Saturday Hall Recording (Day 11)

27th March 2021

Niyi enquired of me about a week ago, about my availability on the 27th of March, to give him a hand to do a recording session in a hall. Well of course I said yes, and Niyi gave me all the info for the recording session. I've been spending most of my time at 4EB creating mp3's from vinyl, so now I've got an opportunity to watch and learn how to do a simple recording of a small choir.

Niyi informed me we would be taking more gear than what we will probably need, just to keep our options open. For today’s recording session, we gathered up:

• 4 microphone stands

• 3 Shure 58's and one 57 microphones

• Sennheiser Shotgun microphone

• 8 XLR microphone cables

• spare microphone cradles

• A Zoom H6 Handy Recorder

• A Small battery powered PA system (which I didn't get a picture of, damn it)

Niyi wanted to capture the vocals for today’s recording, so we also downloaded the backing track music to my iPhone, and could play the song through the small PA system on my iPhone. The small PA was placed behind the singers and kept down at a low volume, so later Niyi could mix the backing track stem with the vocals track.

Niyi hooked up two AKG C 5600 microphones on a microphone stand to capture the ambience vibe of the vocals. He used the Zoom H6 to record the vocals and the ambience microphones at the same time.

Map of recording sound path.

Here are a couple of pictures on the recording setup for the day.

Two microphones attached to a single microphone stand.

Zoom recorder mounted on a camera tripod.

I think the PA system was a JBL EON ONE PRO, a compact sound system. It is a great system to use. Set up time for the PA system was done in a couple of seconds and it's ready to go.

We used channel 5/6 input connected to my iPhone with an audio lead.

Conclusion

Today has been a great learning curve on how to apply small recording devices and microphones to create a small portable recording session. I haven't heard the end result of this session as yet, but I’m sure I will next time I go into 4EB Radio Station.

I like the way Niyi was able to quickly setup and get the job done. Niyi’s attention to detail and thinking of a backup plan if something was to go wrong was great. He also made sure all the equipment was fully charged the night before and prepared the Zoom H6 Handy Recorder just before we went to the recording session to make sure it worked. We were setup in a couple of minutes and had it dismantled in a couple of minutes. A hassle-free recording session.