Most conservatory, college and young artist training program applications require a demo recording of your singing. You'll be granted an audition solely on the strength of your demo, so it's important to make the strongest impression you can. I recently spoke with Jeremy Gerard of Gurari Studios about what singers should keep in mind when producing their demo, as well as his recent transition from working out of his own studio to taking up residence at Opera America's National Opera Center.
Jeremy got his start in the business as a teenager working in some of the big studios in New York City; he also owned a live sound reinforcement company and was the house engineer for Cicero's Nightclub in St. Louis where he worked with such acts as Matthew Sweet, the Cranberries, Alex Chilton, Flock of Seagulls, Bella Fleck and Michael Hedges. As a classically trained tenor, his first love has always been opera, so when he established his own recording studio 15 years ago he designed the space and chose equipment with classical singing in mind. Not all recording studios are well-equipped to record classical vocal demos, and I knew Jeremy's background would make him a good source of information about the particular needs of opera singers.
The first step is to choose a studio equipped with a recently-tuned grand piano and an engineer who has plenty of experience recording opera singers. "It's an art in itself to record them properly," Jeremy explained. "You don't want to go to a studio that primarily does rock and jazz recordings, because they're going to mic the singer very close, usually just a couple of inches off the mic. Opera singers cannot be miked that way. The SPL, or sound pressure level, being emitted from the mouth can cause distortion in the microphone or the preamps." Additionally, the right amount of "air" between the singer and the microphone is essential to give it a classical sound. A studio that specializes in rock "just doesn't know how to capture a classical voice in the right light." Their engineers also may not be used to reading music, which can cause a variety of problems.
Studios catering to electronic music are usually designed to be a completely dead space, and that doesn't work well for classical singers. If you're accustomed to performing in a resonant concert hall, a room that provides no resonance or feedback will likely make you start pushing on your voice. Jeremy's old studio incorporated sound diffusors to create a more live, resonant sound in the relatively small room he was recording in. That way, the singer gets some nice feedback from the room they're recording in. They will be far less likely to feel like they've got to compensate for a small, dry room.
It's great if you have the opportunity to record your demo in an actual concert hall, but you still need an engineer who understands how to mic classical voices as well as being skilled in taking advantage of the fact that you're in a bigger space. Jeremy enjoys the challenge of capturing the environment: "I'll put up room mics to capture the actual hall sounds, at a distance generally equivalent to halfway between the singer and the end of the hall, but I'll also spot-mic the singer and the pianist. Even in the hall, I'll later need to add some digital reverb but it will be a lot less than in a studio environment because I have the actual reflections occurring in the hall mic."
The state-of-the-art acoustics in the Recital Hall at the National Opera Center, where he now does most of his recording, make his job a lot easier. "This is a world-class space. It's a floating structure, so it's completely sound-proof… The Recital Hall was designed by one of the premiere acousticians in the country, Robert Mahoney, so it's acoustically quite perfect. There are no parallel surfaces and there's a swooping ceiling; there are no standing waves so you don't get any flutter echo. A number of schools and young artist programs have begun asking singers for video demos, so another advantage of recording in the Recital Hall is its built-in video capability and theatrical lighting. You can easily capture high-quality video while recording your demo and then have it synced up with the audio, with very little additional set-up time.
The facilities that Jeremy has at his disposal are pretty ideal. Now that such technology is available, hopefully many other studios and performance venues will rise to this standard, but for a while it may admittedly be difficult to find depending on your location.
Still, I encourage you to record your demo under the best conditions you are able to arrange. When you're exploring options, you'll inevitably find cheaper offers and/or wonder why you shouldn't just do it yourself with a digital recorder in a good-sized room. Make the investment to do it right. The people who screen your demo will be comparing you with other highly talented singers who made this investment, and next to the polish characteristic of a professionally-mastered demo, your home-made or poorly engineered recording will simply be that much less competitive.
A few more words of advice for a successful recording session:
- Choose short pieces for your recording. It's fatiguing to do multiple takes of long selections, and they'll be more costly to edit. Panels will often only listen to the first minute or two of each selection anyway.
- Even if your demo must include five or more pieces, plan to record a maximum of three or four selections per session. It may seem more economical to cram everything into a single session, but the results will suffer if your voice gives out.
- Schedule your session long enough before application deadlines so your engineer has enough time to edit and master everything. Ideally, leave yourself enough time that if you need to record something over again, you can still make the deadline.
- Always bring extra copies of your scores for the engineer. Set up your own music (and your pianist's) to minimize noisy page turns.
- Dress comfortably, and don't wear anything that makes noise (jewelry, etc.)
- Take breaks when you need them. You may feel pressured to maximize the time you've allotted for the recording session, but if you give yourself adequate time to rest you will need to record fewer takes.
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