S3E09: 3-D Recording and Magnetrons: David Bowles of Swineshead Productions
On this episode of In Unison, we thought we would nerd out about something that is tangentially tied to choral music: recording arts. We’ll be chatting with recording engineer David v.R. Bowles of Swineshead Productions about mic techniques, 3-D audio, and we’ll even get a history lesson about stereo technology, World War II, and something called the “Magnetron”...?!
Edited by Fausto Daos
Music excerpts
“Psalm 130,” by Ēriks Ešenvalds, commissioned and performed by the Golden Gate Men’s Chorus
“Misa en Sol: V. Agnus Dei,” by Juan Bautista Sancho, performed by Chanticleer
“Khorhurd Khorin; Barekhosutyamb” (“Mystery Profound; Processional” from Divine Liturgy), by Komitas Vardapet, performed by Chanticleer; Andrew van Allsburg, tenor soloist
“Wireless Connections,” from Mass Transmission, by Mason Bates, performed by Cappella SF, Isabelle Demers (organ), and Mason Bates (electronica)
“I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” music & lyrics by George Merril and Shannon Rubican, arranged by David Maddux, performed by Chanticleer in the “Live from London” video for Voces8 Festival; Andrew van Allsburg, tenor soloist
“Hashkiveinu,” by Max Helfman, performed by Cantor Rachel Brook on L'chayim Ul'shalom: Songs of Life and Peace
“Dulaman,” by Michael McGlynn, performed by the Golden Gate Men’s Chorus
Episode references
Theme Song: Mr. Puffy by Avi Bortnik, arr. by Paul Kim. Performed by Dynamic
Episode Transcript
Intro [00:00:07] Hello! And welcome to In Unison, the podcast about new choral music and the conductors, composers and choristers who create it! We are your hosts: I am Zane Fiala, Artistic Director of the International Orange Chorale of San Francisco, and I'm Giacomo DiGrigoli, a tenor in IOCSF, the Golden Gate Men's Chorus and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. And this is In Unison! (I like being in unison!)
Zane [00:00:35] On this episode of In Unison, we thought we would nerd out about something that is tangentially tied to choral music: recording arts. We'll be chatting with recording engineer David v.R. Bowles about mic techniques, 3D audio, and we'll even get a history lesson about stereo technology, World War Two and something called the... magnetron? Like I said, we're really gonna nerd out.
Zane [00:00:59] Let's go ahead and start off by playing a recording that David recorded, edited and mastered. This is "Psalm 130", written by Ēriks Ešenvalds, commissioned and recorded by the Golden Gate Men's Chorus on their album, Out of the Deep. [00:01:15] [Music excerpt: a throng of voices issues a gentle supplication to God to grant them mercy and redemption. The excerpt exemplifies the full range of a men's choir - from the lowest bass to the highest countertenor - all singing simultaneously as if to express the desire to be heard and the hope of forgiveness.]
Zane [00:05:14] Alright, joining us today on In Unison is recording producer and engineer David v.R. Bowles. David formed Swineshead Productions, LLC in 1995, specializing in high resolution stereo and immersive recording. His productions have won multiple Just Plain Folks awards and have also been nominated for both Grammy and Juno Awards. Many of these have received critical acclaim for his audio engineering. Mr. Bowles is a member of the Audio Engineering Society, where he serves on the Diversity and Inclusion Committee and the San Francisco Section Committee and formerly on the Board of Governors and International Convention Committees. He is a guest lecturer in 3D Audio at NYU Steinhardt Music Technology's Tonmeister Seminar and at the Royal Danish Conservatory. David, thanks so much for joining us today on In Unison!
David [00:06:08] Thank you for having me. Good morning!
Giacomo [00:06:10] It's great to see you, David. I have had the pleasure, for our audience, I've had the pleasure of working with David and knowing you now for several years, thanks to recording the GGMC's albums, most recent albums. But to let our audience know you a little bit better, how about an ice breaker? Here's one for you, David. Let's say you've got your own late-night talk show. Who are you inviting as your first guest?
David [00:06:35] Well, this one is very easy. One of my heroes from the audio engineering world is Alan Blumlein, and he was involved in EMI's research lab really in the 1920s and 30s and came up with a lot of amazing inventions. Back in those days, if you used part of technology, you had to pay royalties. So the head that cut the masters into the wax disks of 78 RPM recordings, that was patented in the US. And so, Blumlein's first task was to come up with a cutting head that would be better and that EMI could patent or, you know, rather use without having to pay one penny per disc royalties, which in the 1920s, 1930s was quite a lot of money. So Blumlein went further and actually pioneered stereo recording and reproduction. So he not only invented a cutting head for regular records, but also for stereo. And they started doing some experiments in the early 1930s with Thomas Beecham and the London Philharmonic. Then later, when the lab was sort of requisitioned to work for the war efforts, he was working on radar.
David [00:07:46] And this is where it gets interesting - my paternal grandfather was involved with both the US and UK governments in radar and microwave research and development during that whole war period and flew several special missions. And I still have his passports where each segment had to be cleared and, you know, planes didn't fly very far in those days. So, it was really quite dangerous the closer you got because you were really in the enemy's targets. And what it boiled down to was that the US had the manufacturing capability, but the English had invented what's known as the magnetron. And I always wondered whether my grandfather and Alan Blumlein came into contact because they were intersecting in this very specific area. Unfortunately, Blumlein got killed on a test flight in 1942. He was, I think, not even 40 years old, but all his patents got sort of put aside. But then later on, people started developing and building upon them and realized really what an incredible genius he was. And I always thought, "Wow! What it would be to just pick his brain and just hear about his life." And also, one aside: he was operating in this field of technical expertise as an observant Jew, which was very difficult in that time. It's the kind of thing that one really didn't talk about. But I think he was fairly upfront about it. And I really respect him for that as well - considering everyone's attitudes towards Jews back in those days.
Giacomo [00:09:29] I thought that would be an incredible episode!
