Kelvin the majority of the crowd here serve Churches that are inclined towards praise bands and other electric contemporary worship styles. Classical worship styles using pipe organ, strings, handbells, etc is not their usual Sunday experience.
I deal with a similar repertoire and mix of young to very mature, trained to untrained voices you are dealing with every Sunday. The first thing is to determine the priorities for micing the choir. IE Do they need substantial reinforcement to fill the room first, with feeds for cry room, recording, etc secondary or are they able to fill the room adequately and the primary need is cry room, recording etc. If you don't need substantial reinforcement ditch the booms in favor of mics hung high and out from the choir and then assign them as needed.
Second you have one real problem soprano that needs to be tactfully told to stop shouting and/or be moved out of pattern, listen to 3:45 to the end of the other video you have posted.
Third, which MB1255 capsules do you have? Cardioid or hypercardioid?
If you need substantial reinforcement and you have HC capsules try positioning your mini-booms two to three feet in front of the group and as high as they will go. My ears tell me they exhibit a fairly true tight conical pickup pattern at the distances we are talking about so creating a pickup pattern with purposeful nulls and then placing voices, that can not or will not be tamed in the corners is my favorite strategy. Visualize shining two spot lights on the center row of the choir positioned so that the people at the ends of the middle row(s) are just being lit, and the two spots are just touching in the center There will be four dark out side corners, one for each section, plus slightly less dark areas at the center of the front and rear rows. Once you get the choir director onboard (s)he can move members who struggle with pitch, are prone to shouting, into an appropriate location for the best mix without any feelings getting hurt.
Bob, Dick,
Thanks for the reply's. We have a praise band as well, in that setting it's easier to deal with and balance the range of voice.
The choir fills the space fairly well, a little reinforcement does help make a fuller sound, especially in the back corners of the sanctuary. It is a church choir so the makeup varies a lot from week to week, some weeks they need more assistance then others. The mixes for outside of the sanctuary and recording are getting more attention these days but there is never enough rehearsals or time to optimize those mixes beforehand so it gets done live, on the fly.
I've stayed with the booms because very shortly, (the next 3-4 months) the pipe organ pipes will be behind and above the choir. I'm concerned that if I hang the mics too high above the choir I'll just be hearing organ when it accompanies the choir. I'm pretty close on the 3:1 ratio, maybe a bit close, I think I will try to move the booms slightly higher and see how that goes.
The MB1255 capsules are the cardioid version. I've considered going to just one mic, maybe off centered slightly away from the more "dynamic" voices.
I find it much easier to deal with the hardware than I do people. Before getting involved with church sound most of my time behind the board was for bluegrass bands. For some of those voice the only real fix is the mute button, but it's hard to mute just the wayward soprano in the middle of the choir.
The choir director works very hard to find a place for almost anyone that wants to participate and create a joyful atmosphere. So I don't think we will every get away from the "diversity" of voices that makes this a challenge.
