Once again we invited the Peasall Family to come lead worship at Brookwood Church, which is becoming a yearly tradition. The ensemble is made up of sisters Sarah, Hannah, and Leah, along with brother, Joseph, and father Michael.
In the past I have just put SM58s on all the vocals but decided to play around this year and take advantage of the acoustic setup by trying out some different capsules. I put the Audio-Technica T-5400a on Sarah at lead vocals. The T-5400a is becoming a favorite of mine for female vocals because it delivers a nice, smooth range with it’s condenser capsule tailored after the classic 4050 studio mic.
For Leah, I chose the Shure KSM-9 capsule. Styled after the Neumann KMS-105 capsule, the KSM-9 is a great choice for soprano vocalists because of it’s naturally open and crisp top end. This mic can be used on male vocals too but I definitely prefer it on females.
For both Hannah and Michael, I chose the Heil RC-35 which, unlike the previously mentioned capsules, is a dynamic capsule. In retrospect, I should have tried the Telefunken M-80 capsule we have on Hannah. Since she has a darker tone and tends to sing at the bottom of her range, the M-80 would have naturally helped pull out a little more of the lower-mids in her voice that made her sound a bit woofy at first. This capsule has helped us on our main worship pastor Steve Smith, who also has a lot of lower mids in his voice.
Although both Hannah’s mandolin and Sarah’s acoustic guitar were connected via Radial JDI Direct Boxes, Leah’s fiddle does not have a pickup on it. For small stringed instruments such as violins and violas, I always turn to small, lavalier sized condensers such as the Crown GLM-200 which we have at Brookwood. We have fashioned a rigid yet flexible mount for this mic that allows it to be clipped onto the bridge of the instrument and sit right above the strings, without being in the way of the bow.
The other featured instruments include our Roland Digital Piano, which has direct, line level XLR outs, an acoustic bass, which I connected via a Countryman Type 85 Direct Box, and an electric guitar amp, which was covered by a Shure SM57.
Here are some other shots from the day.
