Massachusetts-based classical music recording and production company Soundmirror recently recorded Santa Fe Opera’s world premiere production of Mason Bates and Mark Campbell’s The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs using Lectrosonics Digital Hybrid Wireless technology.
   

“We used 28 channels of Lectrosonics wireless equipment,” said John Newton, who founded Soundmirror in 1972. “In the case of the principals, who were all double-miked, the transmitters were an LT and an SMQV on each of them. The choir was mostly LTs but also some SMQV transmitters. The microphones in all of those cases were DPA Microphones 4071 lavaliers.” Soundmirror also employed four Lectrosonics Venue2 receivers fitted with six VRT2 modules plus a pair of six-channel Venue receivers fitted with VRT tracking filtered modules for the 28 Lectrosonics wireless channels.

On-site to record the production for release on the Pentatone label were classic music record producer Elizabeth Ostrow alongside Mark Donahue and Dirk Sabotka, Soundmirror’s veteran recording engineers. Massachusetts-based independent wireless specialist David Williams also assisted. The team recorded a total of 88 channels through Merging Technologies Horus and Hapi microphone preamps and converters to a SmartAV Tango control surface and into redundant Merging Pyramix DAWs running at 192 kHz.

“It was a big orchestra in the pit, which we miked as we would any orchestra of that size. We had a row of hanging microphones over the edge of the stage and two rows of mics in the footlights, pairs of shotguns and wide cardioids in five sets. There were some places where we needed a bit more help, and that’s where the Lectrosonics wireless channels came in,” said Newton.