David [00:09:30] Yes.
Giacomo [00:09:30] We're gonna have to have Netflix immediately and then we'll have to figure out how to [laughter from David]... go back in time. But, you know, details, details!
David [00:09:37] Yes. Yes! [ laughter].
Giacomo [00:09:37] Maybe we'll create a device called the Magnetron II, or something? Who knows? [laughter]
David [00:09:43] [laughter] Back to the Future!
Giacomo [00:09:45] [laughter] Yes! [laughter from Zane] So, David, you started a production company called Swineshead Productions. Where did that name come from?
David [00:09:53] Well, the story I grew up with was that the Bowles family came over to the UK during the Norman Conquest and the name had a slightly different spelling: B-O-U-L-L-E-S. And that they settled in Swineshead, Lincolnshire, which still exists.
Zane [00:10:09] Ohh, that's really, really interesting. What about music? How did you get involved with music?
David [00:10:15] When my father got transferred to the D.C. area, I was extremely out of place and, on the other hand, I was so isolated that that's when I really started developing all my loves. Early love was audio - really not too much way to go into that. Then there was photography. I ended up being the photo editor of our high school yearbook. And then, music - I started cello at the age of nine. By the time I was 16, I got into Juilliard, did both my degrees there. That's when my career started. Actually, my career started - you know, paying gigs started at 14, but then... [laughter]
Zane [00:10:54] Oh, wow.
David [00:10:54] Yeah.
Zane [00:10:57] Oh my god! [laughter] So tell us a little bit more about Swineshead Productions. You know, are you... you're for hire, I assume. You do remote recordings and studio recordings. Tell us a little bit more about what you do with the production company.
David [00:11:07] Yes, well, it is that. I'm a sole proprietor, but I have assistants that I hire. The bigger the gig, the more assistants. And I like really giving myself challenges by taking on genres and even clients that I'm unfamiliar with to expand my horizons. And what happened from the beginning is I ended up working with a lot of vocalists, so I really had to start learning about vocal production. And even if I couldn't be a diction coach, I had to learn what, you know, what sounded right and what might not or what was inconsistent, and also to deal with, uh, singers' energy. And in general, the instrumentalists, keyboard players can play until you throw a cloth over their head. And then, there's string players, and then there are wind players and brass players, and then singers. And so, one really has to learn to work with this. And I've also worked with a couple of different trumpeters, and having worked with singers may be more sympathetic to what they go through. So there's that aspect of it.
David [00:12:22] The other aspect is post production. And I really from the beginning got assignments first to edit things together and then to start tweaking the sound. And what I really wanted to stress from the beginning was that I have a musical background, you know. Therefore, I need a score, I need to know what... you know, what the situation was. Was this a one-shot live concert recording or was it somebody who was in a studio and did something in one take for spontaneity? Or was this something that's really meant to be, you know, sliced together? And I've worked with both those kinds of projects. The results are, needless to say, very different. But they both have their strengths and weaknesses. It's great to have the continuity of a single take. However, there's something very different from being in front of a microphone than being out with a live audience. And having a live recording is sort of this awkward middle ground because you know you're playing for the audience. But still, you know that it's being recorded and people tend to be a bit, a bit nervous. One of the groups, actually two of the groups that I did live recordings with, we would have had patch sessions afterwards. And just the, you know, the safety net involved with that made people play a lot better in the performances.
Zane [00:13:43] Knowing they could go back in...
David [00:13:44] Yeah.
Zane [00:13:45] And get a little bit of fixing after the fact.
David [00:13:47] Yeah, there, you know with live performances, too, there... the noises from the audience that you can't anticipate. And with Chanticleer one time, they wanted... Actually, this is Joe Jenning's last project and he started out by saying, "I really want this live, plus patches." So I went and recorded one of the shows and there was somebody in the front row, this little old lady, and she was coughing like a schnauzer the whole time [laughter from David and Giacomo]. And, so, I went up to Joe after and we just shook our heads and said, "OK, scratch that idea." But then, you know, having done the live show, I had the mic set up a certain way. We talked about it. I said, "OK, we'll let... for the sessions, let's try something a little different." And that, you know, that way at least we, we sort of had started our balance so that that part of it was good.
David [00:14:39] But there are other situations where I've done a live show and it simply doesn't work. And I'm thinking, "Well, you know, the client paid me all this money to come in, you know, bring my assistants, set up and we can't use it." But unfortunately, that's what happens. I've also done studio sessions where somebody stops for whatever reason and everybody, you know, takes a deep breath, agrees this will not see the light of day and, you know, you walk out of there.
Zane [00:15:09] You know, you said that the audience is unpredictable 'cause we record... my choir, we record all of our performances just, just in case we get a good take.
David [00:15:19] Right.
Zane [00:15:19] And then we put together live albums every few years. And I feel like, actually, the audience is quite predictable. I can guarantee that that one quietest moment [laughter from Giacomo] of the most sensitive song is where someone will cough or clear their throat. It's like a guarantee like that one moment where I've got my hands in the air, we're about to move on, the whole choir is just singing as soft as possible and then some guy in the front row goes... [simulates a loud cough or clearing of throat]. [laughter from Giacomo]
David [00:15:46] Yes. Well, what they don't realize these, these are people that's since the baby boomers have been brought up in front of television. And movies were one thing because that's a shared experience. But TV, I mean, you can do anything - you can talk, you can eat, you can leave the room, you can switch it off. And so there's sort of this attitude that performances are a consumable, you know, like watching a video and they really aren't aware that they're actual people doing this and that everybody up on stage can hear the audience just as well as the audience can hear the performers. So, it takes a lot of consistent education.
David [00:16:27] One of the groups that... we finally got it so that there are huge placards saying "Live Recording" and then somebody would come out beforehand, either the conductor or one of the administrators and, you know, say in a very nice way that "This is being recorded live. Any noise that you make will be preserved forever." [laughter from David and Zane] You don't say anything about the patch sessions but, you know, it's still this thought that somehow one doesn't have to listen very carefully.
