AUS230 Freelance Work/Reflection
So for my freelance project I am going to talk about some work I have done for Heidelberg Symphony Orchestra. I have done another fairly sizeable project this try where I went away for a week to work on a short film. Unfortunately that's currently in the editing stage and I don't really have anything to show for that just yet other than 100 or so takes of dialogue and atmos from location recording.
First contact with Majorie Kopke, Music Director of the HSO
As for how this all came about is because I have been doing some engineering for classical radio station 3MBS this year. So there was a request from HSO to 3MBS for someone to go out to Ivanhoe one evening and record their performance and then 3MBS contacted me to see if I would be free and interested in doing it. This was going to be my first chance to take a lead on a recording project for 3MBS and having the chance to record an orchestra that has performed internationally was a really great opportunity. They were also going to be featuring soloist Natsuko Yoshimoto whose list of accolades is way too long to list. She's played for the Queen of England though so that was also a huge draw for doing this.
The biggest problem I faced doing the recording was I was going to be borrowing gear from 3MBS. When I have done outside broadcast stuff for them before I always assisted an engineer that used their own gear so this meant I had to collect all of the equipment I thought I might need to do the show a few nights early and do a mock show in my bedroom. This was super handy because it allowed me to familiarise myself with some of the mics I had never used before and also just make sure that everything was working the way it was meant to. Lucky I did because some genius had forced a spacer in the bottom of one of the microphone cradles that took a set of plyers and a lot of sweat to get out. I am glad I was home and didn't discover that on the night because it was the cradle for the Studio Projects LSD2 which was my main central mic. Not being able to use that on the night would have thrown my whole plan out the window. I did end up taking my tool box along to the rehearsal and the show just to be safe.
Spotify playing the soundtrack to Schindler's List/pretending to be my orchestra. Please ignore the terrible position of my monitors and that I am using cookbooks and old Guinness World Records as "stands"
As for the rehearsal, after I received my run sheet from Marjorie I still had about 6 weeks or so until the performance. Leading up to it I got back in touch with Marjorie to ask when was the earliest I could get to the venue and set up so as to do a sound check with the whole orchestra. Marjorie informed me that the I could get to the venue when it was unlocked at 6pm and the performance started at 8pm. The crowd however would be allowed in from 7:20pm so I essentially had an hour and change to get set up and ready to go which was fine. Except that she then told me the band do not sound check. This presented a really big problem because there was absolutely no way I could set up and line check without at least some rehearsal and confidently know that the first notes wouldn't either blow out my pre's or be far too quiet.
Before the arrival of the band on Fridays rehearsal
I was then told that if I liked I could attend the sound check the night prior to the performance and do a sound check then but I needed to be able to work everything out on my own as it would likely be a busy and stressful affair for herself and the orchestra. So from about 7 to 10:30 on Friday I set up, line check, recorded a short performance and then left all my gear there set up to be locked away for the following evening. This took a lot of stress away because I now just had to walk in on Saturday night and just run signal and I'd be good to go. Given that this was my first solo gig for 3MBS and it was pretty important, anything that made my life easier was a huge plus and luckily because I planned it well, everything went fine and the whole night was really enjoyable. As a result I have another 2 jobs recording HSO later this year.
Mixing the job was sort of straightforward and sort of not. I used a Sound Devices 552 which records all it's inputs to a stereo tracks. So even though I used 5 mics I had to balance and mix in real time on the night as everything was going straight to print. In one regard that was really good because I just had to flat out get it right but in another it was bad because I had a mic on the cellos that I ended up wishing I hadn't used, or at least used differently. So as for mixing in Pro Tools I just use SLL channel strips for left and right EQ'ing left and right tracks, Lexicon 480 Reverb on a send and then summing with additional SSL and Pultec EQ. The only thing that I used compression wise was a 2 track tape machine plug in to add some colour but only just tapping the signal as a wanted to preserve as much dynamic range as possible.
This was also the first project I had ever mastered. It was really odd in a way but also really intimidating as this is going to be broadcast so I had to do a really good job but also there's not as much to muck up when mastering classical. You aren't compressing and the only limiter I had going was set to 0 just incase something decided to jump out. Mostly I just ran some automation bring the quieter sections up and some over the very loud transients down. After that it was just a case of making sure my average LUFS reading was at -23 for the whole track while still keeping the quiet parts quiet and the loud parts loud. It's interesting how classical musicians pride themselves on how softly they can play as well as how loud.
Unfortunately I have no photos of the show itself as I didn't really have a chance to get my phone out. I am still waiting to have my masters approved from HSO so they can go to air but hopefully soon. In the meantime here is a portion of the 75 minutes worth of music that I ended up recording on the night.