Topic: School band recording help

[alienbobz]

One of my friends is a band teacher at one of the local schools. He wants me to record his band next month. They are a 44 piece setup. I am trying to decide what is the best thing for me to do. I already got the okay to be on-stage. My current gear is:

Main:
AKG C 414 XLS
Busman Hybrid (Warm/Transparent) Mod Edirol R-4

Misc:
Behringer C-2s, Marshall MXL 1006BPs

I pretty much think it would be best to run my AKG by themselves as I don't know the result for the other mics. I am thinking either Blumlein or split omnis. Any suggestions would be great. Thanks.

[page]

I'm making the assumption that the traditional layout of quietest instruments in front, loudest in back will be used. (this should be confirmed before the day of, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't the case) Second assumption with a band that big is that any solos will be taken in place with the rest of the band cognizant of that. If they will step out to a specific area, you may want to mic that area with an extra channel.

If that's the case, then the only other thing that I'd be unsure of is whether they are using straight lines (for a square sectional) or a curl (ala like an orchestra). The curl makes it easier to get away wtih just 2 mics. The straight rows would make me want to put a set of flanks as I'd be worried about losing the edges of the front row or two.

I'd run the AKG pair in a ratio of stand height above head height to rear distance of about 1:4 (so start the stand at just over head height and raise it by a foot for every 4 feet it takes you to reach the farthest point/corner of the band from where the stand is located at). I'd adjust that second number down if the overall "loudness" of the front few rows is vastly different than the back rows. If there isn't as much difference, then I might increase it some. The trick is to get an equal loudness from all of the instruments by using distance as you're moderator.

If you're unfamiliar with recording on stage without monitor/PA reinforcement, then I highly suggest seeing if you can attend a practice session of the full band or at least a soundcheck. You're interested in the overall loudest song/movement that they will perform and scale that back a touch for the actual performance. In terms of expected volume, it's a different beast compared to PA taping.

edit: oh, and run with a visible angle (of the widest parts of the stage to your mic stand) of about 160 degrees at most (140 might be optimum, totally depends on the layout). Your mic angle will be different.
edit2: and I'd run the AKGs in subcard configuration (ideally) and change configs depending on room and layout. ymmv.
edit3: maybe 1:3.5 is a better starting point for the ratio, I'd have to go back and check my notes of past gigs, I'm working off of memory at the moment.

[alienbobz]

Thanks for the help. I will talk to my friend more about the setup. Hopefully he can allow me to see a soundcheck.  I have done on-stage before but it was for smaller bands.

[Gutbucket]

There are numerous ways to go about it and no single correct answer which is partly what makes this kind of thing challenging, fun, and a reflection of your personal approach embodying what you value in a good recording.  We can discuss tradeoffs between possible setups, but to start I can offer suggestions on what I'd do, which would be to keep things relatively simple and probably do a variation on spaced omnis. 

The Behringers and Marshalls are cardioid only, right?

Can you put up more than one stand?

Consider three stands in a line across the front if you can manage it.   That classic setup allows for a lot of leeway for various arrangements of musicians and works well if you have a large ensemble and very little space between the font rows of players and the edge of the stage.  I'd put one of the cardioids in the center, angled down towards a point about 2/3rds of the way back in the middle of the group, and the 414's in omni mode placed ~4'-6' to either side, flanking the center mic.   That's probably all that’s necessary if you want to keep it simple.  Mix it to two-channel stereo by bringing up the Left/Right omnis first, pan the center card to middle and bring it up until you get an even balance across the entire playback image. You can EQ them separately if necessary and so inclined, but don’t worry if the cardioid bottom end response rolls off, the omnis will make up for it and trying to bring up the low end on the center mic may simply confuse things needlessly.

If you have the time and inclination to make use of your ‘extra’ 4th channel, you could use another cardioid as a spot mic for soloists up front (probably unnecessary), for a particularly weak instrument or section that is not well represented (more likely), or as a room ambience / audience reaction mic facing away from the stage and out into the room so as to pick up as little direct stage sound compared to ambient room sound as possible, while still being in relative close proximity to the other mics so there isn’t a delay problem (I like doing that to gain fine control over the direct/ambient balance, and if I have that ‘extra’ channel I almost always find my resulting mix is better with some degree of that added in there, but most people around here will probably think that a waste or somewhat strange).

