Topic: Will one "audience mic" be enough?

[thunderbolt]

Running 8 channels.  I find myself wanting 5 soundboard channels for an upcoming fest (for the headliner, bussed drums, bass, keyboard, guitar and vocal mics).  That leaves 3 mics.  May do either stage lip subcards or a close PAS supercard pair.  That leaves one mic to point at the audience.  I suppose a supercard, centered?

[Gutbucket]

Audience reaction is best as very wide enveloping stereo, a wide-spaced pair is best.  Mono audience reaction sounds flat and dimensionless and competes with the important musical stuff in the center of the playback image.  Go wide.

If you have access to all the SBD stuff you might want (say an overall main mix + individual items) then you really only need ambient sound and audience reaction from your own mics, and maybe the overall on-stage sound.

There is no need for a PAS pair close to the stacks if you have access to the SBD, so you can free those up.

If outdoors, you can run a spaced pair of omnis at the SBD or FOB to get audience and ambiance.  Or move the spaced omni pair up to the front of the stage, where you'll also get the onstage sound in the same pair.   

If the board feed is complete and has everything in it (isn't lacking in something which is so loud from stage that it's not represented in the PA with significant level), you can switch the wide omnis to wide-spaced cards or supers pointing out at the audience from the stage, to focus on ambiance and audience only, giving you more control over the balance of those things in your mix since they'll be somewhat more isolated from the other stuff.

If the overall PA mix you are recording directly is mono you only need one channel for it, leaving you 5 for what ever individual board items you might want- vocals, bass, drum buss mix, keys, guitar.. whatever.  If you have a stereo board mix, pick 4 individual items.

[thunderbolt]

If this was a predictable situation, all this would be cool.  Last year, it was a disaster, and the only thing that saved even a semblance of recording was the PAS part.  The two-channel board feed had all sorts of clicks, pops, niggly cables, and a power outage.  These flaws were somewhat less noticeable over the PA.  I asked for prefader and I clearly got postfader.  I ended up completely bailing on the board feed.  Although I'd like to have a simple two-channel board feed, I don't believe they are capable of delivering a balanced or predictable mix.

So, my thought is that a close recording at stage lip or PAS (since there may be a crowd close to my mics), coupled with a pair pointed at the audience will guarantee something.  Then, if the board turns out OK, I can mix it in.  By having discrete channels off the board the major elements (bass, drums, etc.) if one of those sucks or has tech issues, then I'm only short a board feed for that instrument.

To be fair, there will be a wide variety of bands, from small to big, and they're doing it for peanuts, but consistency throughout is going to be a likely unrealistic expectation.  Maybe I'll forego a bass feed since that would be less obvious.

Thanks for helping me percolate.

[Gutbucket]

Sounds like you have a good handle on the situation.

[acidjack]

If this was a predictable situation, all this would be cool.  Last year, it was a disaster, and the only thing that saved even a semblance of recording was the PAS part.  The two-channel board feed had all sorts of clicks, pops, niggly cables, and a power outage.  These flaws were somewhat less noticeable over the PA.  I asked for prefader and I clearly got postfader.  I ended up completely bailing on the board feed.  Although I'd like to have a simple two-channel board feed, I don't believe they are capable of delivering a balanced or predictable mix.

So, my thought is that a close recording at stage lip or PAS (since there may be a crowd close to my mics), coupled with a pair pointed at the audience will guarantee something.  Then, if the board turns out OK, I can mix it in.  By having discrete channels off the board the major elements (bass, drums, etc.) if one of those sucks or has tech issues, then I'm only short a board feed for that instrument.

To be fair, there will be a wide variety of bands, from small to big, and they're doing it for peanuts, but consistency throughout is going to be a likely unrealistic expectation.  Maybe I'll forego a bass feed since that would be less obvious.

Thanks for helping me percolate.

I'm with you on the PAS pair. While Gut is technically right, if the situation is not predictable, I think you want that PAS pair. Also, I find it helpful to hear how the engineer actually intended for the show to sound so as to be able to better mix in SBD elements accordingly.

I've never tried pointing a mic at the audience, but I've certainly seen bands recording for professional release use a multitrack from the SBD plus a single card or omni LD mic at the SBD for "audience feel". Again I wouldn't doubt that Gutbucket's explanation is correct; just noting that I've seen it tried by those who in theory know what they are doing.

