Gear / Technical Help > Ask The Tapers
Brand new to taping live concerts, any tips?
tapermansam:
I'm brand new to taping live concerts, and am looking to record the Northlands Music Festival this June and wondering if anyone has been here and if they allow recording? I emailed them twice and haven't heard back...
I've done classical recordings before (piano, pipe organ, quintets, etc) and a few local bands here and there, but nothing like a festival/large outdoor concert. Any tips or recommendations would be greatly appreciated!
Gear that I'll be using:
Zoom F4
Rode NT5 matched pair (I have both cardioids and omni capsules)
Sony MDR7506 studio headphones
Impact 13' air cushioned light stand for the stereo bar + mics
Thanks!
Sam
HealthCov Chris:
I haven't been to Northlands, so I can't speak to that. That lineup looks sweet!!! However, some important considerations to festival taping are as follows (not an exhaustive list).
1- Adequate windscreens
2- Adequate memory card size. I use a seperate 128gb for each day, so I can start for first band and let run all day. Don't want to run out of space, or be messing around with cards after libations have been had.
3- Adequate battery. Know your consumption amount before you go. Or take something like this for the day https://a.co/d/bi5STQ7 . You can recharge it overnight. I hate using smaller battery banks that may die. Again...libations.
4- Rain coverage for mics and gear on ground. Umbrella with clamp and clear trashbag. Be sure your mic cables curl below the thrash bag tie off, this way any water runs down your cables and drips off before they enter the trash bag.
5- consider a weight for your tripod incase the wind kicks up.
6- If setting stand in traffic area, a small led string light is helpful to mark your stand base area to avoid people walking into it.
7- Dry storage for gear overnight to prevent moisture in the mics.
8- Double all this if you plan to record at both stages.
Notice the taper in the background (with umbrella over mics) from Northlands last year (2023).
fanofjam:
--- Quote from: HealthCov Chris on February 08, 2024, 07:04:09 PM ---I haven't been to Northlands, so I can't speak to that. That lineup looks sweet!!! However, some important considerations to festival taping are as follows (not an exhaustive list).
--- End quote ---
Excellent guide Chris. A couple of comments to add...
Get big beefy screens or furs for festival taping because they act as shock absorbers and/or mud flaps if your stand ever takes a tumble, which can happen. I've come back to my mics after a storm thinking I'd secured everything great before leaving the bowl or whatever only to find the mics capsule face down in 5 inches of mud.
Second the suggestion about batteries. I would strongly suggest overdoing your battery planning. Take WAY more capacity than you expect. I'm real close to my 100th festival and I can tell you 100% that batteries are the one thing that used to kill my festival taping experience more than anything. That's a thing of the past for me now bc I have something like 25 tekkeons and my cables and/or recorders are such that I can hot-swap batteries, so I never have to worry about losing power as long as I keep an eye on my battery usage during the day (which sometimes gets away from me depending on beer consumption).
An alternative to weights for your stand are stakes.
Alot of guys like to be FOB during fests, but I find that too much of a hassle of managing my stand and blocking drunk people. For maximum festy enjoyment, get there before crowds amass and set up with your back to the barricade in front of the board. I set my stand up than park my camp chair right next to it. I usually will be recording from first act till late night, so that's sometimes 16 hours of recording, so the camp chair is essential to my festival enjoyment. I'll usually pick either corner left or corner right, because alot of FOB engineers don't like the stands directly in their sight lines.
If it starts to rain, put a towel on top of your umbrella. That'll keep the pitter patter of rain drops from your recordings.
For what it's worth, 24/48 uses about a gigabyte an hour. So a 128gb card will be plenty for a weekend, and 64 usually is plenty but it can get pretty full if you do a four day festival.
I always take my laptop and download yesterday's performances as a safety in case something ever might go wrong with a card, say the last hour of the last day of a festival. If I don't have my laptop, I change cards each day for the same reason. I've never lost an entire festival, but always have lived in fear of it happening.
$10 wal mart ponchos have always been my go-to for rain-gear. Small and fits in my bag with little or no space taken up.
Since this is your first festival be aware that 75% of festivals before about July are mud pits by the last day. Gallosh type footwear or waterproof hiking boots end up saving your health.
If you like to imbibe, many festivals have police and animals outside the gate and upstream of the festival entrances. Plan accordingly. I've heard that spending a night or two in jail can ruin a festival experience. ;)
Regarding the suggestion about string light on your stand...that's a good suggestion, but once the sun sets I just keep my led flashlight in my hand and when someone gets close and just shine the light on the ground to help guide them around my shit or to keep them from tripping on a stand leg.
Friends make the best blockers ever, so if you're going with others, make it a team sport.
Take a penknife or something discreet with you to kill beach balls and other inflatables. All you have to do is put a pinhole in it and then knock it away and chuckle while it slowly deflates. Nobody knows you're the murderer.
If I think of anything else, I'll amend.
Enjoy the festival!
Gutbucket:
I use a dog-leash ground-screw and adjustable strap to secure the stand to the ground and prevent it from toppling, but the ground needs to be soft enough to screw it in, and take a small folding 3-leg stool to put my recording bag on, keeping it off the ground. Consider taking a second chair. It blocks the other side of the stand and accommodates a friend.
Rain sucks. Keep a couple large heavy-duty lawn refuse style garbage bags folded up in your recording bag for deluge protection. You may not need them, but if you do they are large enough to fit everything rapidly, and thick enough to survive in that environment without leaking. If a tropical deluge threatens suddenly, throw your recording bag in one, along with your backpack or whatever else (with the low loop of mic cables keeping water out), on the stool out of the mud.. and if it really starts coming down, you can lower the mics and quickly put the other bag over them. A couple large Damp-Rid style desicant packs back at camp are a good idea. If you have a very small recording bag you may be able to hang it from a knob of the stand itself, but test that setup for secure hanging and center-of-gravity stability first.
Hot sun is beats rain but use something to shade your recording bag to prevent the recorder from overheating. Make sure there is sufficient air space around the recorder in the bag. Use something to shade yourself.
Get a tall stand. Height above the audience is the first and most effective way to attenuate nearby talking. That goes a long way to easing taper anxiety about distracted audience members ruining the recordings. But with height comes susceptibility to wind and toppling. Stake or screw it down and use good windscreens.
Some festival tapers bring a folding wagon. Easy to manage chairs, stand, gear, waters. Can keep the recording bag in there, eliminating the need for the small stool.
Take a extra flashlight. Helps if one is a headlamp. Bring extra earplugs.
Notice some common themes across responses?
^ All this practical stuff is what makes it really work. Once you have all that under control you can think about niceties like what mics and what microphone configurations. Which we can also discuss if you like, but is something of a secondary concern after all the other stuff is under control.
al w.:
There are lots of tapes from last year's Northlands festival - and it's a jam-heavy fest - so you shouldn't have a problem. Some great tips in here!
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