I’m very lucky to have the opportunity to record and Audio Drama as part of a college project, written and directed by my partner. And Audio Drama or Radio Play present an excellent intersection to play in of spoken word, sound design, and music.
We recorded in Studio 2 of Riverside Music College, with our cast sat opposing eachother. I assembled the studio, positioning three acoustic screens around where our cast would sit across from each other at a table. The screens helped to deaden the room, which is not specifically designed for multi-cast spoken-word production. I chose SM58s to spot-mic the performers; the 58 was chosen for its sensitivity to the human voice, while maintaining excellent opposite-axis reflection: ideal for our cast being sat opposite each other. The reduced sensitivity compared to a condenser microphone was more forgiving to the room, and the tonality of the microphone can be seen to have that ‘SM7B’ warmth.
Some minor technical issues which frustrated the recording process were present at the start of the day. Channel 5 of the desk was patched over to another channel, which I hadn’t noticed until troubleshooting other aspects of the signal flow (cable, microphone, etc). Something to add to my list of checks to start the day. Eventually I just moved the input up a dozen channels and that bypassed the issue. Frustrating how this kind of back-and-forth troubleshooting can make you feel (and look) significantly less professional.
From the second take onwards, I inserted the KT 1176 compressors on the vocals. It became quickly apparent the dynamics of the performance — intimate dialogue followed closely by full-volume shouting — necessitated this step. I didn’t notice any signal-to-noise issues during that first take, but I felt having the compressor there to contain that dynamic range would be better.
I was surprised on listening back to that first take the day after how shockingly clean the signal was. Knowing how little needs to be pushed into the AMEK Mozart pre-amps for such a clean signal is a good thing to be aware of, and makes me more confident of a gentler input stage in the future.
Overall, three primary start-to-finish takes were conducted, with the director giving notes in between. Minor repositioning of the microphone was done after a ‘soundcheck’ of one of the more intense scenes. Several lines were retaken at the end of the process, as well as extra lines from a fourth character from the start of the play.
I’m very happy with the performances captured and the end-product so far. I need to arrange a day with the Director to go through the various takes (as they’re all well-recorded) to make decisions on performances.
I’ve still to record and source some sound effects, and organise the music.