Topic: Best configuration for unobtrusively recording an intimate living room show?

[lukpac]

4 stands in the video. I removed the one with the 58 at set break, but that still left 3. Definitely a little clumsy, but not terrible. And usually it's just 2. I have a gooseneck attachment that I could put the guitar mic on, but it doesn't seem to like to stay in place, so I find it easier just to use another stand.

The separation between the vocal and guitar is fairly impressive. Obviously there's some bleed, but there's enough separation where you can really tweak the EQ and balance of the vocal and guitar.

It's definitely pretty dead with just the close mics, at least using those Shure dynamics. Not sure how SDCs would differ in that regard. The audiences here are generally pretty silent during the songs, and IMO the room sound adds a lot.

The room mics (about 10' back) sound very nice mixed with the close mics, and decent enough on their own, but for my tastes they are a bit too, well, distant. If I was just doing stereo I'd probably want them about 3' from the artist. It's worth noting that my "close" mics are significantly farther away than would be normal when going into a PA.

[bombdiggity]

If I was just doing stereo I'd probably want them about 3' from the artist. It's worth noting that my "close" mics are significantly farther away than would be normal when going into a PA.

That is sort of how I arrived at the split cards mentioned above.  I can't get them 3 feet direct in front (that's the second or third row of seats), but got that distance by going to the front corners of the "stage" area.  I suppose I could have aimed one a little lower and the other a little higher but just ran both a little below chest high.  It was an experiment but worked well.  It was actually so full for that one the stands would have taken up seating area back of house we didn't have so from desperation comes good things sometimes.  It was solo/duo and even a few guests beyond that so running cards on a stand direct DFC was not appealing either... 

[Gutbucket]

I'd like to catch some house concerts like these around here.

It's definitely pretty dead with just the close mics, at least using those Shure dynamics. Not sure how SDCs would differ in that regard. The audiences here are generally pretty silent during the songs, and IMO the room sound adds a lot.

The room mics (about 10' back) sound very nice mixed with the close mics, and decent enough on their own, but for my tastes they are a bit too, well, distant. If I was just doing stereo I'd probably want them about 3' from the artist. It's worth noting that my "close" mics are significantly farther away than would be normal when going into a PA.

The combination of rather close direct mics (close enough to get good clarity and isolation from room sound, but not up against the instrument/lips big-proximity close) plus ambient room mics makes it easy to get both forms of goodness and mix them in a good ratio.  If you're up for trying out something different with the room mics, consider putting them up front facing away from the performer towards the audience.  You'll get isolation between them and the direct mics, without too much distance, and a more intimate clarity of audience reaction between songs.  SDC cardioids would be a good choice for that.  I used to put room mics in back, until I found I much prefer them up front facing away.

The photo below struck me as a very good mic stand arrangement.. outside, but otherwise similar. I dig the tight & clean 4-mics-on-3-stands setup which ziko posted recently in the SBD/AUD Matrix - onstage mic placement thread.. and the sound of his recording at the LMA link too.

https://archive.org/details/straybirds2012-09-06.mtx.flac16

Gutbucket has probably not tried this, but if you use two TetraMics you can do non-coincident (spaced) arrays like ORTF and others. And two TetraMics are still very small.

The Tetramic really would work nicely for these situations because the virtual patterns can be pointed any which way after the fact, and the pattern adjustment gives a similar control over the direct/ambient balance as separate room mics and close mics.  I probably would go nuts with endless options using two though, and it would require 8 channels.  I've run it with spaced omni flanking mics and as the center mic of a Decca tree, but I don't think I got around to mixing those together.  It's sort of a world in itself without complicating things with additional mics.  I usually run it instead of, or in addition to, rather than in combination with.

[lukpac]

If you're up for trying out something different with the room mics, consider putting them up front facing away from the performer towards the audience.  You'll get isolation between them and the direct mics, without too much distance, and a more intimate clarity of audience reaction between songs.  SDC cardioids would be a good choice for that.  I used to put room mics in back, until I found I much prefer them up front facing away.

That was how I did the first few shows I had here, but I've since switched to in back, pointing at the artist. The first time I did that was by necessity, as it was a whole band and the only "close" mics were 2 vocal mics feeding a PA (which meant the "room" mics were essentially *the* mics), but I've ended up sticking with that for the acoustic shows too. At least in my room it seems to add a little more sparkle from the direct (albeit distant) sound from the vocal/guitar, as opposed to just the room reflections. The "facing out" mic setup was slightly dull sounding in comparison because of that. Some (artificial) reverb from the close mics could probably help that, but to this point I haven't gone in that direction.

The ideal situation would be to have identical mics in front and back and record both sets for comparison later, but alas I don't have 4 identical mics. It would have to be two different pairs.

[Gutbucket]

I hear that. Whatever works best. I usually face them away because I found I only wanted room sound and additional clarity of the audience addressing the talent in them.  But that's only good if the main mics facing the talent don't need any help other than the ambience.  Improving the direct sound like you are doing with them is a higher priority. 

I did something similar for an organ trio in a living room where I'd setup an ORTF pair a bit farther away than the 3 main mics I was using and had no intention of mixing them all together- I just wanted to hear the difference between them, but the ORTF pair added a nice shine as well as some depth so I folded them in there too.

The ideal situation would be to have identical mics in front and back and record both sets for comparison later, but alas I don't have 4 identical mics. It would have to be two different pairs.

It might be nice to use the same mics, but I don't think that's critical.  It's more the hassle of setting it all up and having the extra mics and recording channels.

[bombdiggity]

I'd like to catch some house concerts like these around here.

You kind of have to make it happen (which does presuppose a suitable space - often the rub). 

We came to it by offering touring friends a place to play in a region that doesn't have those (at least for them, being too good/real to be commercial).  To be fair there is one other couple who was doing some of the same ilk before us (and I think couldn't do the first one I did), so we trade off and share audiences. 

There are a tremendous number of local musicians who are that good I'd like to host as well but it seems we may be a bit too far on the outer fringes (see: suitable space consideration) to draw audiences other than "destination" ones (we've actually drawn a crowd from at least 6 states to a number of them). 

There is a huge national "folk" house concert scene that has a bunch of venues in our area but those people don't go anywhere but their circuit here...  A little of it is good music but we don't really play in that sandbox since mostly not to our taste. 

A little web search for house concert referencing points in your area might surprise you though.  DIY is the way it's going for a lot of quality music.  There are some arts loft/DIY spaces in DC (and even a few in Richmond I gather) that do essentially the same thing (BYOB indie shows on an occasional basis with a living room vibe).   

I'm seriously delinquent on our website (like so many other things) and usually only update when we get ready to host something else.  I had visions of putting a lot of video/audio/photos up in the "archives" and will some day.  Have material (and mild? ADD I think). 

[lukpac]

It's a growing scene around here:

http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=41605

And some artists schedule entire tours with just house shows:

http://www.undertowmusic.com/julia-nunes-living-room-tour/

There's a large variety of setups. At my house it's my living room and dining room, and I've just had artists that I really like and have more than a passing relationship with. The crowd is mostly friends, although other fans of the artist are invited and encouraged to come. Some places are really more dedicated venues, and some people book artists that they don't know. Those crowds can be a bit more random.