David [00:16:56] On the other hand, after September 11th, every performance that I recorded, the audience - you could hear pins drop. They really had to be there, they wanted to be there, this is an escape for them and they were listening very, very differently. And I... I'd like to think that things had changed after that. But, you know, as with anything, things got back to their, you know, noisy state. And as I said, one has to keep reminding an audience that, "OK, we're, you know, we're doing this for a purpose and, you know, please be respectful."
Zane [00:17:31] Let's hear a track off the album David referred to earlier as being Joe Jennings's final recording project with Chanticleer, but without the old lady coughing like a schnauzer. Here's David's recording of Chanticleer singing the Agnus Dei movement of "Misa in Sol" by Juan Bautista Sancho. [00:17;49] [ Music excerpt: a string ensemble introduces a graceful setting of the Latin text "Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us." The choir sings haltingly on the words "Agnus dei" - as if their entreaty is too much of an intrusion on the son of God.]
Zane [00:19:42] Yeah, that's interesting that you brought up audiences being accustomed to sitting in front of the TV, because now for, you know, over a year, almost every concert that I've taken in has been in front of my TV, being streamed from my computer because we obviously couldn't do live performances in person for so long. In fact, Giacomo and I have sat on my couch and watched several performances and, right in the middle of the performance, we'll turn and we'll start talking to each other because we can... because it's on the TV. What do you think? You think coming out of COVID as people start to come back to live performances, that there's gonna be a bit of, "Oh, gosh! People have to get back on the program because this is a live performance, and we're in person and people can hear me when I cough and talk." Or, do you think it's going to go back to normal?
David [00:20:29] I think that these live streams are these, you know, recording for a later streaming, I think this is something which will keep happening. And one thing that the Houston Symphony did is they made their live streams available for the same price for a 24-hour period, and then some groups do 48 hours. So, you can watch it again. You can invite a family member. You can, you can do it on your own time. And so that's a very interesting thing - a good use of existing technology. Also, I think that audiences will sort of have to be re-educated, but there's not going to be so much of a border between the performance and the audience. People can talk more, I think. And one good thing which came of all these livestream shows was that they're shorter. And some people are even talking about maybe having a concert without an intermission and just having a single shot, and that way one could have a full evening and maybe an early show and dinner or dinner in a slightly later show.
David [00:21:42] There have been a lot of discussions, really, about what to do with technology and how to keep engaging with audiences. And if you listen to Aubrey Bergauer, she's a colleague of mine who turned one of the local orchestras around from, you know, almost going bankrupt to being extremely successful. And so she, at this point, is a consultant and has some really fascinating observations and ideas about organizations and how they run, building audiences, reaching out to underserved communities. And this is, this is really what had been happening before COVID. I mean, with Black Lives Matter, with #MeToo, people really had to ask themselves, "OK, what, you know... how are we reaching out and are we being really effective?".
Giacomo [00:22:38] And who's welcome in these spaces, right? I mean...
David [00:22:40] Yes!
Giacomo [00:22:40] You can imagine a concert in the future being designed from the ground up. I mean, I can, I can imagine the parents of young children who are listening to this concert saying, "Gosh, you know, concerts are usually places where families aren't welcome or you're, you know, you're terrified and you're so worried. But what if you designed a concert experience around that? What if the space actually was more welcoming for us to be sort of chatty or feel a little bit more comfortable?" I mean, it's interesting because it does create this divide between, you know, classical music. I mean, you would never pull the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto and, you know, sit at Davies and listen to that and expect people to be having a chat. Right?
David [00:23:17] Mmm...
Giacomo [00:23:17] But it does feel like that maybe some portion of the future when we reconsider concert design, you know, who knows if the old staid halls will still be able to fit the new way we live.
David [00:23:28] Or somebody could do a live show that gets piped to everyone's classrooms so they don't have to get on the bus and take, you know, basically three hours for a half hour of entertainment. And with a Q&A afterward, again, they could actually see that these performers are real people. And it's particularly hard with conductors because their backs are always to the audience. They sort of look like penguins wearing tails [laughter from all].
Zane [00:23:51] That's why I don't wear tails.
David [00:23:54] Of course, I'm assuming, I'm assuming there that the conductor's male [laughter from Giacomo] and, now with more female conductors, you know, it's also interesting what energy they bring to an organization and the way they approach an audience. So, you know that, that also provides role models for kids. So, it's not just all straight white men who are doing this. [laughter]
Giacomo [00:24:19] David, you're a, you're a fine musician in your own right. What is your process like when you work with an organization? Because certainly you come in, you know what you're hearing, you know the quality of the sound you're getting. Obviously, a music director and artistic director is going to have their own opinion of what they want to achieve. What is your process like when you blend that together? I mean, to me, that seems like it would be a huge value-add to have someone with your experience and your musicianship.
David [00:24:42] Yes, it is. And I think one thing that I've really concentrated on this last year is finding clients where we have mutual respect, 'cause I've been in a few situations where no matter how good my work was, I just had this feeling I was being sidelined or someone would come up and just complain about things like, "OK, your mic stand is too tall." OK, great... How am I gonna get a good recording? Or, you know, someone on stage saying, you know, "I want to stand right here where your mic stand is." Fine, I move it and they're like, "No, I want to stand here. No, I want to stand...". So, they sort of play this game and at the end of that situation, it's sort of toxic for me because I'm trying to do quality work. These are situations where microphones cannot be hung for whatever reason. So, you know, one has to realize this when going in.
David [00:25:41] Other clients are absolutely fine with that and realize, "OK, you know, there's a big mic stand here, but it's there because we can't hang mics or we're in an acoustic which is impossible. And so we have to have lots of microphones to, you know, do an effective capture." And also for a couple of these video concerts, I had to use mics on everybody simply because of the distance apart. And this is where COVID became quite a challenge for me, because I realized, "OK, if I'm working with video, the central mic stand does, you know, look bad if it's right by a conductor." So, I have to use different mics. On one hand, there's no audience so I can put a mic stand wherever I want. But on the other hand, I'm gonna try techniques which I've never used before and are they gonna work, you know, which is also quite scary.