Absorb the suggestions you get here, take from them whatever sounds reasonable and doable, then do your own thing to put your own mark on it.  Should be a fun one.

[alienbobz]

Both of the Behringers and Marshalls are fixed cards. I have use the Behringers once on my R4 and the result was alright. I haven't used the Marshalls in years.

I am pretty sure my friend would be ok with more than one stand. Luckily the band is playing at the high school performing art auditorium so I imagine the results should be better than a gym.

I am liking the split omnis the best because I have done that before with my MBHOs. Just have to figure out what to use in between.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I am very excited to do this as the result should be interesting.

[Gutbucket]

Page's advice on height is wise.   My way of thinking about it is sort of from the opposite approach, but we converge on similar answers.  I dig depth contrast for these kinds of things, so I'm thinking less in terms of getting the absolute level from all of the musicians equal, and more in terms of the difference in direct/reverberant ratio balance between the front verses back rows.  I like the good sense of depth which comes from a higher direct/reverberant ratio from those up front verses those in back, as long as everything is clear and discernable, yet I don't want the front row overly dry and direct sounding while the back is washed in room verb either.  Most typical musician placement arrangements which place in the back rows the louder, in some cases highly directional instruments like (non-French) horns, natrually helps with getting a decent overal level balance.  The room sound may or may not be good enough to make loud but transient rich stuff in back such as percussion sound good with a lower direct/reverb ratio, and that's one of the things I listen for.  When the room sound is good, that can make for getting a big, deep and rich listening perspective which doesn't sacrifice clarity and presence; if not so good then I'd sacrifice that 'lush sense of 3-d depth' for 'flater and more 2-dimensional yet clear', unswamped by mediocre room verb. 

The spaced three mic technique helps somewhat in getting a good level balance between sections as well, both front/back and left/right, but especially left/right.

[alienbobz]

The only thing I am trying to figure out with what Page said is the angles. For most of my concert taping setup I have run the same patterns and setup. There was a handful of times that I was able to try something else, which would be on stage or something else. I guess what I like about my current setup is that I do have a lot of different things I could try. I just have to figure out the best solution. I have only had my AKGs for a few months so I have a lot of experimenting to do with these.

[Gutbucket]

With on-stage taping in general and this situation in particular, the mics are positioned closer to widely distributed sound sources.  That makes the angle in which all the sound sources fit as seen from the microphone's perspective (the mic position being the apex of that angle) much larger than it would typically be when the mic pair is farther back in the room.  If the mic stand is directly in-line with the front row of musicians on stage, you'd have a 180 degree angle.  As the mics are moved back towards the audience that angle grows narrower.

If you were to use just a two mic stereo pair of directional mics, a super wide angle like that would be hard to accommodate with just that stereo pair alone.  You could help that by adding outboard flanking mics (typically omnis or wide cards) spaced to either side of the central pair.  Similarly by using three spaced mics, that's even less of a problem.

I suggest the three main mic setup for a few reasons:  It's relatively easy to setup without worry about appropriate stereo-pair setup angles; there are less complications with how close the mics are to the front row of musicians as described above (if you have no choice but to put the mics pretty much right on top of the front row because there is no room at the front of the stage, you can compensate by simply going higher); the third center mic makes the left/right A-B omni spacing far less critical than it would be if you were using only two omnis (greatly reduced potential 'hole-in-the-middle' problems); afterwards it gives you a nice degree of control over side/center image balance and center presence; and it's pretty easy to mix without advanced tricks (spots can be tricky to mix in, but getting a good 3-mic center balance is simple).

Congratulations on the new mics.  A great thing about the 414s for experimenting with various setups is the choice of 5 patterns.  Few switchable multi-pattern mics have wide-cardioid and supercardioid patterns.

[alienbobz]

Well with the 3 mics (I am guessing keep the AKGS on the ends and Marshall/Behringer in center), how would one mix this in post properly?

