Topic: Taping in a bar, how to avoid crowd noise? XY/ortf

[lynchie]

just curious if running XY would be better than ORTF, I'll be running about 30' from stage with a bar on the left and right of me. I don't wanna run ORTF cause my mics will both be pointed at the bar and I would imagine I would pick up alot of chatter. My question is, would running XY be a better option??

I'll be taping Max Creek with my km140's>V3>d8

So far I've been happy with the tapes I've made. all instrumental until tonight.  Anyone else run the 140's>V3 combo and have some advice for me??

have a good evening, thanks for the help.

Lynchie

[AttorneyatLaw]

The best way to avoid crowd noise would be to raise the stand.  Stereo seperation configurations will have little effect on crowd noise.  Also, hypers may help as well.

[Chuck]

just curious if running XY would be better than ORTF, I'll be running about 30' from stage with a bar on the left and right of me. I don't wanna run ORTF cause my mics will both be pointed at the bar and I would imagine I would pick up alot of chatter. My question is, would running XY be a better option??

I'll be taping Max Creek with my km140's>V3>d8

So far I've been happy with the tapes I've made. all instrumental until tonight.  Anyone else run the 140's>V3 combo and have some advice for me??

have a good evening, thanks for the help.

Lynchie

I would suggest pointing the microphones (cardioid or hyper-cardioid) at the outside of the stacks if you are in a bar. ORTF in a bar is pretty brutal, unless you are very, very close. If you are going to be 30' away, you're going to get chatter nomatter what you do.

[AttorneyatLaw]

Ortf only within 10 ft of the stage, if that.  DIN or xy in a bar any further back, and din even sounds good up close.  Bars suck, get as close as possible and go for it!

[noahbickart]

I tend to disagree with the above posters (with all due respect). I find that XY is much better for crowd rejection than near coincident patterns.

However, I think you'll find that running XY with the 140s may cause some unwanted problems- the one time I ran 184s XY I found the high frequency rise to be exagerated in an unplesant way. Now, whether or not this outweighs the chatter is something you will have to decide for yourself.

Barring picking up a pair of the 50 hyper caps. Why not run xy for the first set, have a listen on headphones during the break, and decide from there. Lut us hear how it goes! Good Luck,

-Noah

[creekfreak]

farther back use hypers DIN, upclose you could run cards ORTF, but only if you are real close

[LeftoverSammy]

Generally, in my experiences I have found that the further you are back from the sound source the greater chance you have of picking up surrounding crowd noise unless you resort to hypers regardless of what pattern you use. I love using ORTF, mostly outdoors where I am not too far away from the source and want to capture that “special sound of the outside venue”; however when indoors & I am NOT close to the source I find ORTF is too wide of a pickup and results in unpleasant/unwanted venue sound (picks up too much of the room/bar acoustics - which can include background chatter). Running your stand higher does help quite a bit but will not remove the venue/bar sound.

XY doesn't seem to cut the crowd noise down all that much, but rather seems to over emphasize the high end frequencies and cut down the low end or boomy sound a bar can have or from certain mic coloration characteristics).

Any other pattern that is or used at or less than 90deg. will work fine, but will not really reduce that unwanted chatter. As I said earlier I prefer to use wider angles for outside where I am not subjected to poor venue acoustics unless very close or on stage with my mics.

If you can't get closer to the sound source I would just point your mics to the outside of the stacks and raise you stand to the max. Without hypers there isn't much more you can do IMO. Getting closer to the source and raising your stand is the only REAL solution to effectively reduce crowd noise. That will be your biggest bang for you buck IMO.

Just my .02, & not by any account the “rules of the game”. Just my observations based on several experiences in various taping conditions. Your results may vary  

Good luck – experiment and take notes!!  

LoS

[nic]

I'd go with DIN in this instance

[botz]

If you can, bring two mic stands.  Separate them 10 or 15 feet, and jack the mics up high.  Put one mic on each stand, and point the mics at the outside edge of each stack.  Your end result will have big-time stereo separation if the PA broadcasts in stereo, but most bar PA systems pump mono.

Here's the beauty of it:
Then, download the tracks to Soundforge.  If, for example, there is a big spike in the right channel due to some guy dropping an empty bottle into a trashcan full of other empty bottles, that offending sound will appear in only the right channel.  You can cut that nasty part out, and replace that split-second with music from the clean left channel.

Also, I wonder if you could cut down on 'residual chatter' by somehow mounting a nice thick piece of foam under the mics.  I can only assume it would add a dampening affect and slightly soundproof your mics from chatter below.

[BobW]

The best way to avoid crowd noise would be to raise the stand.  Stereo seperation configurations will have little effect on crowd noise.  Also, hypers may help as well.

Generally a misconception about hypers in a small venue.
The rear/side lobes of hypers sometimes can make crowd noise much worse than straight cards.
They can also introduce side wall/rear wall reflections which cards would not. It very much depends on the venue and the mic.

Experiment !

[Nick Graham]

I tend to use the same guidelines as some of the posts above...ORTF if close to the source, DIN when further back. I only have cards, so throwing hypers in the equation isn't an option for me.

I only run X/Y in very shitty venues, or when at a strange, non-centered angle.

[Tim]

The best way to avoid crowd noise would be to raise the stand.  Stereo seperation configurations will have little effect on crowd noise.  Also, hypers may help as well.

Generally a misconception about hypers in a small venue.
The rear/side lobes of hypers sometimes can make crowd noise much worse than straight cards.
They can also introduce side wall/rear wall reflections which cards would not. It very much depends on the venue and the mic.

Experiment !

the side lobes are narrower on hypers, this cutting reflections.

as for the rear lobes, they really pickup very little and I never really worry about them.

[marc0789]

what Nick said, otherwise, I run ortf even indoors. I'm always 35' or less, and even in soso venues, get nice results. Gotta be a weirdly shape, high ceiling venue, or a basketball arena with known ratty sound (Asheville Civic) for me to run x-y. Pretty much won't run it unless I know there is some boom potential, 'cause I've definitely found that if the sound is bright, x-y can be unbearable.

[Nick in Edinboro]

This is a great reference even in "general terms" for those of us (read:me) who haven't experimented with many stereo configs!  I almost always run DIN because I've enjoyed the results, I ran XY once and didn't enjoy it.

Also welcome to noah and Attorney!

Who else has "general rules" they use as guidelines when setting up in a room?