Topic: Some Q's on mic caps/configs

[porkchop101]

First - I apologize, as I'm sure this topic has been covered a shit ton, but I wasn't sure exactly what to search, so after trying a million different things, i said lets just ask!

Here's the deal - I have been using some low end hyper card cheapie mics to get started in taping. I recently got some higher end cheapie mics, which have interchangeable capsules. My first show with them I recorded the first set with the hypers, and the second set with the cards to try and experiment. Well as fate would have it, I had a few too many pale ales and wound up recording over the first set with the second set, leaving myself no frame of reference. Anyway, when the band is jamming real loud, it sounds great, and is some f the best I've done! But when they lay off even a bit, the crowd noise is pretty bad, which is a problem I haven't really encountered yet in this type of setting (small club with great sound set up fob pas). So, the point (since diagrams of polar patterns are fucking greek to me) is why? Might it be that the hyper cards are better for reducing crowd noise, or that these new mics are just more sensitive? How about general suggestions for reducing crowd noise? These new mics also have a low cut switch, which I had planned on always leaving off. Could that have anything to do with the heightened crowd noise?

Lastly, I plan to tape at my first festival this weekend. I've already done outdoors, but my mics just had the one set of caps. Any suggestions on cap choice/mic configs for this setting? The only config I have used so far is to point those suckers right at the shtacks.

Thanks ya'll!

[Belexes]

Hypers are more directional that a regular cardioid pattern and as such can help deal with crowd noise. I find them more beneficial though to use in a room with terrible acoustics.  Running mics very high above the chatty people can help as well.  It also helps to keep people away from your rig if at all possible.

I like split omni's outdoors.

[porkchop101]

Thanks sir. Thats what I thought, but the diagrams had me second guessing myself. I need to do more research on some of this stuff i think, and try everything for myself.

[DSatz]

I think some people expect too much from the directional effect of directional microphones. Microphones never "know" what sound you want and what sound you don't want. All microphones, even hypercardioids, pick up significant amounts of sound from wider angles than some people seem to imagine.

As a reality check, imagine that you have a single musician as your source of sound in a hypothetical "normal" room (not too small), and a single omnidirectional microphone. You experiment and find that you like the overall balance of direct and reflected sound when your microphone is 3 feet away. Now you change that omnidirectional microphone to a cardioid. How far could you back the microphone away from your performer and still maintain that balance of direct sound to reflected sound?

Judging by the way some people depend on directional microphones to "filter out" room sound and surrounding noise, I think some people here must imagine that the answer would be maybe 10 or 15 feet. But the actual answer is about 5 feet. Even with a hypercardioid the answer is still only 6 feet. Hypercardioids don't get you very much "distance factor" improvement over cardioids, and cardioids don't get you nearly as much of a "distance factor" improvement over omnis as many people here seem to think.

The moral of the story is that you always need to place your microphones where the sound field has the blend and balance of sound that you want. Directional microphones aren't a cure for being too far from your sound sources. Even "microphones from heaven" can't turn reflected sound into direct sound.

--best regards