Topic: Taping Really close to the stacks?

[Colin Liston]

I am gonna try to run my mics (4023's) about 4' from each stack at a Drive By Truckers show.  Anyone know if this will be to loud?
Will I be able to turn the preamp down enough so I don't overload?

thanks
colin

[Rick]

I ran my MK4s about 10 feet from right "stack" about a week ago and I had to use no gain on my SX-M2 and was down to 5 on my SBM. And the show wasn't even that loud.

be careful

[Teen Age Riot]

I'm a die-hard stack-taper, and I'm still suprised what ridiculous levels my mics can take. I got low frequency distortion/brickwalling a couple of times in extremely loud situations, but I don't think it was because of the mics. I once managed to overload the line-in of my stock SBM1 with DPA4060's. This was a festival and I was in front of the subs. oops. The loudest show I ever taped was Queens of the Stone Age. Again, first row, less than a meter from the stack, with CSB's going line-in to SBM1. No distortion at all. Just lots of bass that I could reduce after the fact.

I'd say your 4023's can take it. Just watch whatever else you have in the signal chain. I've never seen a DBT show, but if they do pump up the bass a lot, it might be a good idea to have a bass roll-off of some kind. My 2 cents....

[Tim]

according to the specs on dpa's website the 4023's can take 145db spl.

I don't think I would run that close to a stack, first I think you run the risk of overloading your mics and/or your pre. second pa speakers are not full range so you will be close micing most likely a mid-hi cabinet, so depending on where the clubs crossover is set you're not going to capture the lowend.

I'd back off a little bit

also, what pre are you using?

[neutrino]

For the sake of argument, what's the point of running 4023's that close to the stack? I would think the whole purpose of running a cardiod mic is that you could distance yourself from the source while achieving an up-close reproduction.

[Colin Liston]

I'll be running either 4023's > ad1000, or 4023's > psp3>ad1000.

Why run that close?  Just because I can I guess.  I've always wanted to and the club the Freebird will let me.
And I figure it will sound really good. 

You guys are killing my dream!

But please keep giving me some helpful info!

colin

[Tim]

I think, if the tapes were not distorted, they would be very bright

[Teen Age Riot]

You guys are killing my dream!

Well, I'm not! Give it a try, and see if you like the results. Sound will be brighter, but that can be a good thing, too.

[Tim]

find out what the crossover point is on the mid-hi cabs and the subs, I've worked in clubs where the crossover was around 500hz for the sub....

just to give you an idea of what that might mean in practical terms...

here are some general frequency ranges as they apply to sound reinforcement or reproduction
Low bass <50Hz
Mid bass - 50Hz-100Hz
Upper bass - 100Hz-200Hz
Lower mids - 200-400Hz
Midrange - 400-1600Hz

I'm not telling you not to try it, just giving a few words of caution

[Colin Liston]

just to give you an idea of what that might mean in practical terms...

here are some general frequency ranges as they apply to sound reinforcement or reproduction
Low bass <50Hz
Mid bass - 50Hz-100Hz
Upper bass - 100Hz-200Hz
Lower mids - 200-400Hz
Midrange - 400-1600Hz

I'm not telling you not to try it, just giving a few words of caution

I have no idea what this means?  What should I be worried about? 

colin

[Tim]

the speakers you will be taping off of will probably not be reproducing any info below 500 or 600hz

a kickdrum's fundamentals are from 30-147hz... completely outside the range of the speaker you will me micing
a bass guitar's fundamentals are from 41-300hz.... completely outside the range of the speaker you will me micing
electric guitar's fundamentals are from 82-1300hz... a significant portion will be outside the range of the speaker
good portions of the voices will not be reproduced, as well as the snare drum and the toms...

findamentals are the lowest frequencies of instruments... the harmonics of the instruments will be within the frequency range of the speaker but you will be sacrificing a significant portion of the lowend in your tapes...

hope that helps...

[Tim]

it means,.. that the pa stack that you plan to tape, (a speaker, at that close of a distance), might only be a small part of the whole sound, and that you might be missing the entire bottom end, and some of the mids.

what he said...

[Charlies]

I'd go for it! For a moe. show (admittedly not the loudest of bands, but it was sure as hell loud enough that earplugs were a necessity) last Fall I ran ck62s->JKlabs pre (@ 0-6db gain)->modsbm1 literally within 3 inches of some stacks.  If you are looking for a soundboard-type sound, I'd say do it! If it is a vertical stack, and you think the bass will overload any of your gear, consider moving your mics higher in relation to the stack, so you will get more mids and highs and less lows.  Same concept for a horizontal "stacks" (figure out where they have concentrated the bass and move a bit away from that box and nearer to the other boxes) (with both vertical and horizontal spreads, I've found that there generally is some bass coming out of all boxes in the stack, but with the bass really concentrated in one or more of the bigger boxes; setting up in the middle of the smaller boxes therefore does not necessarily mean that you will end up with a tape that is bass heavy in one channel).

And why wouldn't someone use cards in that situation? This would certainly be preferable over hypers as far as frequency response and *could be* preferable to omnis if drunken idiots were a factor.

My two cents...good luck!

[Charlies]

the speakers you will be taping off of will probably not be reproducing any info below 500 or 600hz

a kickdrum's fundamentals are from 30-147hz... completely outside the range of the speaker you will me micing
a bass guitar's fundamentals are from 41-300hz.... completely outside the range of the speaker you will me micing
electric guitar's fundamentals are from 82-1300hz... a significant portion will be outside the range of the speaker
good portions of the voices will not be reproduced, as well as the snare drum and the toms...

findamentals are the lowest frequencies of instruments... the harmonics of the instruments will be within the frequency range of the speaker but you will be sacrificing a significant portion of the lowend in your tapes...

hope that helps...

Moke and Tim,

Wondering, so if that happens in this situation, what happens when you're way back in the section? (It's hard to believe there's any meaningful difference in loss being in front of a stack or being in the back in the section. Seems to me that you'd lose it being anywhere but when you're taping the stage.)  Also, I forget, how low do normal cards go (since that's what he'll be using)?  Thanks.

[Tim]

the dpa's go 40hz-20khz.... many other mics go from 20hz-20khz

when you are further back from the speakers you will be hearing the full frequency range of the PA system... 

a typical concert pa is reproducing 40hz-15khz..... maybe a touch lower and a touch higher but that's a safe range. from there the speakers are split into 3 different ranges...

the subs reproduce 40hz-500hz or so
the mids reproduce 500hz-4khz
the hi's reproduce 4khz-15khz

edit to add: the subs are always in their own cabinet, generally the mids and the hi's share one cabinet

so when you mic a cabinet that only has a mid and a hi in it you are only going to be recording 500hz-15khz, meanwhile the pa is reproducing 40hz-15khz.... when you are out in the room you hear a blend off all 3 speaker types, when you close mic a cabinet you won't be getting anything but the frequency range of that speaker.

does that make sense?

edit to add, the above frequencies are just used for an example, in real life each club and each pa system will be a little different...