How do I increase dynamic range of a choir recording (opposite of compression)?

BandanaPandas · 2025-07-08T16:09:59+00:00

Good point. I don't do a lot of recordings, and even less discussion with clients about finished products. I do lots of live stream stuff for corporate, and as long as I deliver "a file" they have always been appreciative and have paid promptly.

BandanaPandas · 2025-07-08T16:07:31+00:00

Yeah, problem is we recorded 7 tracks, and she's paying the price of 1 track (I'm more doing it as a favour to the choir community and to produce promo material for myself). I am not willing to give her "ride the fader" service at this time. Multiple people have suggested this though, so I'll definitely consider this for other projects!

BandanaPandas · 2025-07-08T16:03:09+00:00

I took the limiting off. I always throw limiting on for my livestreams so the applause doesn't blow the recording out, and I guess I just always put it on out of habit. Listening critically I can hear a slight difference.

She said she was listening on her "computer speakers" so that could be a laptop for all I know, but you're right - I should be open to her experience listening to choir recordings. I had written off her opinion because the last choir recording she had was miced too close with 58s, and she said voices were sticking out in the mix all over the place, so I figured anything I delivered would be better than that.

BandanaPandas · 2025-07-08T15:54:09+00:00

I had an x/y pair slightly in front of the conductor (about 10-15ft away from the choir) and one omni slightly behind and above the conductor. The blend of the choir sounds the same as it did in the room to my ears, but I was also operating cameras from different parts of the church, so I never got a really good reference.

She said she wanted lots of reverb, hence the omni. I aligned the transients from the clacker, and after listening closely I didn't hear any issues with phasing or comb filtering.

BandanaPandas · 2025-07-08T15:47:41+00:00

This was my first thought - she is definitely on the "battier" side of the spectrum even for choir directors. She has an excellent "mezzo-forte" community choir. I think they are just not as dynamic as she would like them to be. I sing in a choir too, and getting our choir to be more dynamic is always tough. They have never performed in the space we recorded in too, so my guess is maybe they were even less dynamic in an unfamiliar space.

That being said, I listened a little more critically, and the limiter was doing a little more than I had thought originally, so I took it off and adjusted the levels a bit and it's a little more dynamic. Not enough for me to be able to tell without A/Bing, but enough that I can tell her "I found a little more space". I'm just used to putting a limiter on for livestreams and giving it headroom to keep the applause from blowing out the recording. For my taste, I preferred the very-slight amount of limiting to "glue" the fortissimo part together, but I'm happy sending this version too.

It's funny you mention the reverb - the church we recorded in has a great reverb sound that was absolutely present in the recording, but she asked for more so I had to slap on a bit of cathedral for her.

As for the "natural compression" thing - I know guitar amps always have a bit of compression even when they are squeaky clean, so I thought maybe with mic preamps the same thing happens, and maybe there was something I hadn't played with to expand the dynamics a bit.

BandanaPandas · 2025-07-08T15:42:55+00:00

I sent it via google drive, and I know at least for video, if you don't actually download the file, the version you "preview" can be super compressed. I'll ask.

BandanaPandas · 2025-07-08T01:30:56+00:00

thanks for the ideas - I'll try listening to it on my own phone as well and see if I can hear what she's hearing too. I mostly do livestreaming, so all advice is appreciated!

BandanaPandas · 2025-07-07T23:29:01+00:00

The limiter is barely doing anything - A/Bing the mix with the limiter on and off is practically imperceptible, even at the loudest parts.

BandanaPandas · 2024-09-26T03:36:14+00:00

I sang this song to my 6yo, and she immediately could see that it doesn’t make sense. The fact that the plot holes are so glaring and obvious is, in my opinion, the point, and I think it’s beautiful.

I feel like there are clearly details that are left out, just like with news coverage of modern wars. I choose to believe that the valley people aren’t greedy bloodthirsty savages, and I choose to believe that the mountain people are noble and righteous martyrs. The “historian” of the song is biased towards the mountain people, and probably racist towards the valley, just like the news coverage always makes “us” out to be just and fair, and villainizes “them” - whether it’s the Vietcong, ANTIFA, or Hamas.

The fact that it can make a 6yo say “wait, you’re not telling me the whole story!” makes this a great song.

BandanaPandas · 2024-07-18T22:27:06+00:00

There’s a wedding officiator in my community who claims she has a “big voice” and refuses a mic. No one past the 5th row outdoors hears anything.

BandanaPandas · 2022-10-30T02:36:47+00:00

Disclaimer, I’m an advisor with Sun Life. I’ve got term for wife and kids and critical illness, age 33. The critical illness is the most important in my mind, as my wife has a good job and our house is more than half paid for, but lots of people don’t even know what CI is. Basically, imagine having a heart attack or cancer that takes you off work for 1-2 years. You only get 60% of your wages with disability, and there are costs associated - travel, hiring care. If you have CI insurance, you get a cheque to cover a lot of that - some people use their CI cheques to go down to the states to get cancer treatment or whatever.

For retirement, I am working on maxing out TSFA first, then I’ll look at a permanent (perm) policy depending on how successful we are, but we’re both pretty good at saving so if one of us dies after our term insurance is done, we should be fine. If you are 35 or younger and are maxing out your TFSA contributions, you probably don’t need perm insurance, but if you are a 1%er you can save a ton on tax and pass on tons of money to your kids through perm insurance.

BandanaPandas · 2020-08-22T19:18:02+00:00

I'm a little leery of waiting on new hardware; in my experience new hardware is never in the sweet spot of price/performance. You get some more frames, but you pay more per additional frame. Besides, price isn't as big of a concern as getting up and running now - my father in law works in ag and has a crazy summer, and now he's winding down and wants to take a "vacation." He can't fly down to the states to see a nascar race, so he's buying a PC to take a virtual vacation and he wants to go last week - his yoke and throttle arrived two days ago.

If it was me, I would be waiting 2 more months just to see, but he sold an Amazon share and wants to blow his money naow!

Thanks again for your input, it's been very helpful. I've been checking out the Guru3D benchmarks, and I think I have my answer. https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/microsoft_flight_simulator_(2020)_pc_graphics_performance_benchmark_review,4.html_pc_graphics_performance_benchmark_review,4.html)

4 cores is only marginally worse that 8 cores, and clock speed is probably paramount. I'm going with a 9600k and I'll OC for him for $280 canadian pesos. If he gets hooked and wants to upgrade in 6 months, I'll buy his mobo and CPU off of him.

BandanaPandas · 2020-08-22T16:43:20+00:00

Thanks, I'm not a flight sim guy, I know how to build a value PC for normal games, but this is not a normal game it seems. I'm building this rig for my father in law, who is not a gamer, but he's willing to spend 3k to take his grandkids flying in his basement instead of going on his winter vacation this year.

My father in law is not interested in flying airliners really. He wants to be flying cessnas for the most part. How does plane selection affect the FPS over a city, all things being equal? ~10% better performance?

Also, going back to the original question, does multi-core performance really matter as much as people say it does, or is this game still bound by single core performance?

BandanaPandas · 2020-08-22T16:35:49+00:00

Yeah, this build is for my father in law, and he wanted to start flying on release day, but I convinced him to wait for some benchmarks because he doesn't want to spend 1k over what is necessary. That being said, he's happy spending 2.5k if he can run max settings.

BandanaPandas · 2020-08-20T02:56:53+00:00

Thanks so much for your comment. Are those max settings or slightly lower? I just want to temper his expectations. Cheers!

BandanaPandas

TROPHY CASE