Behind the Scenes: Recording This Is Not A Lullaby
Posted by Brendon Heinst
This album was recorded in the midst of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, and it was especially noticeable because of the huge empty hall we recorded this in. This Is Not A Lullaby, an album by Channa Malkin (soprano) with pianist Artem Belogurov and cellist Maya Fridman, is all about motherhood.
The beautiful Grote Zaal of De Philharmonie in Haarlem, NL.
We set up our recording gear at one of the most beautiful halls in the world: the Grote Zaal (large hall) of de Philharmonie in Haarlem, near Amsterdam. Its acoustics are arguably better than those at the Royal Concertgebouw, so we were pretty excited to get to record here!
The control room
To get the most out of this recording, we decided to take our full 5-channel location monitoring kit with us, consisting of five LS50 Meta loudspeakers by KEF, a C55 five-channel power amplifier by Hegel, and our eight-channel Merging Technologies Hapi DAC. Once set up, Ben van Leliveld of AcousticMatters helped setting up the space acoustically as to create a more recording-proof sounding room. The end result can be seen here down below.
Five KEF LS50 Meta loudspeakers connected to a Hegel C55 power amplifier.
From this system, we had a hugely long network and power cable going down to the main hall where our recording setup sat.
The recording equipment
As with all of our other recordings, 99% of the mix is decided by the main microphone system, in almost all cases the DPA 4006A omnidirectional mics. We choose these because of their extraordinarily realistic and natural sound. On piano, we used a tiny bit of the DPA 4011 cardioid microphones we’ve placed up close, and we supplemented the voice with a Sony C100 two-way cardioid microphone.
Artem Belogurov on piano. Underneath the piano you can see some diffusor blocks by R.T.F.S. Acoustics.
Because of the huge space we recorded this in, with its walls very far away from the microphones, we didn’t have too much acoustic interference, creating a very strong and direct stereophonic imaging. Just the way we like it!
Behind the Scenes: Recording This Is Not A Lullaby
This album was recorded in the midst of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, and it was especially noticeable because of the huge empty hall we recorded this in. This Is Not A Lullaby, an album by Channa Malkin (soprano) with pianist Artem Belogurov and cellist Maya Fridman, is all about motherhood.
The beautiful Grote Zaal of De Philharmonie in Haarlem, NL.
We set up our recording gear at one of the most beautiful halls in the world: the Grote Zaal (large hall) of de Philharmonie in Haarlem, near Amsterdam. Its acoustics are arguably better than those at the Royal Concertgebouw, so we were pretty excited to get to record here!
The control room
To get the most out of this recording, we decided to take our full 5-channel location monitoring kit with us, consisting of five LS50 Meta loudspeakers by KEF, a C55 five-channel power amplifier by Hegel, and our eight-channel Merging Technologies Hapi DAC. Once set up, Ben van Leliveld of AcousticMatters helped setting up the space acoustically as to create a more recording-proof sounding room. The end result can be seen here down below.
Five KEF LS50 Meta loudspeakers connected to a Hegel C55 power amplifier.
From this system, we had a hugely long network and power cable going down to the main hall where our recording setup sat.
The recording equipment
As with all of our other recordings, 99% of the mix is decided by the main microphone system, in almost all cases the DPA 4006A omnidirectional mics. We choose these because of their extraordinarily realistic and natural sound. On piano, we used a tiny bit of the DPA 4011 cardioid microphones we’ve placed up close, and we supplemented the voice with a Sony C100 two-way cardioid microphone.
Artem Belogurov on piano. Underneath the piano you can see some diffusor blocks by R.T.F.S. Acoustics.
Because of the huge space we recorded this in, with its walls very far away from the microphones, we didn’t have too much acoustic interference, creating a very strong and direct stereophonic imaging. Just the way we like it!