David [00:26:34] But there's so many different situations. There's so many different clients. I've had people who start up being really, really controlling about how they want things done. Then, you know, in the course of the rehearsal, the performance, they sort of forget about it. And then they're quite surprised that I don't have to be spoon-fed. But that's just, that says more about who they've been working with before.
David [00:26:57] On the other hand, you know, as I said before, I wanna avoid getting into these situations where I do well, but I'm either taken for granted or my work is not appreciated. So, what we've agreed with a couple of the chorus groups was that we'd simply put things off until people can stand together normally and be in proper formations and be able to hear each other. And it's something that I was equally on board with. Yes, I'd like to work. I'd like to do a recording, but I don't want to do it under situations which do a disservice to everyone.
David [00:27:35] So, I think what saved a lot of these live stream concerts can be good camerawork. And that to me has made the difference. I've worked with, at this point, four really, really good videographers who just, you know, they do work and feature films, documentaries, sort of art kind of films, and they bring that to the table when they film groups. And I've seen some incredible creativity. And even though I'm often recording in, you know, acoustics which aren't very good, or these are the only places where people were allowed to be and not stand 12 feet apart, you know, that's the situation I have to work with and make sound as good as possible.
Zane [00:28:21] Let's see what David was able to do with a recording set-up that was a bit atypical. This is Chanticleer standing in a circle inside a very large warehouse space singing "Khorud Khorin; Barekhotsutyamb" for the From Darkness to Light video for Stanford Live. [00:28:41] [Music excerpt: a melismatic chant issues forth from a male soloist while supported by a drone of other male voices. It sounds urgent, as if it is meant to be heard from afar to summon the faithful to prayer. All voices then come together to intone the same prayer as they have finally gathered together.]
Zane [00:33:16] So, since we're talking about recording setups and mic stands and all of these things, you know, pre-COVID when, or now post I suppose, when we're set to get back together and we have choirs standing in standard formations, you know, I've had a lot of conversations with different choir directors about how they think a choir is best recorded. And I imagine that all recording engineers also have different ideas about how, you know, choirs are best recorded. You know, you can have a couple of ambient mics, you know, pretty far up and away from the choir where you get a lot of room sound or you get mics that are closer or some combination of the two. Can you maybe tell us what some of the most standard setups you use for recording chorus are and then what you think the benefits are of each of those setups and what you prefer?
David [00:34:03] Well, with Cappella SF, that's a 24-voice chorus, which is a subset of SF Symphony Chorus, and it's directed by Ragnar Bohlin. And the organization itself is run by Corty Fengler, who again brings a great wealth of experience not only through her past assignments, but also through her association with Chorus America. And for those I, I started out by recording immersively. And so, this is a five-channel surround set up for what we call the main layer, the speakers that are in front of us, and then additional four channels for height. And what that permitted me to do was to gather some ambiance in a way which rejected a lot of the signal coming from the singers themselves and that seemed to really work in stereo as well. I mean, I devised a system of height channel gathering while working in stereo as well. So, that's something that I immediately knew would fold down, which is an important part of any multiple mic setup. Stereophile magazine reviewed four choral recordings - it was a couple of years ago, it's for the Cappella SF release called Timeless and mine got singled out as the best.
Zane [00:35:29] Congratulations!
David [00:35:30] Which is, which is amazing. But Ragnar and I, even before we started doing the recordings, we checked out St. Ignatius, which is a location I had suggested. I recorded the Hawley Requiem there quite a few years ago, and we started out by doing a Christmas CD. And that was very quick and dirty. I mean, on the one hand, it was music people knew. On the other hand, it was only three sessions. So, a little bit of pressure there. But that disc did very well, you know, for a Christmas CD 'cause they're like hundreds which come out every year.
Giacomo [00:36:06] And St. Ignatius is pretty cavernous and, and a pretty wet acoustic, is it not? I mean, it's pretty and forgiving in some ways. How would you rate that as a hall for recording as opposed to others?
David [00:36:17] Well, I like it because it is so big and there are no, um, flat walls, no flat ceilings, no sharp corners. So, the sound diffuses a lot. Even though the surfaces are shiny, they're quite irregular if you just take a look out in the audience. And I just like it because singers sound good there. You know, this is also the principle of choosing a specific acoustic for a project and for a genre. One of the Cappella SF recordings we did at S.F. Conservatory in their big hall and just nothing came back from the audience. And it was so disheartening and I kept saying, "Look, imagine you're back in St. Ignatius and just don't listen for anything to come back, because we all know it's not going to happen." And fortunately for that, we had more sessions for that project. At the very end, there was time to record at least the opening of the very first piece we did. And it was such a difference because by that time they were really singing much better and not sort of intimidated by this dry acoustic. And it's funny 'cause I'd recorded New Century - actually a concert with New Century and Chanticleer - in the same space and that just worked out better. I guess there are more people on stage or, you know, instruments project differently. And also Chanticleer is experienced enough that they can really come out and sing in any acoustic and do well.
Zane [00:37:50] You know, we were just since we were just talking about Cappella SF, one of the recordings that you shared with us to listen to prior to this interview is this recording of "Wireless Connections", which is the final track from Mass Transmission and that was recorded by Cappella's, by you, of Cappella SF, performing with organ and electronica. Can you, can you tell us a little bit more about that recording project?
