Any suggestions on recording vocals to enhance very small choir?

So this is a quartet (four voices) and you have four inputs (mics and interface inputs)?
 
How many vocalists would you prefer?
 
Are you able to set up a headphone mixer (and would the vocalists be able to sing with playback from headphones) instead of monitors? I'm assuming that this probably is not possible but I'm asking anyway.
 
First off... the version of Melodyne included with Sonar is not capabably of polyphony detection so if you just recorded the room you could not isolate each voice and correct/pitch adjust to acheive virtual harmonies. The full version can though and you qualify for an upgrade discount.
 
Let's assume you can't upgrade for now.
 
If the vocalists are able to perform more than one part (like all the harmonies) then I'd try close micing them all singing at the same time with the singers and mics spaced far apart enough to avoid bleed but that they could still hear each other (so they can still harmonize).
 
Then play back that track (preferably through headphones but if not at LOW volume in the monitors pointed AWAY from the mics... just enough so they can hook into the pitch and timing or set up maybe ONE headphone to one vocalist who acts as the guideline to the rest).
 
In that playback the vocalists then sing the missing harmonies. So now instead of 4 vocals you have 8 all close mic'd.
 
Do that as many times as you need to get all the appropriate voices in your harmony.
 
Since it is all close mic'd you can then use the basic version of Melodyne to pitch/timing correct each individual mic'd performance as needed.
 
If using monitors the mic bleed is an issue though but that may be able to be dealt with with some creative EQing/gating/editing.
If they perform in time/on pitch, every time though the monitor sound may just blend in nicely as ambience.
 
Then using a reverb VST you can create a "virtual room mic" setup to make up for the lack of actual room mics.
 
/not a pro... just some ideas based on my minimal knowledge

Hmmmm....    Something to think about.   you have good food for thought.    I have until Wednesday to get some things together.   I do have a headphone amp and may be able to gather a few extra headphones.
 
Will also need to lay down their parts at a set tempo to have something to build on later.l
 
Thanks for the suggestions.

When I record a small choir I usually take a 4-6 mic approach.  Stereo main pair, 2 or 3 spots depending on the width of the group and if it is in a good church, a distant pair so I don't need to use reverb.  Doing this 3 tier approach can make 4 musicians sound like 12.  
 
The problem in this situation is SM58s will not cut it.  Those are live voice mics and rarely suitable to record acoustic music with any quality.  
 
If you are recording Handel or any other Baroque, classical etc music there are a few general rules to follow, regardless of the type of ensemble.
1)Work with stereo pairs of the best possible mics you can get your hands on such as condensers or good ribbon, no mono tracks except for spotting.
2)Musicians should all perform together, never at different times or isolated.
3)Record in the natural performance environment.  If you need a headphone mix of the accompaniment which was recorded separately, you're gonna need enough cans for everyone, including a mix of their voices.  
 
I know you probably want to do it yourself, but it might be a good idea to seek out an engineer or student engineer in your area who might have some good condensers and a few more tracks to work with.

I'd be very wary about recording too much room reverb, or adding any reverb at all.

If the recordings are to provide backing for live performances rather than release as recordings, then any reverb on those recordings is going to be present when they are played back, obviously. So any reverb on the recording will then be subjected to the natural reverb of the performance room in the same way that the live voices are. With the result that the reverb will build up on the recorded voices in a different way to the live voices, unless a similar reverb effect can be added to the live to that already present on the recording. In a very live room things could get a bit out of control and intelligibility suffer. Probably wouldn't be a very natural sound either.

In my opinion/experience reverb on tracks used as live backing is best avoided if you want an natural sound. Reverb applied as a deliberate effect is a different matter of course. Dry recordings can always have reverb added, removing recorded reverb can be impossible.

As well as pitch-shifting the backing tracks, it might be worth simply trying eqing them so they don't match the voice that recorded them. Or trying a wet-only chorus with low depth and a slow lfo speed, or something like Waves Reel ADT which as well as the Beatle's fake double tracking can also do subtle very well and is a true "through zero" process that can shift the "doubled" sound ahead of as well as behind the original. Waves Doubler is cheaper and can do a similar trick but is far less subtle for some reason.

Finally, if possible keep the tracks as individual ones rather than mixing to stereo/mono and play them back from a DAW in performance. Otherwise you might well find different performance spaces need different treatment of each voice, but your backing is fixed and can't easily be eq'd or balanced to suit.

This may be off topic, but when my daughter learns choir parts, I make a midi version of the song and bounce it with her part pronounced and loud so she can practice singing the right tones. You can easily bounce a different version for each member and record them singing along to the midi parts. Then drop out the midi stuff and you're left with a fun recording.

I think you've received much better recording advice for this music from the others (who are experienced in such things... everything I said was purely theoretical guesswork) but they may have indeed glossed over the need for 4 vocalists to cover material written for much more vocalists (like harmonies, group vocals, etc).
 
Not entirely though. They allude to ways to get those extra harmonies and doubles in there.
 
It's a shame to waste a good natural cathedral recording environment but since you are going to be layering performances a dry/small room/close mic recordings of each vocalist performing differnt parts and/or using pitch shifting to create the harmonies, to me, would be a more flexible and manageable approach. Note: If the vocalists can record the extra parts properly it would be way better than pitch shifting.
 
