Topic: On stage mic positioning?

[Nick's Picks]

hmmm...that was about my best offering Chris.

My perspective is a little different because I was there, and the recording recreates the layout of the stage perfectly (the 24/96 copy is sick).  Images wonderfully.  I guess I am not putting the same emphasis on balance and presentation/tone as you.  for me, its recreating it as I remember it, and this is right on.  But, to each their own.  I'd rather be recording un-amplified music anyway.
how about this, which i've always enjoyed. check d1t1
http://www.archive.org/details/skb2004-02-28.flac16
now this is a PA recording in a full room (maybe 400? in a long, bent rectangle shaped room).  The PA consisted of these two huge walls of speaker cabs.  closing the triangle between those stacks put the stage wayyy off center from where we ended up planting a stand.
Its not perfect or anything, but I've enjoyed it.

[Church-Audio]

I am not saying recording from a stage can not yield a good tape but its never going to be as good as the best out front mix.. Thats All I am saying

[Nick's Picks]

likely true..but i'd prefer to tape on stage or at the lip any way.

[Church-Audio]

likely true..but i'd prefer to tape on stage or at the lip any way.

Its a very different sound that I think does translate better with headphones then speakers its almost binaural in nature. When I listened to the tracks that some of you pointed me too I first listened thru speakers then I tried headphones and the balance while still not perfect was better and things made more sense to me in the perspective of the sound stage... Does that make any sense is that how you see it?

[Shawn]

I am not saying recording from a stage can not yield a good tape but its never going to be as good as the best out front mix.. Thats All I am saying

as far as mix goes you are correct, but in almost every other aspect that matters an on-stage tape will sound better. here is a much better example of an on stage tape being superior to a section tape. Grider taped on stage, and I taped from "the section" which was in the back of the room, and I was surrounded by chatty people. Just listen to the first tune.

My source from the section: http://www.archive.org/details/soulive2006-06-18.adktl.flac16
Chris Grider's source on stage: http://www.archive.org/details/soulive2006-06-17.flac16

What did you hear? I'll tell you what I heard... Grider's tape has an amazing stereo image, and mine doesn't. Griders tape has a much cleaner low end than mine. grider's tape has less people talking, which becomes more obvious by the end of the show.  Grider's tape doesn't reflect the fact that this room sounds pretty bad and mine does. What does my tape have over grider's???  a slightly better mix. I'd take his any day over mine, and in fact after I uploaded his I seriously contemplated taking mine down because his is superior in almost every way. Grider talked me out of it though because multiple sources are always nice.

(I  f'ed up the date on my archive upload... so it's different than grider's, but it's the same show)

[Shawn]

oh... and +T to everyone for keeping the discussion civil and not -t'ing everyone to death. It's nice to see people disagreeing without things devolving like so often happens on other forums.

[gratefulphish]

I am not saying recording from a stage can not yield a good tape but its never going to be as good as the best out front mix.. Thats All I am saying

I am jumping into this discussion a little late, and I heartily agree and disagree with various aspects of different posts.  I think that Chris' quote above actually sums it up pretty accurately.  I also love to tape on stage, but preferably behind the monitors under just about any situation.  If it is a non-vocal band, a la Kimock and many others, with good mic placement, you can produce phenomenal tapes, with instrumental clarity, along with lack of audience noise, room boom, breaking bottles, etc.   If you happen to be fortunate enough to be in a great club, with an excellent PA, and a great sound engineer, and there is an ideal taping location available, you can hoist your mics, and the crowd is somewhat respectful of the music, then yes, this could well be the dream tape.  Unfortunately, I am not usually at these shows.  Many PAs are lame to downright awful, with say a nice buzz coming through one channel.  Too many sound engineers are just plain deaf, and as far as I can tell, can barely distinguish between various high frequency sounds and balance them in the mix.  Many smaller rooms are iffy at best, too narrow, poor PA placement, or limitations on where tapers can set up.  I am not talking about a high quality room here, but a lot of run of the mill rooms, in which many of the small to mid-range drawing bands play.  In those rooms, with an instrumental band, you will find my stand front and center.   In a GREAT room (wishing there were more here) I will agree with Chris. 

I also would like to comment about one of my pet peeves about on-stage taping, which is mic placement.  Dead center is just not the answer for every band, and people seem to slavishly want to get out a tape measure to plant their stands there, no matter what.  If there is a big drum kit in front of you, on a shallow stage, then the drummer is going to love your tape, but not too many others will.  Many times, the stand needs to be moved left or right to ensure that the drums or bass don't completely drown out the other instruments.  Since every band sets up differently, you really need to survey the situation, and place your mics accordingly.  Rant over.

[Shawn]

good point about mic placement. I would say that when taping on stage mic placement is just as important as when you are AUD taping.

[Church-Audio]

I am not saying recording from a stage can not yield a good tape but its never going to be as good as the best out front mix.. Thats All I am saying

I am jumping into this discussion a little late, and I heartily agree and disagree with various aspects of different posts.  I think that Chris' quote above actually sums it up pretty accurately.  I also love to tape on stage, but preferably behind the monitors under just about any situation.  If it is a non-vocal band, a la Kimock and many others, with good mic placement, you can produce phenomenal tapes, with instrumental clarity, along with lack of audience noise, room boom, breaking bottles, etc.   If you happen to be fortunate enough to be in a great club, with an excellent PA, and a great sound engineer, and there is an ideal taping location available, you can hoist your mics, and the crowd is somewhat respectful of the music, then yes, this could well be the dream tape.  Unfortunately, I am not usually at these shows.  Many PAs are lame to downright awful, with say a nice buzz coming through one channel.  Too many sound engineers are just plain deaf, and as far as I can tell, can barely distinguish between various high frequency sounds and balance them in the mix.  Many smaller rooms are iffy at best, too narrow, poor PA placement, or limitations on where tapers can set up.  I am not talking about a high quality room here, but a lot of run of the mill rooms, in which many of the small to mid-range drawing bands play.  In those rooms, with an instrumental band, you will find my stand front and center.   In a GREAT room (wishing there were more here) I will agree with Chris. 