David [00:38:11] Well, this, this is wonderful. I've always been a fan of Mason Bates. I recorded the California Symphony and they have this young composers-in-residence program. And Mason was there for one year. And at this point, his form was very, very short because he comes from a DJ background and I like the pieces quite a lot. But I was always asking myself, "OK, can he graduate to longer forms?" And, you know, fast forward a few years later and he's being commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony. They put out a disc of his works and at the same time they had commissioned Mass Transmission. It was recorded once in concert. In this case, not only was it not a good recording - you know, it was just archival - but I think the chorus is too big. And it just had this, you know, kind of massive sound, which is maybe more appropriate for a Mahler symphony. And then, last but not least, this was done in concert. It was a premiere performance. There are always gonna be either mistakes or just, you know, shakiness or people maybe getting the notes, but not really the spirit of the music. And by the time we recorded it, Ragnar had had a chance to really think about the interpretation. The other big piece on the album is called "Sirens", which was commissioned by Chanticleer, one on a part. And in this case, Ragnar was able to rebalance. It wasn't always two on a part. Sometimes there'd be three on a part just for maybe a bar or two, and then it would switch back. And so that way he really made it work for this larger mixed chorus as opposed to the men's chorus it was originally for. And we had more session time for this. The organist was Isabelle Demers, originally from Montreal. She's an amazing organist. And what Ragnar was working for was that the sections that talk about the mechanical aspects she was able to find really sort of, you know, bright, glaring kind of combinations of stops, and then for the more lyrical ones, the registrations were more melodic and and she did it in such a way, too, that it didn't overlap too much over the choral voices. And that's always a challenge with organ, you know, 'cause it can overpower just about anything. [laughter]
Zane [00:40:41] Where was that recorded?
David [00:40:43] Well, that was St. Ignatius.
Zane [00:40:44] That was at St. Ignatius.
David [00:40:45] Yeah.
Zane [00:40:46] Oh, OK. Great.
David [00:40:47] And then Mason added his electronica later. And what I did there was actually to make a click track - because their meter changes and tempo changes, we had to do the piece in sections and, you know, a bit later sort of glue things together. But that also meant that the chorus wasn't stuck having to do a whole movement at a time 'cause the whole piece is over 20 minutes. It's quite a sing.
Zane [00:41:11] Let's listen to some of that recording now. Here is David's recording of Capella SF singing "Wireless Connections", the final track of "Mass Transmission" by Mason Bates. [00:41:22] [Music excerpt: an organist, choir and taped electronica create a shimmer of sound, supplemented with short soloistic bursts from a few singers. The voices sound disembodied - communicating between vast distances with electronic static in the background. The organ creates a relentless ripple of sound as if it carries the voices themselves across these vast distances.]
Giacomo [00:44:30] I imagine that with COVID, too, you probably had to find some new and interesting recording spaces as well, keeping the restrictions. I think you had mentioned a couple of recordings that you've done with Chanticleer during this period of time. There was the Live from London video series with VOCES8, which was terrific, we watched that. And then their own program as well, From Darkness to Light, which was for Stanford Live. And if I'm not mistaken, I think both of those were recorded in like a factory warehouse space in Alameda?
David [00:44:59] Yeah, well, I... Actually, it's near point Richmond, right by the ferry terminal, which had its own problems. They got permission to be in this space except when it was needed. And there was a whole wall of windows which could open so they could stand really distanced. I think they started out rehearsing in a circle, being 12 feet apart. Unfortunately, it's very, very, very echoey there. So when I first came in and they were thinking about Live from London, at this point, they were standing... It was still, you know, quite a big circle. And I said, "Well, how, you know, how close can you stand?" And they said at this point it was six feet.
David [00:45:42] But Live from London wanted more or less a concert presentation, as if there was an audience there. So, they stood in a pretty deep horseshoe. And my problem was twofold: first of all, the, you know, the echo in the room and, second of all, the fact that they really could not hear each other. So, what I insisted Chanticleer do was to get some outdoor carpeting. And that also made it a little bit easier visually, because the floor is polished concrete. But, you know, being in earthquake country, over the decades, there have been a lot of cracks which get sealed in concrete of a different color. And it just looked ugly. And I felt that the... because of all the windows that the light coming in would, you know, the glare from the floor would be unattractive. So, this dampened the sound considerably and it was still echoey. But, at least, now the echo was sort of around them instead of being, you know, right in their faces. And I think that made it a little bit easier to hear. For that one, I use microphones, which you generally don't use for music recording. They're called shotgun mics, and these ones are about two feet long, so they're quite directional. I also had individual microphones on all the singers. And in the filming, this is a challenge because they changed positions. So, I would have to rush around and adjust the microphone height. So, you know, the big tall guys weren't having to bend down and the little guys were having to stand on their tippy toes. [laughter from all]
Giacomo [00:47:12] So, it's one thing to show up at, you know, a St. Ignatius where you're like, "OK, I know this space. I know the sound. I know what I'm gonna bring along with me, more or less." And you've sort of got your tool kit. What do you do when you show up in Point Richmond and you're like, "Aah, I don't know what I'm gonna need!" Do you do a site visit beforehand? Do you just bring everything and...
David [00:47:32] Well, no, I had two site visits...
Giacomo [00:47:34] Mmm.
David [00:47:35] ... and then I talked to Tim Keeler about the approach I wanted to take. Also, assuring the cameraman that the main mics would be, you know, at or behind his long-shot camera, and then we proceeded from there. So what happens to these recordings? Actually, with any recording, but specifically when your main mic pair is very far from your sound source, is that there is a delay and then the spot microphone, which is, you know, somewhere below the singer, that signal is going to come in very quickly. So, all those microphones have to be delayed. So what I did after setup was the singers had their position marked on the carpet by that point, little, little blue dots. And, so I stood and sort of thought, "OK, I'm the generic singer." And I have a dog clicker, and I had it by my mouth and I was running the recorder and I would click by every microphone saying what position I was at, and then I had that there. So, I knew how much to delay the spot microphones. And so the spots that were on the outer extremes had a different delay than the ones that were all the way in the back. And that's the reason I did that. Umm...
Giacomo [00:48:54] Are we talking like microseconds in delay or second? I mean, how much are you playing with? Yeah...
