PLANNING

This particular project was a bit trickier when it came to the planning aspect as this was the first time I was delving into the world of immersive sound. Obviously, you can use panning to create an immersive environment but not as fully as binaural or a 360 recording would be. Our lecturer shared with us a short film created by Sennheiser called Final Stop: A 3D Audio Thriller where the whole movie was shot entirely on a smartphone and the audio captured by the AMBEO SMART HEADSET wore by the actress. This meant that we as the audience hear everything as if we were in the characters shoes. Another video that was shared with us was the Virtual Barber Shop video on YouTube. Listening to this really expanded my knowledge about the world of immersive audio as I had never realised that you could have a recording sound as if you were really in the room. I was intrigued by the possibilities of this and with the world of VR becoming more popular there is a large market for this type of audio.

The brief we were given was to record a band/ensemble with multiple performers playing at the same time. This was to be recorded in a way that would be playable over a 5.1 system. Mic arrays were to be used as well as spot mics on particular performers. I initially thought of Glasgow Schools Big Band as I used to perform with them while at school. The venue I would’ve been recording at was either City halls or the Old Fruitmarket (which is next door) as these are the venues where the band rehearses. I also know that there were means for plugging in recording equipment as well as setting up microphones as multiple concerts happen there as well as it being home to the Scottish Symphony Orchestra (SSO). I felt this would be a very exciting genre to try in spatial as with multiple performers and solos, I would’ve been able to be creative in terms of panning and the automation of that. I emailed the band leader as soon as we were given the brief however after 2 weeks I still didn’t have a reply. I then phoned the venue to ask him to call me. I still hadn’t heard anything so decided to reach out to the Strathclyde University Traditional Society who are a group that perform at Strathclyde Union during Ceilidhs and various other events. I always had in my mind that backup plan that if I couldn’t use the jazz band I wanted to record a traditional Scottish musical group as I felt the recording of this could work perfectly as a form of meditation music with a soothing piece or could be placed over a video of Ceilidh dancing. I emailed the president of the society and unfortunately, she replied saying that she didn’t think it would be for them as they don’t require recordings of their group even though I was offering them for free. I did mention that they could’ve used it as promotion for themselves and that I could provide mixes of the tracks as well to be used for an EP however this didn’t change her mind.

My lecturer had mentioned the benefits of completing this project in a group due to logistics, transporting of equipment, set up, etc. I was intending to reach out to some members of my class that I’d worked with during a few modules in HNC however they had already sourced a choir to record. After speaking about our plans as a class, this particular group (Fraser, Bruce and Ryan) generously offered that I could work with them. I appreciated this as we had worked well before and all had a similar work ethic, and my lecturer agreed it was a smart choice. They briefed me on their plan which was to record a musical theatre choir at The Pyramid in Anderston. We all had a discussion on which mic techniques would work not only for the choir but this particular venue so the week before we were due to record we had a tech recce to the venue where we were able, not only to hear the choir perform and have a chance to see what we’d be working with, but also to take pictures of the venue and locate power sources etc.

The mic array we decided to use was the Fukada tree which features 5 cardioid mics as the left, centre, right, left surround and right surround and then 2 omni mics at either end of the left and right mic.  Our reason for choosing this is that it made the most sense regarding the size of the venue and choir. As the choir is split in 4 sections (Soprano 1, Soprano 2, Alto & Baritone) we also placed spot mics on each section to allow us to get the best blend between each. We would also be using the colleges mobile recording kit that included a 24 uTrack recorder, 2 8 channel Audient pre-amps and a laptop.