I also would like to comment about one of my pet peeves about on-stage taping, which is mic placement.  Dead center is just not the answer for every band, and people seem to slavishly want to get out a tape measure to plant their stands there, no matter what.  If there is a big drum kit in front of you, on a shallow stage, then the drummer is going to love your tape, but not too many others will.  Many times, the stand needs to be moved left or right to ensure that the drums or bass don't completely drown out the other instruments.  Since every band sets up differently, you really need to survey the situation, and place your mics accordingly.  Rant over.

I think when your trying to capture sound off the stage you need to think like a 50's studio engineer where do I put my single mic so I can capture as much of this band as I can approach. And you are 100% correct dead center is not exactly where the mics should be it really does depend on what the stage plot ( position of the musicians ) is like. In the olden days For bluegrass as an example musicians would move in and out of the mic zone as there solos came up or when they were singing harmonies. There is a real lost art to the true balance of sounds coming from a stage and we can thank monitors for that I think its a shame that most bands do not have a good stage balance it seems to me now its more about a volume war then anything.. I wish would could get back to the days were drummers did not beat the shit out of there symbols and played with a true balance.

I have said this to many bands that had a shit balance on stage mix your selves up here they way you want to be mixed out front and you will have a good sound. Play as loud as you can because you can and 9x out of 10 it will sound like a bag of crap. Now with super loud sound systems as a live sound engineer the stage volume is not a problem they can be as loud as they want and I can still go over top of it. The main problem with this is 95db what I consider to be comfortable is no longer the norm its now more like 105 to 110db from the stage before the PA is even on! When I worked with April Wine the stage volume was about 115db I had at one time on the lead singer 5 monitors each one consisting of 2x 12 inch and one 2 inch horn there was about 5,000 watts of monitors just around the lead singer it was so loud then when I checked his mic my ears would shut down... This is where our balance has gone. And this is why for most shows unless its just a instrumental thing its very hard to get a good stage tape.

[grider]

I  believe your biggest concern when taping from stage or stage lip has got to be pa mic'ing; if one or more of the instruments is mic'ed only through the house pa, such as vocals, and the pa amplification cannot be captured from that close mic placement, its not going to work; another concern must be mic'ing too close to percussions or cymbals for example, or mic'ing too close to the wedge or on-stage amps which can bleed directly into your mics; assuming that you can successfully tape from stage or stage lip, and make a quality recording, I just eyeball it after that, if its a small band or a small stage I run DIN, if its a wide stage or a larger more spriead out group of instruments and musicians I go with ORTF, and I try to fly my mics about waist height; and a crucial detail I have learned the hard way is to run cards not hypers, cards have no rear lobe and will not pick up sound behind the mics to the degree that hypers will since hypers have a rear lobe pick up pattern; when taped successfully from the stage or stage lip, recordings blow everything else away easily, good luck

[grider]

an example of what I find to be an example of on stage recording at its finest, stream from archive.org the Lotus show from 10-21-05, its like being in the front row at the show

[Church-Audio]

an example of what I find to be an example of on stage recording at its finest, stream from archive.org the Lotus show from 10-21-05, its like being in the front row at the show

I am not a member can you send me a bit of the file??

[Church-Audio]

no membership necessary

I think this is the recording that he suggests:
http://www.archive.org/details/lotus2005-10-21.481

Thanks got it...

[Church-Audio]

an example of what I find to be an example of on stage recording at its finest, stream from archive.org the Lotus show from 10-21-05, its like being in the front row at the show

Hi I listened to it not bad but still no where as good as a good front of house mix sorry..... But it is one of the better recordings I have heard I find again the bass is too boomy I can hear the ugly 125 to 150 resonation of the stage.. And the guitar is again to loud in the mix... IMO.

Chris Church

[gratefulphish]

I  believe your biggest concern when taping from stage or stage lip has got to be pa mic'ing; if one or more of the instruments is mic'ed only through the house pa, such as vocals, and the pa amplification cannot be captured from that close mic placement, its not going to work; another concern must be mic'ing too close to percussions or cymbals for example, or mic'ing too close to the wedge or on-stage amps which can bleed directly into your mics; assuming that you can successfully tape from stage or stage lip, and make a quality recording, I just eyeball it after that, if its a small band or a small stage I run DIN, if its a wide stage or a larger more spriead out group of instruments and musicians I go with ORTF, and I try to fly my mics about waist height; and a crucial detail I have learned the hard way is to run cards not hypers, cards have no rear lobe and will not pick up sound behind the mics to the degree that hypers will since hypers have a rear lobe pick up pattern; when taped successfully from the stage or stage lip, recordings blow everything else away easily, good luck

As I tried to point out, on-stage is only really appropriate for bands without vocals, or PA only instruments.  BTW, I would never run hypers on-stage, notwithstanding the rear lobe, just too focused for that close up.  I usually run subcard up there, otherwise card.