David [00:48:58] Microseconds. But it did, it... it did get quite extreme. And once I was, I was able to enter those values in post production that tightened up the sound considerably. Otherwise, you hear the spot mics first. And I mean, I can certainly hear that delay. So, that was important. The second show for Stanford Live, we really wanted to have them in a circle because they've been rehearsing that way. And so it was more of a challenge for the camera people. And so for that one, I calculated, OK, if they're six feet apart, how large would the circle have to be? And it turned out to be twenty-three feet. And so that was actually... at least they were equidistant. I mean that was the big thing there. They, no matter how they changed position, nobody would feel like they were out on the extremity. So, for that one I had to come up with a different mic array.
Zane [00:49:54] Let's hear some more of David's masterful recording setup with the recording he did with Chanticleer for the VOCES8 Live from London video, filmed in a warehouse during the COVID lockdown. This is "I Wanna Dance with Somebody", arranged by David Maddox. [00:50:11] [Music excerpt: one's desire to dance is expressed and sung, starting with the bass which progresses to the highest voices. A tenor issues forth an intense desire to feel the heat and dance with somebody - only to banish the loneliness.]
Zane [00:53:21] Let's talk about 3D recording, 'cause this fascinates me, this idea of 3D recording. So, can you tell us a little bit about, you know, how you set up for 3D recording, what the benefits are of it?
David [00:53:33] Well, the main benefit is that, you know, in mono recording, we just simply had presence or a lack of presence. And so for that, you could sort of imply depth. For stereo recording, one added width. So finally, one could have a field going from left to right. Surround recording adds real depth because you have microphones which pick up rear signal at a different time than your main front signal.
David [00:54:05] And I'd been recording my stereo projects in surround starting back in 1997, actually. And I notice that that actually improved my stereo projects, just having these extra microphones to pick up some extra, umm, extra signal. And then I was invited in 2011 to guest lecture at the Tonmeister Seminar at NYU Steinhardt Music Technologies, and they were starting to work on 3D and I'd thought about this. I was thinking about ways of gathering ambiance, even in a stereo recording. And I had been working in a pretty dry acoustic - Herbst Theater in San Francisco. And New Century did a series of live recordings with their former music director, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg. I started out by placing a pair of microphones just facing directly up. It was a pair of directional microphones. It's as if you were picking up an orchestra with this, except I simply had them facing directly upwards. And so that started getting me thinking about 3D.
David [00:55:16] And so, this guest lecturing came right at the right time of Paul Geluso, my boss there. He had one way of recording in 3D, which he presented at the Audio Engineering Society and wrote a paper about. And so my first thing was, well, my first consideration was that I'd come up with a mic array that I really liked for surround recording. So, I wanted to be able to keep that and develop a separate layer for height gathering. This is done also for another reason, which is that our perception above us starts getting rather fuzzy in our ability to localize. And so, I wanted a mic array which gathered specific information coming from above. And at this point, there is a system called Auro-3D, which is still used in some movies, and it's stipulated that the height speakers were at... they're facing forty five degrees down placed above your left, right, left, surround, right surround speakers. And so, that worked really, really well for music recordings and the projects that I did with orchestra and chorus. If the chorus was on risers, you could actually stand up and hear a shift in the image. When I stood up, I could hear more chorus and I sat down and I could hear more orchestra. So I thought, OK, that's doing the right thing.
David [00:56:39] Well, since that time, there's another standard which has pretty much taken over, and that's called Dolby Atmos. And while that's object-oriented both for gathering and for reproduction, it's generally agreed that the height speakers are actually directly above you in the ceiling. So, then I had to rethink. And I think it was three years ago, again at NYU, I started working with a different mic array. I wrote a paper which I have not been able to present because of the virtual conventions where we obviously cannot play 3-D audio back for listeners. You know... we're just listening to our earbuds or headphones. So, that's gonna happen at a certain time.
David [00:57:22] But in the meantime, I've gathered lots of material, including that processional that I recorded for Stanford Live, Chanticleer. I decided to try this array partly because the acoustic was so wet. How is this gonna work? And it ended up working out... actually no surprise! I knew that it would pick up a lot of ambiance, but I also knew that it would reject the signal coming from the floor in a certain way. I have a project, of course, with an orchestra that I've done: Armenian music with Isabel Bayrakdarian that's out this weekend. And that was also done in 3D. A group on the East Coast: Atlantic Chamber Ensemble, they also commissioned a piece by Mason Bates and we just finished up that recording with a woodwind quintet by Oscar Navarro. I have a lot of material on this, and I'm really eager to start using the, you know, the Dolby gathering in one of the chorus recordings. I think it'll work very well.
Zane [00:58:25] So... so essentially, 3D recording is taking this horizontal plane of surround recording and adding a vertical plane...
David [00:58:34] Yes.
Zane [00:58:34] ... that includes microphones that capture and then speakers that reproduce that sound from a different angle. That's really fascinating.
David [00:58:41] Yeah, that's called the Z-axis.
Zane [00:58:44] Yeah.
David [00:58:45] Or, the "zed"-axis, if you're English.
Zane [00:58:46] So... [laughter] Yeah, "zed". Exactly. So, Apple has just rolled out this whole new spatial audio thing, right, that they're doing with FaceTime. So, you can see, you know, hear where people are on the screen and then they've incorporated it into certain movies and things through their apps, on their Apple TV and whatever, and they use... but you just use it with your earbuds. So how, can you, how do you... where do you stand on that? And also how does that... I'm a little bit confused how that works with just two speakers, you know, headphones in my ears. How is it able to produce sound that gives me a spatial feel?
