The choir — our beloved choir. When it comes to church music, this is where it all began. Of course, the human voice created the very first music in our world, and eventually people started singing together. Sooner or later, they figured out that they didn’t have to sing the same notes, and sometimes when each person sang a different note it sounded really nice — and harmony was born. The human voice was also the first and still reigns as the primary instrument of worship. And it still sounds very good when lots of voices sing certain specific different notes. It sounds so good, in fact, that even the juggernaut of modern pop/rock worship music has not been able to unseat or replace choral music in church — the two co-exist and share the platform. Considering how amazing choir music is, we had probably ought to work hard to ensure it is handled correctly.
So Why Mic the Choir?
The point at which our technology interfaces with the angelic voices of our choir is the microphone — that transducer that converts acoustical energy into electrical energy so we can work with it. How so, you ask? There are three primary purposes for getting mics in front of our choir. First, there’s a fairly solid chance that we’ll want to amplify the choir a bit so that they can compete with other potentially loud musical elements. Even in traditional services, there is likely an organ and/or a piano, and there’s a possibility that these instruments themselves might be amplified. In modern pop/rock worship, there’s very little question as to whether the other non-choir musical elements will be amplified. So indeed — an SPL boost of some amplification is the first of our three reasons for deploying mics on our choir.
A second reason to get mics on the choir — if we live stream our services, we will most assuredly want our choir heard by our online community. It’s probably not hard to find examples of churches that have somehow managed to forget something on the list of sonic elements that need to be deliberately included in the online mix. Let’s make sure the choir is heard over the interwebs! The third reason we would want to put mics in front of our choir is to record them. As a studio-dwelling producer of music myself, I drool at the prospect of having access to a gospel choir to add to the power and passion of music I produce.
Size Does Matter
Okay — the choir is important, and we have three solid reasons to put mics in front of them. So how do we go about this? The size of the choir figures in. If the choir is small, we might be able to capture it in its entirety with a single microphone. Of course, a single mic only offers us a monophonic signal, which may be just fine, but we might want stereo, or even an immersive array of some kind. Let’s take a moment and define the term “choir.” Okay, three people are a trio, four are a quartet, five are a quintet, six are a sextet, etc. etc. but I would respectfully submit that any group that can be described by one of these common names is not quite yet a full choir. Another way to think about it: it’s probably a choir if there are two or more people singing each part (bass, baritone, tenor, alto, soprano, etc.). If the budget is sufficient, it’s probably most preferable to put a mic on each vocalist for these small groups with only one person singing each part. But it could get a bit spendy to do so for the larger groups, so indeed that is probably the dividing line where we start capturing multiple people with each mic — an actual choir.
A small choir can be captured by a single mic with a wide pattern. But a big, wide choir will require a wide pickup pattern — probably wider than is practicable with a single mic, hence we may need to deploy multiple mics in order to sufficiently capture the entire choir. We’ll need to consider phase relationships between mics, so pattern awareness and spacing will be important. And we also need to think about whether a couple of mics will be presented in our mixes as stereo or mono. Or will three mics be presented as mono, stereo, or LCR? Or maybe we use a coincident pair scheme to present a stereo image. We could go with an X-Y, which can be done in a nice compact, less visually obtrusive package. Similarly, ORTF can be done with a single mic stand and not a lot of stuff interfering with the congregation’s view. And coincident pairs are also versatile enough to handle a small to medium-sized choir. When the choir becomes substantially larger, however, we really need to start thinking about spaced pairs. And that brings up yet another issue that requires some forethought…
Choir directors array their vocalists in a number of different ways, and a common one is for them to gather each section together — basses all stand together, as do tenors, altos, and sopranos, and so on. This creates a question for us: do we place our mics in such a way as to present a stereo image of the choir exactly as they’re seen on the platform, or do we succumb to the understandable temptation to put a mic (or mics) on each section, and leverage that division of signals in our mixes? There is something to be said for allowing the FOH engineer to blend the multi-part harmony based upon what is coming out of our FOH speakers. This is a controversial position — there are choir directors who don’t want anyone interfering with the carefully crafted blend they have created with their singers, and rightfully so. They meticulously arrange parts and rehearse extensively to get a perfect blend from the choir, and putting that blend into the hands of the FOH mixer is just about the last thing they want to do. They might even get a little surly about our mixer having a fader for each choir section. That being the case, we’ll want to do that which I always recommend we do: develop and maintain nice, cordial relations between the tech staff and the performers. I know — I know — sometimes easier said than done — but let’s all try our hardest.
Mic Selection
In addition to making decisions about where we’re going to put our mics, we need to think about what kind of mics we’ll want to use. We tend to be pretty happy with the way large-diaphragm condensers sound, so let’s just put up a bunch of those. Oh wait — the creative people in charge of visual aspects say they’re big and ugly and block the view? Okay, that is kinda true. And if they’re worried about that, we probably won’t be putting up a bunch of RCA 44s either — heh. Joking aside, we do need to consider the aesthetics of our mic choices too, for better or worse. Small diaphragm condensers will almost certainly accomplish whatever we expected from LDCs. And for that matter, there are some excellent micro-size microphones mounted at the end of reed-slender booms that are all but invisible from the pews. Ribbon mics are marvelous and can deliver a really warm, rich sound, but most of them exhibit a figure-8 pickup pattern, and that may not work for us. Other dynamic mics are very much worthy of consideration. I’ve seen choirs miked with SM57s and it sounded marvelous. I would say this: use the best quality mics your budget will allow, considering the aesthetics called for by those who manage such things. Condensers usually deliver the most detail, and there are some good quality mics that cut a small silhouette. There are some nice small dynamics available as well — and we might be able to make the size of the mic a secondary consideration if we’re careful about mic placement.
Let’s talk about that very thing: mic placement. The height of our mic stands is largely going to be determined by one major factor — whether we have deployed a riser on which our choir will stand. If the singers are all on a level floor, the front row casts an acoustic “shadow” that diminishes the level of the back rows. In fact, if you have four rows, you have three rows of acoustical absorption in front of the back row. One solution is to put mics up high looking down on the choir.
Unfortunately, those up-high mics can rile up the folks concerned with the visual aesthetics. Not only that but putting the choir on a level floor also conceals the bright shining faces of the folks in the back rows from the congregation. For these reasons, using a riser is all but a no-brainer. They allow us to lower the mics and create eye contact between the congregation and everyone in the choir.
The Bottom Line
Work within the confines of your budget, play nice with the creatives, don’t run afoul of the visually astute folks, and commit to where your mics will land in the lateral image of your mixes, mono, stereo, or otherwise, and you’ll be in fine shape.
John McJunkin is an adjunct professor at Grand Canyon University
