I just ordered the Vanguard V1's pair which can be used as: cardioid, wide cardioid, hypercardioid, or omni mics with the various caps it comes with
V1 ink:https://www.vanguardaudiolabs.com/products/v1-pencil-condenser-kit/
[snip]
My current game plan (for upcoming indoor stadium show at Nassau Coliseum sitting front row center bowl):
Innermost mic positions to remain AT3031 Cards PAS 4" seperation
Middle two mic positions V1's (hypercard caps) PAS 15" seperation
Outermost mic positions Line audio OMN1 omnis A/B 31" seperation
My main question being: is there a more optimal set up here with the options i already have? Open to any and all recommendations/ tips/ tricks!
I'm a new taper and new to this forum so I apologize if this isn't the right place for this!
Ahoy!
You are jumping in the deep end straight away to advanced multichannel microphone array recording techniques! I strongly suggest focusing on 4 microphones first, which is already complicated and two more than most tapers use. Most would strongly argue it best to start with, even stick with, just two mics and they have a very valid point. Still, I totally get it and like the other folks who've chimed in and tend run multiple channels of microphones, we are here to support you, as much through our mistakes as through our successes. Four channels of micrphones is something of a sweet spot between complexity and welcome flexibility and it will be best to get to know how and what works there before complicating things further.
I suggest trying this:
1) Run either your AT30301 pair or V1 hyper pair as X/Y in the center in PAS. If you can't achieve a coincident arrangement in the center without a bunch of hassle, run them with the least amount of spacing between them that you are able to arrange, but figure out a way to run them X/Y at some point. This will provide a solid center image and eliminate the need for an additional dedicated center microphone channel, yet is likely to sound rather narrow on its own in isolation. That's a necessary compromise that better optimizes things when that pair is intended to be combined with another wide-spaced pair rather than being used by itself.
2a) Outdoors or in really good acoustics, use either set of your omnis in the 31" wide position. Go even wider if you can. Combination with the center pair allows that.
2b) Indoors, with talkative crowds (go up high) or less than great acoustics, swap out the omnis for increasingly directional patterns depending on the severity of the situation, pointed forward but with some angle between them. The worse the situation, the more directional and PAS they should be. The capsule selection of the V1's will allow you lots of flexibility with that. Keep them as wide as you are able to go with whatever bar you are using.
[edit- The V1 wide-cards may be especially useful there as they are likely to have good bass extension closer to what omnis provide]Working just within the above arrangement will give you a whole lot of options to play around with. Swap between both sets of omnis to see which you like better, swap between cardioid pairs, swap the AT cards for the V1 hypers, and change the wide position pattern from omnis to more directional as needed indoors. All that will be very good to get in depth experience with before making things more complicated. And this is just on the recording side of things. You'll also have a lot of options to play around and experience to gain on the mixing side of things.
Adding additional channels will be far more beneficial once you've figure out what works best and what doesn't with just a few though experience.
^If this argument isn't convincing enough, here's a more technical one- The combination of spacing and mic patterns you currently list as available to you are not really sufficient to run as an optimized 6 channel arrangement, unless one or two of the additional mics are pointed rearward.