Recording Huge Pipe Organ @ Melbourne Town Hall

[rafu1210]

Hi, I've been asked to record the massive pipe organ at the Melbourne Town Hall, apparently "the largest and most valuable musical instrument in the southern hemisphere"! I was hoping I might get some suggestions about the session as I have never recorded anything quite like that before. The session is with a great artist but someone who has a very unorthodox style and will probably be playing the instrument in a way that its never been played... He's a very percussive player so I'll be very interested to see what he does with the pipe organ. Also performing will be a fantastic female singer, whom I will record with my U87 into my UA 6176. They're fairly adamant that they want to record live together without overdubs, however I will try to get a few takes of just pipe organ so that we can overdub vocals at a later date if necessary, and also some acapella takes to capture the same room sound.

I'll probably have to hire some gear so... what recommendations do people have regarding mic choice, the number of mics, preamp choice and most importantly mic placement to capture this awesome instrument? Perhaps theres someone on turtlerock that has already recorded it...? Is there any point in some sort of close micing or should I just get as many stereo pairs around the room as possible. Do they need to be stereo pairs? Would something along the lines of AKG 414s be good? Or perhaps KM85s? Or lots of U87s?

Also, depending on what gear I decide on, where is the best/cheapest place to hire in Melbourne?

I'll probably record vocals without any compression so as not to compress the spill coming from the organ, any thoughts on that?

Heres a youtube clip about the organ:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XGMQTK6IIQ

Love to hear any ideas, thanks!!

[headman]

You'll be recording the room, not the organ, and sometimes pipes are not easy to record anyhow. The ones at the front are usually for decoration, the main ranks are behind the façade in spaces that can't be seen. I've recorded smaller organs in churches with just a stereo pair and it works fine, you just need to experiment.

On another matter....how about the guy in the video, he's like an organ salesman from the 1970's.

headman

[Alastair Reynolds]

You'll be recording the room, not the organ, and sometimes pipes are not easy to record anyhow. The ones at the front are usually for decoration, the main ranks are behind the façade in spaces that can't be seen. I've recorded smaller organs in churches with just a stereo pair and it works fine, you just need to experiment.

On another matter....how about the guy in the video, he's like an organ salesman from the 1970's.

headman

As per headman, you'll be recording the room, An approach I've always liked is the "Mercury Living Presence" way, 3 mics, set omni, L,C,R. Take the time to find the sweet spots, get the artist to play the loudest bit and set peak level, then no compression, no limiting, no eq. Use a 4th mic for the vocal.

http://www.soundfountain.com/amb/mercury.html
Plenty of ideas and good reading here.
Best of luck

[openplanrecording]

Like headman said your recording the room so possibly try a couple of good Ribbon mics set up as a a blumlien pair, thats how the good old classical orchestral recordings were done in large rooms. Also with ribbon mics there is very little off axis coloration so what is captured is much like what you hear as long as you have a two good ribbon mics. just my two cents..

[Alastair Reynolds]

Interesting claim that it is the largest organ in the southern hemisphere though, Sydney Opera House organ is rated 14th in the world and is the largest mechanical action organ in the world and Sydney Town Hall is 24th and is one of only 2 organs in the world to have a 64 Foot pipe , (That's CCCCC or about 16 Hz or close to "The Brown Note").Melbourne Town Hall comes in at 33rd. The biggest, located in Atlantic city is a ball tearer with over 33000 pipes including the other 64 Foot one.

see http://theatreorgans.com/laird/top.pipe.organs.html

various references to recordings and performances here, may be good for some ideas

[Drumstruck]

Lucky man - what a great experience to record this

..... does anyone use Decca tree any more? (at the sweet spot for room mics)


.... and call me cautious ...... but I'd be very tempted to close mic the singer also, and fly some mics close-ish to the organ so you can get a bit of separation if you need it...........

[Milo]

I would echo what Alistair suggested - LCR is more standard than Blumlein, because you also need a good room for Blumlein, whereas LCR will perhaps be more forgiving.No close mics near the organ -too bg and too noisy for that (air whistles, clunks, etc)

nd use LDC's for the organ, and a good cardioid for the vocalist (Schoeps, DPA, Calrec, Beyer, etc)

[mylesgm]

Another technique would be the Decca tree which is similar to a L C R idea but more specific. Three omni mics in an equidistant triangle panned hard left/right and centre with the centre mic the forward point of the triangle. Lots of stuff on the web about it. I've used a royer stereo ribbon as the centre mic with a pair of DPA's as the outer pair though with excellent results in the recital centre. You could also look at the M/S option which I've also used with success with a smaller church organ. This method allows control over the stereo image of the space. An interesting use of this would be to place the MS rig closer to the singer and capture the presence of the organ and vocalist at the same time and then use a spot mic on the singer for closer detail and perhaps a stereo pair for more detail on the organ.

Actually there are heaps of options to do this. What you really need to work out is what you want the recording to sound like, what you think the best outcome should be and then choose the best format for that purpose. Numerous times I've come up with excellent and engaging stereo recordings only to have the artists say they want something more direct/less direct/more ambient/punchier/less punchy etc etc because I didn't get a good idea of what they wanted and went with what I thought would be interesting or suitable. If you don't know what they want or what the outcome should be then you are shooting in the dark. Then of course you probably haven't heard the artists in the situation you are about to record them in so best to take a few options with you so that you can quickly alter your idea to suit the situation as it unfolds in front of you.

And number one I've always found is make the voice sound absolutely killer. If you do that then almost everything else will be forgiven.

[graemeh]

I couldn't agree more with Myles!

Remember it's their gig not yours... find out what sort of recording they want and give it to them. Ask what recordings they like (or want to emulate) and then listen to them and internalise them. Then when you get to the day all you have to do is recreate the sound in your head.

Lucky bastard! Hope it goes well for you...

[adamcal]

I have recorded the organ at the town hall a few times, along with a 100 piece orchestra and 100 piece choir, you are in for some fun.

As mentioned there really isn't anything to point at, the entire back wall is the organ. Also I have found classical organ types tend to like heaps of ambience, nothing too direct or separate.

here are some pics http://gallery.me.com/adamcal2/100036

[JulienG]

The only thing I'd add is try to find something that catch the real room-shaking bass that thing generates. Bolting a PZM (or similar, hugs new Schoeps BLM03) to something *LARGE* might do it nicely, but being able to find something large enough to get the response would be an issue.

As for the size comparisons remember that an organ like the MTH one isn't just pipe ranks, there's all the "theatre" ones as well (but a 64' stop, must go and listen to that one day)