David [00:59:21] Well, there's something else called Ambisonics, which was actually developed in the UK in the 1970s and that was gathered using four microphones which were then encoded into virtual microphone signals. And these virtual microphone signals could literally be panned anywhere. And one could derive any of the traditional polar patterns out of this and it was sort of forgotten about for a while. There are limitations from using what we call a single point microphone in that there are no time of arrival differences. And even with our heads, our ears being 17 centimeters apart, there's a difference between what we hear from left and right, also from front to back and with our head shadowing and our body shadowing, we gather our directional cues that way. So actually, Ambisonics is coming back as a way to deliver audio. And I did this... I was mastering a project that had a percussion ensemble that was recorded in a square arrangement. And I thought, "Ooh! How would this sound with Ambisonic mixing?" And I did that and it sounded absolutely fantastic. And I told the client about that. And I said, "Look. You know, I think we should consider this."
David [01:00:41] What will not happen is, unless one has something like an Oculus headset which tracks your head motion, that... then we're gonna get really no specific directional cues. But if we have that headset, then we'd be able to nod and turn our head and the sound source would stay in the same place. Now for gaming, that's one thing. I don't know how viable that is for music simply because there's a lot of information. Music tends to be sustained and also uses the entire frequency spectrum whereas game audio uses lots of beeps and bloops and effects, which can be momentary. And these momentary effects provide directional cues on their own, which is one reason it's more difficult to record music accurately in 3D. It's easy to mix a movie in 3D by layering effects and telling which speakers you're going to be sending them to.
Zane [01:01:39] So, one of the recordings you sent us was of Cantor Rachel Brook singing in a synagogue in New York City with organ accompaniment. And listening to it, I couldn't help but think about the potential difficulties of recording the organ. You know, the pipes can be all over the place. I mean, obviously, it must be venue-specific, but how do you go about recording an organ? How difficult is it really?
David [01:02:03] Well, it's always different. I mean, Isabelle Demers brought up a very important point, which is that organs are voiced to be heard from a distance. So generally, if one goes and records close to the pipes, it's not going to be very pleasant. On the other hand, Grace Cathedral, with its very, very long resonance, that I have used spot mics that are close-ish to the pipes. There are choral risers on either side. And if the mic stands are right outside, and I'd say about 15 feet up, that's good enough to get some definition for those sets of pipes.
David [01:02:42] Let's take a listen to the result of David's organ recording setup. Here's Cantor Rachel Brook at the Park Avenue Synagogue in New York, singing "Hashkiveinu" by Max Helfman. [01:02:54] [Music excerpt: an organ accompanies a gentle plea from a female vocalist for God to grant us peace. The plea becomes more urgent with declamatory outbursts from the chorus for God to shield us from every enemy, plague and famine.]
Zane [01:08:25] So, I've dabbled in some recording over the years, and I think that with the affordability of microphones and recording equipment nowadays, it's all the more possible that your average choir director might be able to record their choirs singing. So, I'm wondering if maybe you might be able to offer up some advice to those of us who are novice recording engineers who just really wanna capture the best sound possible when our choirs are performing.
David [01:08:59] Well, for one, let's start with the microphones, look at the spec sheet and make sure that the frequency response is flat.
Zane [01:09:07] What do you mean by that?
David [01:09:08] A lot of cheaper mics and a lot of mics that are geared towards pop music and live sound have sort of a bump in the higher frequencies. And there's a couple of things wrong with that. One is that this tends to be around the second formant. And since classical singers are taught to project, it's very different than with a pop singer that has a microphone right by their mouth. Second of all, a lot of modern acoustic spaces tend to have that brightness anyway. There are lots of hard surfaces, lots of shiny surfaces, lots of smooth surfaces. Earlier, I talked about St. Ignatius with all the break ups of the sound - the same thing in Carnegie Hall or Concertgebouw or the Musikverein. It's... all of these were designed with sort of an ethos of the time, which happened to work very well for acoustics and for future recording. And so, we're not really blessed with that in this country. Microphones which are too bright will sort of have this clinical sound and that can be a turnoff for some people.
David [01:10:15] Also, if one uses directional microphones such as cardioids, those can also tend to sound a little bit bright. And also, if they're placed too close, that can sort of exacerbate the way singers project.
Zane [01:10:30] What about... Let's... So, let's say I can, I can afford two microphones and I've got my interface, which only takes two channels anyway. I got my computer. Where should I set those, set up those two mics to record my choir of 24 singers?
David [01:10:49] Well, you can't go wrong with having the mics right by your podium, and as long as they're high enough.
Zane [01:10:55] [laughter] There's a reason the director stands where they do, huh? [laughter from Giacomo]
David [01:10:59] Yes. And what that also means is that if there are choral soloists that step out, there'll be a little bit of emphasis on them without having to use the spot mic. And I'm also assuming that you would not have the luxury of placing them off the stage or in the audience because of people needing to get in and out.
Zane [01:11:18] All right. So, yeah. So the director has the best seat in the House, is what you're saying? [laughter]
David [01:11:22] Yeah, certainly. That's what I've done with Ragnar because I'm using five omni mikes. Getting the center mic was a little bit of a problem, so I'd have a stand in the middle with a, with a huge boom arm and just had it so the three left, center, right mikes were in a line with each other. And it was certainly high enough that if he conducted up, his baton wouldn't hit the microphone.
Giacomo [01:11:48] David, you've got... You're quite a busy man. We hope you're quite busy. You should be quite busy. You're the expert.
David [01:11:53] I am. [laughter].
Giacomo [01:11:54] That's good! What projects do you have coming up that you're excited about?
David [01:11:58] Well, there are two discs of Bach cantatas with a group called the Cantata Collective. And again, those are recorded not only in 3D, but what we call immersive sound, which means that the group is in a horseshoe and that, if one is listening, there are instruments behind you, to the side and in front of you. And obviously the singer is sort of the front and center. And I had the pleasure of doing these two recordings in different spaces using a similar set up. The group was different from cantata to cantata, so you couldn't make a direct comparison. But what I was able to do with my NYU students was to play both these recordings. And because the genre was pretty much the same and we had the same soloist, Reggie Mobley, I was asking them to make comments specifically about the differences in the acoustic and what they were hearing and how it worked for both recordings. So, that is good. I also was able to find a home for those recordings, which is nice for the client.
