Recording theatrical songs — in only one take!

The 0242 Theatre Company is a company of actors based in Cheltenham. It was started in 1981 by Sheila Mander, an ex-professional actress and now drama teacher at a local school, to provide an opportunity for young people to have a taste of live theatre at an almost professional level. Many of them have gone on to stage school and careers in that field. The Company has put on concerts and shows such as 'Dogspell' and has twice been on tour in Cornwall. For 1983 the Company produced an ambitious original musical entitled 'Doors'. The script and lyrics were written by Jerry Harmer, then in his second year at Loughborough University, and the story traces the lives and relationships of a group of first-year students. Music for the show was written largely by the company's Musical Director and by Roddy Wilson.

I had been involved in the company since 1981 in providing PA and in engineering the live sound. As 'Doors' stated to come together in the summer of 1983, and performances were set for late August in Cheltenham and Cornwall, everyone involved in the project agreed that a recording would be needed. At least 800 people were expected to see the show in Cheltenham and possibly the same number or more during a 10-day tour of Cornwall, Sheila and I were faced with the difficult task of guessing how many of these would buy a well-produced cassette of the songs, and as time went on the even more difficult problem of finding time to fit in a recording session. Many of the cast were away at colleges and universities or at work until late July, leaving only one month to rehearse the entire show, build the sets and organise the tour. It quickly became apparent that there wouldn't be a lot of spare time to record!

As soon as the decision to go ahead with the tape was made, I sat down with Sheila and Mark Faulkener to work out how to record it. The musical line-up was formidable: a band consisting of drums, bass guitar, electric and acoustic guitars, acoustic piano, Rhodes, synthesiser, a violin (unamplified), a chorus of twenty, and one or more solo vocalists. In quite a few of the songs, every one of these was involved and I began to realise just how difficult it was going to be to mix it all together.

On location

We rapidly decided that it was going to have to be a location recording - my 8-track studio is simply not big enough to accommodate all those people. We decided to use the huge school gymnasium in which the rehearsals were taking place. Having mixed PA sound there, I knew the place had reasonable acoustics; a pleasant 'large hall' reverberation, which was not overpowering and would allow for reasonable separation. Equally important, the hall is in a quiet location, and it was unlikely that many takes would be ruined by a jet or motorcycle passing just as a final note was dying away. As a bonus, the school possesses a fine Chappell concert grand piano, an early reconnoitre of the hall revealed a small room at the back which I could use as a control room. The acoustics were good in here too, the ceiling even being of acoustic tiling! I began to speculate on using the place again in the future.

Looking at the rehearsals schedule we realised that there was only going to be one day which could be set aside for the recording when all the cast and musicians would be present. Probably we should have cancelled the whole idea there and then, but by now everyone was getting very enthusiastic about the tape. But how on earth were we going to record 13 songs in one day, especially as some of the songs had not even been written two weeks before the session? It was at that point that I began to question an earlier assumption that the recording would be done piecemeal on the 8-track, probably with the band (or at least the electric instruments and drums) playing together and going down onto about five tracks, the chorus overdubbed in stereo, leaving one track for solo vocals. This would have the very obvious advantages of post-session mixing, with the possibility of correcting mistakes and adding sounds and effects.

Unfortunately, there was just no way that all, or even a sizeable proportion, of this was going to be achieved in one day. A week would have been a better estimate.

I have always had a soft spot for live recording, both because of the excitement of mixing everything together in 'realtime' and because genuinely live recordings often have an earthy, spontaneous feel to them. I say 'genuine' live recordings as distinct from 24-track recordings of live performances which, although often of excellent quality, have the potential to be altered out of all recognition in the studio afterwards, and in doing so can lose much of the atmosphere of the original performance. In fact, on a good number of 'live' albums, the atmosphere is confined to the distant applause of the crowd and a few well-rehearsed 'ad-libs' between songs. Once I had started to work out the advantages of recording the 'Doors' songs in one take, direct to stereo, I was quickly convinced about it. However, it proved a lot more difficult to convince the band, most of whom had previous recording experience, and were used to being able to correct mistakes after the take. Even though we had talked about it a couple of weeks before the session, the Musical Director Mark Faulkener (who also played keyboards) suddenly realised that he was going to have to put in the synth lead lines (which he hadn't yet worked out) at the same time as playing the acoustic piano and keeping the band and chorus together!