Harmonies are recorded like this all the time for commercial stuff using a single vocalist (I've done it myself back when I actually recorded my own vocals). With close micing in a dry(er) room, layering the parts/harmonies with multiple passes (and making sure to get multiple takes) you can do a ton of stuff in post production.
 
With just that you can correct the individual close mic'd takes as needed and then add virtual room reverb to mimic the cathedral.
 
Then maybe do some takes of the whole choir IN the Cathedral to blend in... or maybe even start with those as bed tracks for the dry close mic recordings for your singers to track to. So record the whole group in the cathedral together, maybe with more of a room mic set up for a couple takes/harmony variations. Then record each singer close mic's in a dryer environment (like a smaller room or in isolation one at a time).
 
Use the cathedral recording as a reference to the room sound and go through the mountains of convolution reverbs (or just tweak non convo reverbs/delays to match it as best as possible) then blend it all to taste.
 
If you get all the parts, in time, in all these various configurations you can do pretty much anything you want in post production.
 
Another thing to consider is maybe if your mics aren't all the same then try switching around the mics between the vocalists to get a take of each singer on each mic which might provide some nice variation for group vocal dynamics (like the same part sung multiple times through different mics mic give the illusion of more/different singers instead of the same singer through the same mic every time).
 
Panning/EQ/chorus and stereo effects can help fill out the "full" choir sound as well (again something that can be played with in post prod if you have enough takes from everyone).
 
Using pitch correction/humanization on the same tracks to acheive the choir effect really isn't going to be as good as actually getting the singers to perform the doubles/harmonies so get as many as you can.
 
Sounds like you may only have access to them for brief time (which is usually the case with live tracking) so do what you can with the artists while you have them. If some have to leave but others can stick around (or maybe you can get extra sessions with anyone later) just keep going until throats are raw or it's time for nature to take over (food/sleep/etc).
 
Again... just some THEORETICAL thoughts from a non pro.
 
The other fellows who have commenting have actually recorded this type of stuff so pay close attention to the techniques they described to actually capture the sound.
 
Cheers and have fun.
 
Edit: and yes... tlw was totally rocking the concept. He's a smart dude.

http://stabilitynetwork.blob.core.windows.net/g-tunes/20120916_G_DayByDay.mp3
 
This was one of these recordings I mentioned above.

GSWITZ....
These are a couple of the recordings from that session...
http://stabilitynetwork.blob.core.windows.net/g-tunes/20141130_David_18.mp3
http://stabilitynetwork.blob.core.windows.net/g-tunes/20141130_David_20.mp3
 
Nice work...  Speaking of Laser Beam Sopranos....     ahhhhh!   
Send me a private note ----  who and where is this?
 
Wayne

Interesting stuff in the above posts and nice MP3's.
 
That's the inherent problem in a church band, orchestra, choir..... people always coming and going.  Kids leave to go to college just as they are really getting good at what they do, old folks retiring or moving.... it's a constant and ongoing struggle for the music ministers in modern churches.
 
The obvious solution to the small 4 voice choir is of course to recruit more people who can hold a tune to join.  Barring that, there is an amazing amount of ground, musically speaking, that can be covered by 4 voices.  Much of the modern church's  music can easily be covered with 4 or less voices. However, that also involves the use of musical instruments. Since the 2 mp3's you posted were examples of straight up vocal choir with no instruments...I'm guessing it's a safe assumption that the mp3's represent the sound you are trying to achieve. If you're going for the classic large choir singing without musical accompaniment , that really does need more bodies on the platform, singing the parts. You have no choice but to get busy recruiting more folks to join the fun. I think it would be less work on everyone involved to get more folks. Asking the existing volunteers to spend the time to learn 2 different parts (or more) and record them..... or for you to try to use Melodyne to create the tracks will end badly.... you're headed for a fast burnout from either the choir members or you from being overworked. Most folks have a limited amount of time to devote to volunteer projects such as choir.
 
While it is possible to create vocal backing tracks to double or triple the number of voices, I would stay away from using melodyne to transpose them into harmony parts.  For one, that's a huge amount of work on everyone as I pointed out.  Second, when you start moving tones more than a whole step as you would likely be doing to create harmony parts, you will start to notice the artifacts. IHMO, it's better to run with 4 voices singing solid parts than to try to emulate a larger choir filled with artifacts.  Third, using tracks "locks you in" to a particular performance. You can't easily vary or extend the song if "the spirit moves" you to do so. ( not that choirs tend to "wing it" often)
 
So, that's just my 2 cents on the topic.
 
Recruit, Rebuild, Rejoice.

Guitar Hacker,  Oh,  I'm sorry,  no...  We're doing nothing like that -   the sound I'm trying to achieve is a chorus from the Messiah.  Baroque and contrapuntal in nature.  typically performed with 8 -16 people with the theme constantly presented in one part or another with a lot of inverted harmonies.    All of parts have solo lines that thread in and out meeting in 4 voice cadences,  and it's not quite as difficult as it "sounds".   
 
It's one of those works that stays with you like riding a bicycle.