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Carols From Eton

Music

2020

Sound Recordist / Post: Mix Engineer

In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic Eton College was forced to re-structure their usual Christmas carol service into a video format for distribution to parents. In conjunction with Small Films, over the course of a single day, we recorded a full program of carols performed by choirs broken into smaller sections, and readings delivered by pupils and teachers. All in a similar format to something like Songs of Praise.

Due to obvious privacy reasons the full video of this is not freely available online. But I can provide audio examples on request.

Recorded on Zoom F8
The Carols were primarily recorded on Sennheiser MKH 30 and MKH 40 in a MS configuration. Spot mics for soloists were Sennheiser MKH 60 and MKH 8060 shotguns to stay out of camera view. An additional pair of Neumann KM84i were deployed for distant micing of the organ and deeper reverb.
The readings were all recorded on MKH 8060 on a boom.

In post production I mixed in Stereo to the video edit in Reaper, using timeline files from Adobe Premiere converted using Vordio. I ran everything through SSL Native channel strips for EQ, with slight SSL Native Bus Compressor on the readings and light use of iZotope Ozone 9 Master Limiter on the master bus to bring levels up transparently. The readings were also run through a tiny amount of additional reverb (Valhalla Room) to bring a bit more church-like space into the presentation.

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