Topic: Audience mic question (as in mic for applause, etc)

[cybergaloot]

11:20 heading over to ride the stream..

I has some problems getting the mix dialed in at first. The first couple of songs were rough as a result. I did try using a Studio Project C4 omni as the audience mic and liked the results event though I still had to ride the fader some. I'll have to listen to the recording to be sure though. Good show by Col Bruce! Next week's broadcast will be the Mosier Brothers.

[Gutbucket]

I heard the last 15 minutes or so.  Your mix sounded nicely balanced.  The web-stream itself was somewhat bright up top and thin at the bottom, and pretty heavily compressed, which I assume was done at the station or by the streaming box.  That compression audibly pumped the room ambience and crowd reaction during quieter sections within the song, but I didn't notice any pumping or smoothness problems from your fader riding between the last songs or at the end when the crowd cheers.  Not that there was many opportunities to listen for that in the last 15 min.  I'm pretty sure all of that was down stream of your control though.

[cybergaloot]

I don't know how much of the compression comes from the box on our end or at the station. I suspect it was on their end, probably with the thought that most people listen to radio through crappy systems that can't handle much bass. The station is pretty much automated though there is an "engineer" there. I've learned a fair amount about how current radio works as a media outlet from Hank (there really is a Hank, its not just call letters, great guy). I tried to get him to convert the station to a more eclectic mix of roots and jam music but he explained the problems with that, the worst being selling advertising to people who don't know anything about music.

I try to gradually move the fader so that the change is subtle. I will be adding compression on the audience mic channel because I noticed that some of the claps were really friggin' loud! I have to keep in mind that this was a different audience than usual. By the end of the night most were on the dance floor closer to the mics. Also the Col. started singing away from the vocal mics so I had to pump up the ambient mics to catch them and those are right by the dance floor.

BTW, the board I'm currently using has a mono out with its own fader. I think I can use that to hook to the side chain on the compressor. I am going to hook up a second audience mic even though I don't have a channel for it right now. That way if I get some screaming, wolf whistling jerk under the current mic and I switch to the other. Sometimes you have to out-think the crowd.

[mosquito]

How have things been progressing in the last few months?

[cybergaloot]

I have my compressor setup for 'ducking' and that helps. Unfortunately the club owner or his wife have set up fans for the band and one is very close to my mic so I had to switch from an omni cap back to a card. That means I have to ride the fader more than I did when the omni was in place. I'm looking for a decent preamp like just a UA-5 so that I can set up a second audience mic and run them into one of the unused stereo channels of my board. The compressor can couple both channels so one side chain can control both channels. Maybe that will help. I'm also viewing possible alternate mic locations but that's not so easy in this club.

[easyed]

I used to use cardioids onstage pointed out at the audience and rode the levels but it still made the sound too 'reverberant'.  Have switched to shotguns (Rode NTG2's) onstage pointed out at the audience and riding the levels and liking the results.  But I pay close close attention and as the song is ending raise the 'audience' mics levels from nothing to the amount I like.

If you're a DIME member you can check my recording of Tim O'Brien with Stuart Duncan and Bryan Sutton and Mike Bub http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?&id=371144  which was a multitrack plus shotguns onstage plus Schoeps cardiod mics in the eighth row pointed at the stage, recorded to multitracks on my laptop and simultaneously mixed live to stereo.  So you can hear (or not hear) how I bring up the audience at the end of a song and bring it down again as the next song begins.

I realize you are trying to avoid riding the levels.  Can't help there.  But I do like the shotguns better than the cardioids for this application.  I am not after high fidelity since their job is not to record music but clapping and laughter and singalongs, etc.  The multitrack direct outs from the soundboard will provide fidelity for the musical portions - the shotguns only job is to record applause, etc.

Also your room is smaller than I typically record in - I'm typically in rooms holding between 250 and 5000 people.  For some of the venues where I record often I'm contemplating a permanent install of a couple of shotguns hung from above the audience and pointing directly down.  I think that's what they do for shows like Leno and Letterman to pick up the audience.

[cybergaloot]

I've been thinking of maybe some boundary mics on the ceiling. If I put them straight up over the monitors they should avoid picking them up and also cut the reverberation. I dunno. Using the compressor for ducking has been the best thing so far. The problem with that technique is when there is interaction between the band and the audience in the middle of a song. I had that last Saturday when Chick Willis (blues) had the audience singing along. I really had to push both the ambient mics and the audience mic to make it sound right.

Like you I'm not too concerned about the fidelity of the applause as long as it doesn't interfere with the music. I ran an omni for applause for a while and that seemed to work well until the club owner put a fan behind the mic. Yikes!

[Gutbucket]

Boundaries on the ceiling will sound less the revebert but will pick up everything in the room.

[cybergaloot]

Boundaries on the ceiling will sound less the revebert but will pick up everything in the room.

That's kind of the idea. Combined with ducking they may work well. Anybody know of a good inexpensive pair to try?

[Gutbucket]

Try some of your miniature omnis for a test. They're small and light enough to become boundary mounted by simply taping them flat against the ceiling.  Do you still have that CA-1 pair I saw you using a couple years ago?  B3s? other omnis small and light enough to just tape up there?

edit- if it works and you want purpose made dedicated boundary mics, AT makes some reasonable boundary mount mics, both normal omni and directionals.  I have one of the directional ones but have never used it.  Sort of a flat trapazoid shaped, heavy-ish, black housing with a mini-XLR.  I think Crown still makes PZMs at several price points.  The minatures might be just the ticket though.

[cybergaloot]

I have some CA-11s with both omni and card caps and I have a pair of the CAFS mics. I was just testing the CA-1s and don't know if they actually went into production. The CAFS may be perfect in that they are so small that they would lay flat. I might give them a shot.

[AHappyHourHero]

I know that this is an older thread, but I just had a talk with an engineer touring a pretty well known band the other night, and he freely gave me some of his tips and tricks that he uses.  Let me just say that these guys crush it night after night, and have one of the best live sounds in the jamband scene (IMHO).  Anyway, here goes.
ORTF mics, stage lip, pointing back at the crowd.  These microphone sources do not go to the FOH mix, but do go to the 4 track recording of the show which is available for purchase later through nugs.  What he does is route most all of his channels to a bus, that he then uses as a sidechain for those audience mics, to duc them when the band is playing.  As the song level decreases, or the song ends entirely, the audience source mics comes up in the mix to the recording. 
It's funny coming across this thread on TS, because earlier today I had actually stumbled upon this very same engineers question on an AVID forum. 
I understand that this may not be possible depending on the desk you are using (he is driving a Midas Pro9), but is very capable if you were to record in the box.  I have used this in my recordings in a much smaller venue (16-32 tracks), using analogue mixers and A/D's to PT's and Logic, as well as digi-logue consoles and Studiolive mixers. 
I do not run my audience mics through FOH to the PA, due to timing, reverb, feedback etc problems.  I guess if you really needed to for some reason, then a little math might get you closer to a realtime record from them rather then the natural delay.
I hope this helps someone along hthe way.  I know it did for me.
Cheers!
Christopher

[cybergaloot]

Between ducking and killing the 1kHz range on audience reaction mics I have gotten the problem mostly worked out. Also running them through a better preamp helped. I do still ride the fader for those mics a bit. It should be noted that my board is for recording and live streaming to the radio station only, not for FOH. There might be some reason for occasionally adding applause to a FOH mix but I certainly can't think of one at the moment. I think that in most cases it would come across as sounding like a bad sit-com.