Live Gospel Choir Sound Reinforcement and Multi-track Recording: An Audio Everest!

So I spent the past few months looking through audio forums, reading articles, and getting advice from my fellow engineers about a very difficult audio situation. I know that many MANY contemporary churches are often plagued with feedback and volume issues while trying to have their volunteer choirs play (and be heard) with a live band! Hopefully the information here can help.

We were hired for two concerts this year to provide live sound reinforcement services along with multi-track audio recording and mixing for the Calvin College Gospel Choir in Grand Rapids, MI. This choir includes about 48 singers, a live drum kit, acoustic piano (bosendorfer), Electric Bass, Saxophone/Clarinet, Aux Percussion, Synthesizer, and random soloists for each song. The performance was done in a large concert hall that seats about 800. For those in the biz... you know how tough amplifying and recording a choir like this can be with live pop instruments.

The first time around, last November, I treated it very much like a recording engineer. Piano miced with 2 cardioid large diaphragm Condenser mics positioned high and low above the middle of the strings on a half-stick piano. The drum kit got our Audix drum setup of 2 ADX51s as OHs, i5 on snare, D2s on the high toms, D4 on the floor tom, and the famous D6 on the kick. Small Diaphragm condensers on the sax and percussion, and the other instruments direct (other than the 4 wireless Audio Technicas for the soloists). For the choir- I used 4 mics accross the front of the group- on the outside spaced near the ends and angled inward, I had 2 AKG 414 large diaphragm condensers set to cardioid. In the middle I used a pair of Rode NT5s set in ORTF (although I did widen it further than standard ORTF). All of this was run through our Presonus Studio-Live 24.4.2 which boasts the amazing Fat Channel channel-strips for all channels and groups along with the bang-for-the-buck XMax Preamps. I EQed the 4 choir mics separately then subgrouped them for a final EQ and some compression.

Initially, we got descent sounds- but as with any "area miced" setup, feedback became an issue. We were able to skillfully EQ the group to get a solid live sound, but we could not push the group very hard without risking feedback... and the drums... the DRUMS... you never want to tell a drummer to keep it down (especially in this genre) but we couldnt keep compete with him. He was positioned in such a way with a shield facing the choir (hoping for the best isolation possible from the choir mics). The problem was, with the shield not focused towards the audience, the acoustic drums were pushed even HARDER towards the crowd... negating its need in the sound system at all (while not sounding that great). In addition to that, the hall was big and wide with lots of hard surfaces on the stage to bounce around. While it worked out "OK", there was far too much drum kit in the choir mics and the final recording product was difficult to mix without getting that wonderful delayed boomy drum sound in them. In addition, the large diaphragm condensers on the the piano were also having feedback and bleed issues from the drums.

The second time around I wanted to look for some new strategies. After my research, a slightly different setup was decided upon. We moved the drums next to the choir with the shield facing the crowd. The mics were the same except I used the large diaphragm condensers as OHs this time around (since bleed on the drum mics is rarely an issue and they tend to be more sensitive to the low end). Now for the fun part... I ended up micing the piano and the choir with all SM57s...
...Thats right... you read me... SM57s... but I found a VERY interesting thread on recording.org with some great advice. You can check it out here: http://recording.org/mobile-recording/31855-micing-choir-live-sound-regarding-3-a.html

I have done the 57s on the piano before... while it takes a little finagling, you can get it to sound pretty solid with the right positioning, eq, and compression (especially on a nice piano). For the choir- we placed 5 SM57s evenly spaced pointing directly back to the large choir. We had them raised to the head level of the back row (4th row) pointed right at them. That way the furthest away were on-axis, and the closer sources were slightly off- This proved to give a decent natural mix of the rows. Instead of EQing each channel individually, we subgrouped them and did all the EQ on one parametric. Because the trusty old SM57 is a dynamic mic, it does take a fair amount of gain for recording an "area"... but the benefits are worth it with a good preamp like the XMax.

The dynamic microphone needs more SPL to move the diaphragm and is effected more by the strongest source- in other words it has a lower "bandwidth" for area sounds- so it tends to "ignore" the more distant and off-axis sources. They are lighter, giving less worry to collapse and injury (and broken mics!) In addition to this, behind the drums, we left a stage door open to direct some of the reflected shield sounds back into nothing. And finally, while we left the cyc light backdrop down, the facility manager was able to pull heavy black curtains around the rest of the open stage- helping dampen rear reflections.

Our product this second go-round has turned out great. The live performance was powerful and vibrant and the recording quality was better than I expected! Some minor feedback was experienced at moments, but nothing that wasn't easily tended to, and we were able to keep the volume at a solid level! Using the 57s in recording, again, I spent a fair amount of time working on panning, EQ, and compression- and some good fader riding and expanding to help control the drum bleed. Both engineer and client were well pleased with this final product.

I would love to hear more input on this subject as articles and threads about this were hard to come by. I hope this info will help you in your endeavors!