Topic: Best way to record a campfire jam with ADK A-51 TL

[melvis1645]

I am looking for set up advice as I have not used these mics very often. All suggestions are greatly appreciated.

[bryonsos]

MS or spread omnis IMHO. If you have plenty of cable put the omnis wide outside the fire/circle so nobody has one right in front of them.

[Gutbucket]

Best to get the mics right in the center of the core jammer circle, a fire usually gets in the way.  Better if the circle is sort of off to one side of it.

The following configs can all work well with the musicians circled around the mics, as each of these are fully omnidirectional in their overall stereo pickup, not favoring one direction more strongly than another in a proximity/loudness sense (only in an imaging sense- where the musician appears on playback, either closer to the middle or out to one side or the other where the speakers are:

Spaced omnis (say 15" or so), Mid/Side using an omni mid, or Blumlein (90-degree X/Y or M/S figure-8's)

[cybergaloot]

Having done this using just a DR-40 I can say the fire itself can be noisy. Maybe running the tls as omni with one on either side of the fire about halfway between the fire and the circle of players. I can't say but have often tried to think through this problem. Best would probably be a surround setup using four or five mics.

[Gutbucket]

Yeah the fire is really pesky for recording.  It's noisy, right in the way, and any musicians on the far side of it are beyond good proximity to the mics. 

Four or more cardioids in a close ring around a fire facing outwards towards the musicians could work better, with good rejection of the fire noise while keeping the musicians more on-mic, but that's ridiculously complex for a campfire jam, places the mics and cabling uncomfortably close to the fire/smoke, and would end up pushing the circle too wide.. just doesn't seem a good solution.  Instead, herd the jammers under that typical 10x10' square pop-up canopy which is probably set up close by-

Recording a jam circle underneath a pop-up canopy is far, far better.  The musicians naturally huddle in closer, the reflection off the canopy provides good close-reflections which makes the sound richer and more present sounding.  And that focuses the sound from the core group in the center around the mics and slightly lowers the level of the talkers around the outer periphery the circle.  The mics can even be suspended from the overhead canopy frame, avoiding the need a stand in the center.  And if it may rain, everything is protected, and the jam can continue.

I plan on doing exactly that with the Tetramic.  It's so small it won't be imposing hanging in the center, and it's ability to decode any number of virtual microphones of any pattern, pointed in any direction, after the recording has been made, should work really well in the center of the circle.

[cybergaloot]

Another option is to use tall stands on the outside of the circle and aim the mics at an angle across to the opposite side. Still gong to get that fire but at least there would be some distance so the crackle wont be so obvious.

[melvis1645]

If I understand this correctly the difference between m/s and blumlein is that with m/s one would be set on omni and the other figure 8 instead of both figure 8?

[bryonsos]

The mid is usually card or hyper. When I had TLs I always liked using mid = card.

If I understand this correctly the difference between m/s and blumlein is that with m/s one would be set on omni and the other figure 8 instead of both figure 8?

[Gutbucket]

Blumlein is two coincident, 90-degree crossed figure-8 pattern mics.  It can be setup as X/Y or M/S, either way is still "Blumlein".

With Mid/Side, the Mid microphone may be any pattern. The Side microphone is always a sideways-pointing figure-8. Using a cardioid Mid is most common, which when matrixed 50:50 from M/S to L/R, results in a pair of virtual supercarioids angled something like 120 degrees apart.  That's going to focus on what's in front of the M/S pair,  with less sensitivity to sounds from behind the M/S pair.

Using either an omni mid or or figure-8 mid, the overall combined (stereo) pickup pattern is omnidirectional, equally sensitive to sound arriving from anywhere in the horizontal plane, 360 degrees around the M/S pair.  So that may be more appropriate when placed in the center of a jam circle with the musicians surrounding the microphones.