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Recording bass in a stage lip setup

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vantheman:
I have carte blanche to do whatever I want for a series of shows coming up in a couple weeks. The bassist is well known and I’d like to make sure he gets the treatment he deserves. So I’m thinking about how I can create a dummy-proof setup to get really good bass along with the rest of the recording. Would it make any sense at all to set a HP filter on the stage mic pair and do something like put an omni out on the floor somewhere? Between my new MixPre6 and a Tascam DR100 I’ll have up to 6 lines to play around with, so the thought is that I’ll capture the HF directional bass tones on stage and fill in the blanks with the omni and just center it, and probably run a LP filter on it in post. In addition or alternatively I can run the isolated bass line into one of the decks. I haven’t been doing this long enough to have an excellent sense of when a HP filter is truly needed but I have recorded some shows where the bass is too heavy for my own ears and the resulting recording needed HP in post and the recordings don’t sound as good as I feel they should have, I feel like I lost headroom for other frequencies. One example of where I think this happened - https://archive.org/details/dbt2021-08-28

Gutbucket:
If you can do whatever, I'd suggest putting 2-pairs on stage- Your typically preferred stereo microphone pair and a spaced omni pair.  Record the SBD tracks as well as you indicate you plan to do. Place a mic pair in the audience as well if you like, but the two stage pairs + SBD should be all you really need, especially with a spaced omni pair on-stage.

Set recording levels so that neither on-stage pair overloads, without needing to have HP filters engaged while recording.  That way you'll have what you need to figure out what works best in the mix afterward, without pre-committing yourself to any particular filtering.  The on-stage spaced omni pair will be particularly valuable in proving warm, natural, open sounding bass.. likely with just about the right amount of room and audience reaction.

Getting the bass right in the mix is one of the toughest parts of good post production, as it varies more than everything else from playback system to system.  Sometimes a high-pass filter is the right answer, but usually only to clean things up in certain channels when others are supplying the low frequency content, IME. Otherwise, careful EQ tends to work better by sculpting the low frequency content into proper shape rather than bluntly amputating it.  All the more so if your primary audience for the recording is the performing bass-playing artist!  If you find you need more control of low end dynamics when mixing, dynamic EQ or EQ in combination with multi-band compression can help. 

vantheman:
Thanks again Gut. Is there a definitive guide to on-stage spaced omnis on this site? Looking for info on orientation, etc.

Gutbucket:
Lots of threads, but the general take is 3 feet apart is pretty much always a good starting point, both on stage and from the audience.  If you are running a second pair of mics in the center, it helps to increase the omni spacing to double that, 5 or 6 feet or even more.  If running just the omnis without another pair (or SBD) and positioned close such as on-stage, you can go less wide to be make sure of a solid image distribution across the center. Two feet apart works, 12" is not enough, unless you have something between them acting like a Jecklin disk baffle.

Pointing them is more subtle.  They are omnidirectional up to relatively high frequency, but the become directional in the highest frequencies, so point them toward whatever sources you want to derive the most treble "sheen" or high frequency extension from.  If running just omnis onstage and spaced rather wide, you may want to point them inward towards the drum-kit.  With another pair in the middle, that pair will provide the high frequency extension across the center and the omnis can be pointed elsewhere - directly forward, wide, or even backwards out into the room if the audience is fully engaged and tends to add rather than detract from the performance.  All depends.  If narrow or something else in the middle, angle them outward somewhat.

In this case I might point them straight ahead, which may be more or less on-axis with the bass amp cabinet.

jcable77:

--- Quote from: vantheman on June 26, 2022, 04:51:46 PM ---I have carte blanche to do whatever I want for a series of shows coming up in a couple weeks. The bassist is well known and I’d like to make sure he gets the treatment he deserves. So I’m thinking about how I can create a dummy-proof setup to get really good bass along with the rest of the recording. Would it make any sense at all to set a HP filter on the stage mic pair and do something like put an omni out on the floor somewhere? Between my new MixPre6 and a Tascam DR100 I’ll have up to 6 lines to play around with, so the thought is that I’ll capture the HF directional bass tones on stage and fill in the blanks with the omni and just center it, and probably run a LP filter on it in post. In addition or alternatively I can run the isolated bass line into one of the decks. I haven’t been doing this long enough to have an excellent sense of when a HP filter is truly needed but I have recorded some shows where the bass is too heavy for my own ears and the resulting recording needed HP in post and the recordings don’t sound as good as I feel they should have, I feel like I lost headroom for other frequencies. One example of where I think this happened - https://archive.org/details/dbt2021-08-28

--- End quote ---
You would actually have 8 channels to play with. If you got the board feed on stage, you could run it into 5+6 of the mixpre6 (or just mono 5 or 6), 2 split omni's, 2 center coincident pair. And then run the DR100 out back FOB or what not. I tend to do this set up quite frequently. Its easier to sync the board with the 4 other channels of the mixpre6 and just add a little ambience with the FOB other time clock deck.

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