTF pair of AKG C2000s used as the main stereo array, an Audio Technica AT4040 to was used to spot the cello section while the soloists were recorded with a Neumann TLM 103. An AKG D112 was also placed to spot the double bass in particular because it was the only reasonable microphone left for the job and was mainly placed as a precaution in case too little low was captured from the other microphones.

Normally an orchestral recording would have no equalisation on the channels and for good reason; because each microphone picks up so much spill the phase relationships between each become integral to the recording and through the use of equalisation this is easily destroyed; however some was required on the more ‘budget’ microphones. Luckily the D112 rejects nearly everything off axis and so the required equalisation was not wholly disruptive to the mix. The higher quality microphones like the TLM103 and AT4040 were left untouched and the main requirement in the mix was volume automation to balance the different channels in accordance with the changing musical focus.

The musicianship of the orchestra was at a pretty high standard - in that they didn’t need a conductor to play well together - and I feel that this was a contributing factor to the relative success of the recordings. In future it would be nice to work with better equipment such as the standard Neumann KM84/KM184’s or some nicer preamps but until the money fairy pays me a visit I’ll keep working with whatever’s available…