David [01:13:04] What's out right now, actually as of Sunday, is Isabel Bayrakdarian, a soprano I've worked with on numerous occasions. And she's done a disc of Armenian children's music. Which is pretty amazing because it's... A lot of these things have sort of been handed down from mother to child, and there's some arrangements, but not very many. The big composer in Armenia was Komitas. And he did some arrangements and then two of his students did some arrangements. So, there was, you know, a sort of parent and child situation right there. Ganatchian and Toumajan were the two other composers. And then there's an arrangement of... a series of arrangements done by a man who has sort of a pop Armenian ensemble that's based both in Yerevan and New York. So, he uses musicians from both countries. And so, the original idea was that he would use his duduk player in Yerevan and they would do the recordings in a studio there. Well, you know, he would dub his line and that didn't happen. The arranger's name is John Hodian. He couldn't travel. The duduk player couldn't even travel, you know, even to get to Yerevan. And...
Giacomo [01:14:24] And the duduk is like a, like a low moaning, sort of like a drum? Or, is it like a...
David [01:14:30] It sort of sounds...
Giacomo [01:14:31] A percussion instrument.
David [01:14:32] No, it's a wind instrument. It sort of sounds like a clarinet, though it has a double reed. And because it's a folk instrument, the notes are rather limited. So when he had to change keys, he would have to pick up another instrument and start playing it. So, throughout the disc, the pieces that had the duduk, we noticed definite tonality and color changes. And that made it interesting. He's somebody... Ruben Harutyunyan, he's somebody who's done a lot of soundtrack recording and a lot of studio recording, so he was very familiar with the process. And my challenge in post was really to work on his tuning because, again, these instruments don't have traditional Western tuning, though everybody else did. And sort of make it fit into the picture. So, this is yet another recording where I'm using pop overdubbing techniques. This is happening more often in the projects I do also with living composers. They'll tend to have effects added like electronica or, you know, putting another instrument line in after the fact. And what I did at Skywalker the other day, even though it was classical instruments, everybody was in isolation. So, I had the piano in the big room, I had a cello in one iso booth, and the jazz drum set in another. And so what that does is actually gives me a lot of flexibility 'cause there is an amazing take and one of the performers was a little behind and I said, "Oh, we... you know, actually I can just sort of scooch this forward in post." [chuckles]
Zane [01:16:04] Right, yeah. So, why don't we tell our audience where they can find more information about you and Swineshead Productions online.
David [01:16:12] That's very easy! It's just "swines heads dot com"
Zane [01:16:16] "Swines heads", plural? "Swine heads" or "swines head"
David [01:16:18] No. "Swines head"
Zane [01:16:21] That's great! We'll definitely put information in the show notes so that folks can go and find you and see, you know, the many projects you've worked on and perhaps reach out to hire you to record their next concert, 'cause...
David [01:16:32] That would be fantastic! I love working with new clients and getting to know other colleagues, other genres. I'm also on Facebook. I've got a personal page and a Swineshead Productions page, and I'm also on Instagram as "swineshead dot productions".
Zane [01:16:48] Awesome! That's great. We can follow you there and see what you're up to these days. I did see some great pictures of that set up you had at Skywalker just on Facebook this morning. So...
David [01:16:57] Yes! [laughter].
Zane [01:16:59] It's very exciting and I'm a bit of an audiophile myself. So, it always makes me excited to see lots of microphones and [laughter from David], and setups because I just think it's so cool. It's a path that I didn't go down, but it may not be too late. We'll see.
David [01:17:13] Well, look at, look at the NYU Tonmeister shots on my Swineshead Facebook page. You'll see lots of microphones. [laughter]
Zane [01:17:20] Well, it's been really wonderful to talk to you, David, and learn a little bit more about, you know, your set up and what you're doing, but also about some of the technologies available out there and what's going on with recording arts. It's a fascinating subject to me and hopefully the audience thinks so as well.
David [01:17:37] The last thing I'd like to say is that, as a colleague of mine put it, the laws of sound propagation did not change with the advent of digital technology. And what this means is that our recording chops have to be exactly the same as Alan Blumlein were back in the 1930s. We still have to capture the sound in an effective way and acoustics still do what they do. Our technology certainly makes it easier to gather, but we still have to have the basic techniques.
Zane [01:18:06] That's great. Great point!
Giacomo [01:18:07] Well said. Well said.
Zane [01:18:08] Absolutely. Well, thanks so much, David. It's been great to chat with you.
Zane [01:18:13] OK, thanks, Zane. Thanks, Giacomo.
Giacomo [01:18:14] Thank you so much.
Zane [01:18:16] Let's finish off today's episode with one more recording of the Golden Gate Men's Chorus. While this one wasn't recorded by David, he did do all the editing and mastering. Here's a TTBB favorite, "Dulaman" by Michael McGlynn from the GGMC album, 30. [01:18:34] [Music excerpt: a tenor soloist sings a jaunty melody with a rapid volley of words. The choir interrupts the soloist with loud declamations about the different types of seaweed]
Outro [01:20:35] Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the In Unison podcast. Be sure to check out episode extras and subscribe at inunison podcast dot com. You can follow us on all social media @inunisonpod. And leave us a review on Apple podcasts to let us know what you think!
Chorus Dolores [01:20:52] Organ continuo composed and performed by Chorus Dolores, who knows that the seventh scale degree should be called "si", not "ti".
Credits [01:21:05] In Unison is produced and recorded by Mission: Orange Studios. Our transcripts have been diligently edited by IOCSF member and friend of the pod, Fausto Daos, and our theme music is Mr. Puffy, written by Avi Bortnick, arranged by Paul Kim, and performed by the Danish vocal jazz ensemble Dynamic on their debut album, this is Dynamic. Special thanks to Paul Kim for permission. Please be sure to check them out at dynamicjazz.dk.