Budget Options for Recording Orchestras - Part 4: Berlin, Vienna, Sydney etc.

After having a look at recording Orchestras in London/LA which in every regard are the peak of quality that you can buy for money, we're looking at what I would consider as the second row of recording locations today.

My personal experience in this segment includes only recording in Berlin and Sydney but from what I've heard from colleagues, you could also include major cities with great orchestras from the US as well as western European capitals into this list.

However, we still need to distinguish here between recording in the US and outside the US. With many orchestra in the States you still have the strong influence of the Music Union which limits how freely you can overdub or record certain things. In continental Europe, there might be some limitiations set up by orchestras or fixers but there are no general limitation to overdubs etc.

Especially with European orchestras, you might get quite different orchestral sounds which depending on taste might be more to your liking. E.g. German orchestras will play with a special kind of trumpet which sounds a little more full bodied and darker, while Viennese orchestras might have different Horns (Viennese Horns which sound a bit brighter) and some other differences.

So, one deciding factor in such cases might not be so much about price differences but the desire for a specific sound or a distinct dfference from the "Hollywood orchestra sound". Also the preference for a specific Studio might be the reason to chose such a location over London/LA.

From a financial standpoint, these options very often are only slightly cheaper than London/LA.

Here's a specific example where I have recorded quite a few sessions so I can give an informed "review" of it:

Berlin Orchestra, Teldex Studios

Located in my home town Berlin this former Ballroom has become one of the most sought after recording locations after World War II. Its surface area is slightly bigger than Abbey Road Studio One so it can accomodate a large orchestra plus choir at the same time. However the ceiling height is a little lower so it doesn't have quite as much ambience as Abbey Road. The studio is technically state of the art with a wide variety of high end microphones and gear. Also, the engineers working here are multi Grammy Award winners.

For many composers, this studio is well known through the sample packages that Orchestral Tools recorded here.

Personally I like the sound of this studio a lot. It has a phenomenal warm ambience without getting too wet.

The session orchestra that you can book here sources their musicians from the many great orchestras of the city as well as some freelance musicians. There is a very large pool of musicians available in the city including many special instrumentalists.

And while you can get an absolutely wonderful sound out of these musicians in combination with the studio there is one striking difference to my experience in London:

The sight reading abilites. As I mentioned already in my last part, the quality at which musicians in London can sight read is simply mindblowing with getting a useable to very good take usually with the very first run through.

You can match the quality of the end result in Berlin but it takes a bit longer and a few more takes. Musicians in Berlin are more concert musicians who are rehearsing music and less of session musicians. In LA and London there are musicians who do nothing else but play sessions which of course reflects in their ability to pull off virtually anything you put in front of them.

So this is not a judgement of quality here but simply reflects in the structure of the music community in the different cities. Another consequence of this difference is that for some musicians outside of London/LA it might be trickier to understand and reproduce "the film music sound". At Teldex for instance, the brass section very often has members who usually play more Big Band/Jazz to create enough filmic punch from the Brass section in the recordings.

So the bottom line here is that you can get an end result that just sounds as good as London/LA but it takes more time to get to it which eats up the financial advantage. Of course this is a generalized statement and if you are looking to record slow moving string orchestra pieces, the differences in sight reading skills are non existant and it eventually boils down to taste or convenience.

With an exemplary budget of about 15.000 GBP for one session in London with a standard sized orchestra, as already mentioned, Teldex clocks in a little lower than that.

The studio has positioned itself in the same price range as Abbey Road or Air with the difference of price resulting from slightly cheaper musicians.

One (3 hour) session with a compareable line-up in Teldex will cost at around 13.000 Euros which (with currency conversion) is about 20% less.