[Gutbucket]

It then partly comes down to how much good audience reaction you are getting in that PAS pair, since the PAS pair will also be providing a degree of room and audience, with stereo width to it.  If you just want to be able to reinforce that audience reaction you're already partly getting in the PAS pair, then a single mic dedicated to audience/ambiance will be fine.  Audience reaction and room ambiance are best as wide stereo which envelops the listener, but that's a luxurious nicety, especially when dealing with more important unpredictables.

If open to playing around with that single audience/ambience channel upon mixdown after you've gotten all the more important stuff dialed in, you can try a few tricks to 'widen' it such as copying the track to two channels panned left and right, then delaying one side slightly relative to the other, or flipping polarity on one side.  That kind of stuff, and the usefulness of having separate level and eq control over audience/ambiance regardless of how many channels you dedicate to recording it, is going to be maximized and made more useful by isolating it from the PA and onstage sound as much as you can.  Place that mic in such a way as to maximally exclude the PA and on-stage sound from reaching it, while still focusing on the 'best, energetic and enthusiastic' portion of the audience.

I've found that when I've dedicated channels to this, arranging mics at the stage-lip or onstage, it dramatically helped to hang the audience/ambiance mics from the lip, just in front and under the stage surface itself, so that the stage itself contributes as a barrier against direct on-stage sound reaching those mics.   Even using parallel cardioids facing out into the audience with their nulls facing the sound sources on stage, when they were positioned above the lip they had much more stage sound in them which limited how much audience I could add later and what I could do with it eq-wise before running into problems from stage-bleed.

So yeah, a single supercard in the center may be your best choice, blocked from both on-stage sound arriving from behind it and the PA above it and to the sides if possible.

[thunderbolt]

I should have mentioned at the outset that this is outdoors, but made more complicated by the fact that the space is between two brick buildings, spaced perhaps 75' apart.  That's a whole separate issue, to be sure, but I think I've got a better handle on things this year.  The space is a long rectangular shape.  The long sides are buildings, the short sides the stage at one end and site entrance at the other. 

I think my plan will be to use two supercardioids facing the audience from stage corners, a PAS pair, and four channels of SBD.

Thanks for the suggestions, guys.  Appreciate it.

[Gutbucket]

Should work well.   Supercards or shotguns at the corners of the stage facing out into the audience is a common, well regarded setup.

[JimmieC]

I think this setup will sound awesome especially with the flanking supercardioids.  I bet you will be fine with just the audience mics.  I don't go to many big shows anymore and was surprised when Gov't Mule had some flanking shotgun mics pointed towards the audience at Jazzfest.  Before at bigger shows, I had always seen a set of flanking LD mics.

Ohh the reflections off the buildings.

[thunderbolt]

The forward and rearward audience pairs worked well.  There were a few board issues, but none too serious.  The rearward facing mics caught the crowd reaction and ambience well.

[Gutbucket]

Good to hear.  Gaining control over the addition of audience and ambience can be powerfully good, although many 2-channel tapers will consider it down-right crazy to dedicate a pair specifically intended to exclude the direct musical sound and focus on those aspects as much as possible.  While perfectly understandable given the negative quality of many audiences and rooms, that attitude makes it somewhat challenging to to argue in favor of doing so. 

[thunderbolt]

This was a warm crowd outside on a beautiful Spring day, and they were respectful, except for one TS member who yelled "muff cabbage" into my mics during the New Mastersounds.  Go Kev!     That's what I get for using dead muppets on a windy day.

I'm going to run that extra audience pair for all my open taping festivals, particularly outside.  It really does bring a whole additional level of "realness" to the recording.

The only thing that sucked running 8 tracks is getting only 18 minutes per file.  For a 90 minute show that was about 40 "joins" of tracks.

[Gutbucket]

Muff Cabbage would be an appropriate name for a New Mastersounds tune, I can already hear the refrain and Simon chatting it up between songs.

Yeah, for me it's all about maximizing the sense of "realness" through the teleportation timemachine.  Although its a challenge managing all those tracks and files.  Over the weekend I just finished cataloging and FLAC'ing my 6-channel raw recordings from a fest a couple months back.