[capnhook]

Well with the 3 mics (I am guessing keep the AKGS on the ends and Marshall/Behringer in center), how would one mix this in post properly?

By ear.


 

[alienbobz]

Well with the 3 mics (I am guessing keep the AKGS on the ends and Marshall/Behringer in center), how would one mix this in post properly?

By ear.


 

Haha . But to be honest, I am used to mixing two or four in post. Three is a new one for me.

[Gutbucket]

By ear is exactly the right answer!

Mix it to two-channel stereo by bringing up the Left/Right omnis first, pan the center card to middle and bring it up until you get an even balance across the entire playback image. You can EQ them separately if necessary and so inclined, but don’t worry if the cardioid bottom end response rolls off, the omnis will make up for it and trying to bring up the low end on the center mic may simply confuse things needlessly.

In more detail-

Balance the left/right omni levels (if necessary) alone, then bring up the center mic panned to the center.  If your software doesn't use a mixer paradigm with pan controls, you may need to duplicate the center channel so that you have four channels total, then route one of those center channels to the left stereo bus and the other to the right stereo bus, adjusting their levels identically so the center mic stays panned center in the resulting stereo image. 

At that point, adjust the center-to-left/right balance by ear.  Play around with it and listen for a while at different balance settings.  I find that sometimes 'just enough center', 'about the same level of center as left/right', and 'more center than left/right' can all be viable choices, and it sometimes takes returning to each and listening for a while to decide which is optimal.  I do find that for each of those quite different gross-level difference center channel choices, I usually pretty quickly home in on the best fine-level adjustment.  A few dB makes the difference in things 'snapping into place'. [edit- It's partly this ability to tweak the center/sides balance after the recording is made which makes the spaced 3-mic setup more flexible and less dependant on getting mic spacings and angles just right at the recording gig]

If you want to go farther, you have the ability to EQ the center differently than the sides, the ability to make subtle adjustments there can be really useful, and larger ones may be more important in this case as you will be using a different mic in the center with somewhat different frequency response than the omnis.  Low cutting or rolling off the low bass in the center mic sometimes helps and is worth playing with.

If you ran the extra audience/room facing mic, pan that center as well, EQ as necessary and bring it up to taste.  Just enough to get a sense of nice depth, additional width and richness.  If you want to get fancy, you can volume envelope it or automate it’s level, changing it’s level between songs for crowd reaction, or perhaps during more sparse/quiet verses more sonically-dense/louder numbers.

Page is the man to ask about good techniques for mixing in spot mics.  That’s trickier and more complicated IMO.

[alienbobz]

I am trying out Audacity though I do have Adobe Audition 2.0 so I should be able to do the panning. Not sure which program is better.

I guess another question, what do you guys means by flanking the mics? I am guessing for the left mic I would go slightly to the right and vice versa for the other mic. Would the center just be straight on?

[RemotelyLocated]

... They are a 44 piece setup.  ...

Ask the band director how many rows and/or about the grouping. The players might not be splayed as widely across the stage as you think and that will impact mic placement, if not how many mics you use.

That said, it wouldn't surprise me if they used all of the space that's practical, so if you need to visit the auditorium ahead of time you can do a rough measurement of the width.

I've done a couple at the local high school's auditorium and the HVAC is so noisy much of the mic placement considerations are a waste of time. Be ready to accept weird conditions and EQ the snot out of it later if necessary. I know you want to do your best but he's gonna be thrilled with whatever you deliver.

[Gutbucket]

"Flanking" mics usually refer to a secondary omni pair A-B spaced at least 3' and up to many feet to either side of a center pair.  In the case of a 3-mic setup, all three mics are members of the primary array, so the term 'flanking mics' in the classical recording definition sense doesn't apply as directly, although in the general sense, the outside mics are positioned to be flanking the center mic.

As far as microphone orientation angles, point the center mic straight ahead and downward somewhat, somewhere towards the center of the mass of musicians. Direction of the omnis is less critical. But best to point them more or less towards the center of mass of the musicians on each side.