All Systems Go

The day arrived and so did I, bright and early with the recording equipment in the back of the battered Maxi. At this point I was quite glad not to have to set up the 8-track. I was using my trusty Revox B77 running at 15ips on ½-track, with 2-channels of Accessit compander noise reduction. I had worked out that I would need all of the inputs on my Studiomaster 16:4 desk, and then some more probably. In fact only 15 of them were working on the day (there's always one isn't there) so the drummer had to make do with the bare minimum of mics. I regard mics as by far the most important part of the recording chain. The set-up I used for the 'Doors' sessions was as follows:

The piano had to be miked fairly close, because of the proximity of some of the louder instruments. We placed it roughly in the middle of the hall, with the drums at one end (surrounded by some makeshift screens) and the chorus at the other. Since Mark was both pianist and conductor, he was well placed to keep the whole thing in time. The hall is really very large (about 40m from end to end) and there was just enough separation between drums and vocals. The quieter instruments, violin and acoustic guitar, were close miked and screened as much as possible. 40m of Belden connected the mics to the mixer. I was using custom-built (home-made) LS3/5a speakers, driven by a NAD 3020 amp. I always enjoy opening the faders for the first time and hearing the sounds coming through the monitors, and straightaway I was impressed by the ambience of the hall. The vocal mics picked up just the right amount of reverb from the band, though they benefitted from a mild roll-off in the bass at about 100Hz, and cut the bass if it is being used as part of a band. However, this particular piano is fairly bright sounding, and the presence peak inherent in the M400 provided just about the right sound. The Rhodes I also boost at 6kHz which gives a nice tinkle to the sound and reduces the muddiness in the mix.

Talkback was essential and a simple but effective arrangement was provided by a single pair of headphones to Mark at the piano, from where he could cue both singers and musicians. I was initially worried that the singers would not be able to hear the musicians clearly enough, but this did not prove to be a problem (which was just as well because I don't have 20 pairs of headphones).

Outboard equipment was modest: one Grampian 636 spring reverb with the mono output split left and right with the left output delayed by about 30mS to give a 'stereo' effect. This was mixed in judicially small amounts with the natural reverb of the hall.

The recording progressed well, with the cast usually running through each song once, followed by the first and usually only take. By lunchtime five songs were recorded and by 6.30 the cast were crowding into my little room to hear the finished result, which of course it was. Somebody did ask if one of the vocal parts could be redone but when it was explained (again) that this would mean re-recording the whole song, they suddenly felt it was alright after all. The general response was quite good though everyone was fairly shattered by this time.

Post-Production

I had intended to have 300 copies of the tape fast copied by James York Ltd who are a local company. After editing the tape in a couple of places to remove mistakes, and making up the running order, I phoned them only to be told that it would take 2-3 weeks to complete the duplication! This would have been too late for the Cheltenham performance, and half way into the tour of Cornwall. Blank cassettes were ordered instead, and extra cassette machines pressed into service to complement the five Aiwa decks I normally use for duplication. The printing for the cassette inlay card was ordered, using a variation of the poster designed by one of the company. The sticky labels were ordered. The last cassette rolled off the production line 2 days before the first night and the labels were collected on the last day. A box of tapes were on sale on the first night and we were delighted to sell 45 that night. During the next two nights and the subsequent tour most of the remaining copies went.

What are the advantages of this kind of recording? Well, the reason for doing this particular one direct to stereo was time and convenience, but the advantages don't stop there. The quality of the sound should be better, with at least one less tape generation, and it will only really be limited by the microphones and the mixer. The sound we obtained is clean and open with good transients. The difference would be particularly noticeable on a multitrack recording using narrow track formats or slow tape speed. We could have obtained even higher quality by using a digital 2-track such as the Sony F1/SL1 combination. In my view though, the biggest gain is in the wholeness of the recording: the tightness and spontaneity which is very hard to maintain in successive overdubs.

The disadvantages depend on your viewpoint. Some people are phased at the idea of recording everything in one take, and make no mistake, it's exciting! The equipment needed for such a recording is different; there's no multitrack to worry about, but a mixer with a fair number of inputs is needed. Microphones are probably the biggest problem. Many people with small home studios get by with one or two mics, and the quality of mic is critical for some sounds. However, it's usually possible to beg or borrow items like this, and there are a few good, cheap mics around, notably the Tandy PZM which at £25 nearly out performs my AKG C451s.

In the end the deciding factor for me is enjoyment. It's a different way of recording which is a great deal of fun, and I wouldn't do much of it if it weren't.

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