Topic: Audience mic question (as in mic for applause, etc)

[SmokinJoe]

Good timing on this thread.  I've been wondering the same thing, although I'm multitrack recording and mixing in post, so I do the level riding at home in post.

I've seen lots of bigger bands using shotgun mics very near the stacks pointed outward, and I believe they generally use inverted phase.  In particular Allman Brothers, Gov't Mule etc, who will be selling CDs after the show, or muletracks, etc.  I assume when the music is blaring they pick up mostly stacks, when it's not they pick up crowd. I was going to try this a couple of weeks ago at a good sized stage, but I didn't have the extra tracks.

And reverse polarity is just a XLR cable with pins (2&3??) swapped on one end.

Another issue becomes "the nature of the audience noise".  If there is some awesome solo and the crowd goes wild, I'll pump that up a little even though the music is already blasting.  If the band goes into a 60 second tuning/swap instruments break between songs, there is probably cheering at the end of the song, then it becomes undersirable background chatter as people get bored.  We want the former, not the latter.  All of this is hard to automate, and suggests that level riding is inevitable.

[cybergaloot]

Thanks for the input!

A Hosa GXX-195 will reverse the polarity without modifying a cable. Pretty cheap on eBay and through some of the usual outlets.

I have the same issue of not having enough channels right now. I plan on getting an Allen & Heath ZED-22fx after the holidays which will fix that for most of what I do. It runs about $800. The Zed-24 is about $100 cheaper but has no effects. Right now I sometimes add a touch of reverb to the vocals on occasion if they sound too dry. The way you are doing it, you could deal with that in post. Both of those boards have USB out (stereo only) and get great reviews. Later I'm looking at one of the JoeCo recorders.

I agree that there is probably no way to totally automate it but it would be nice to leave the rig on autopilot while I socialize on occasion. Right now I usually stay at the console for the first set and leave it on autopilot for the second. That is esp. true on Saturdays because our radio broadcast comes off my board. The best compliment I got on that radio broadcast was from a cop who called the club. He was hauling a guy to jail and had the station on and when he looked in the rearview mirror the guy was bopping his head to the music. Hey, if I can make it sound good enough for somebody to forget they are in big trouble, I've done a good job!

[Gutbucket]

The best compliment I got on that radio broadcast was from a cop who called the club. He was hauling a guy to jail and had the station on and when he looked in the rearview mirror the guy was bopping his head to the music. Hey, if I can make it sound good enough for somebody to forget they are in big trouble, I've done a good job!

Nice!

Is the radio broadcast internet streamed? I'd like to check it out sometime.

[kcmule]

A Hosa GXX-195 will reverse the polarity without modifying a cable.

Can't you just invert the phase on the console for the ambient channel,
Or am I missing something?

[cybergaloot]

A Hosa GXX-195 will reverse the polarity without modifying a cable.

Can't you just invert the phase on the console for the ambient channel,
Or am I missing something?

Not all boards have an invert switch, esp. cheap ones like the Yamaha I'm currently using.

[cybergaloot]

The best compliment I got on that radio broadcast was from a cop who called the club. He was hauling a guy to jail and had the station on and when he looked in the rearview mirror the guy was bopping his head to the music. Hey, if I can make it sound good enough for somebody to forget they are in big trouble, I've done a good job!

Nice!

Is the radio broadcast internet streamed? I'd like to check it out sometime.

Yep! HANK 99.9 FM or http://www.999hank.fm/ streamed starting at about 10 PM EST. Next Sat. its Col Bruce Hampton & the Pharoah Gummit (the way he heard Federal Government pronounced). The stream is MP3. Their normal broadcast is 80's pop. You can see who is coming up at http://www.bradfordvilleblues.com/  BTW, I get NO soundcheck so it usually takes me a song or two get it dialed in and since its all on the fly, sometimes they throw me a curve in mid-stream. Occasionally we get some streaming problems thanks to Comcast.

[Gutbucket]

the Pharoah Gummit (the way he heard Federal Government pronounced)

Heh, I was wondering during Magfest what inpired that name.

[SmokinJoe]

I can envision a software algorithm smart enough to do it pretty well... given
(a) the amplitude of the applause mics,
(b) the amplitude of the main mix,
(c) some timers and constants, and maybe
(d) the occasional user intervention... if band goes into a quiet solo, software might think it's the end of a song so user hits the AUD MUTE button.

That would probably mean running 4 track into a computer and 2 track output.  I've never written anything like this, but for people who knows how to write plugins, it's probably not insurmountable.

[cybergaloot]

I've only done a short search to see if any solutions are out there. I did read that some broadcast audio engineers actually use a foot switch. A computer with the right software and a fast enough interface (zero latency monitoring) would probably be the best solution.

[rastasean]

Joe, do you have any recordings of your multitracks on LMA/torrent?

Walter, how do you stream your audio to radio station with the analog board?
That looks like a tiny room so it doesn't look like it would take much of a rowdy crowd to have TOO much crowd noise.

For DVD/CD recordings I've been to, the club has space omnis on stage pointing to the crowd. No idea if they just set the levels or are constantly adjusting them.  How often are you broadcasting live, every second saturday of the month?

[cybergaloot]

The radio station provided a box similar this: http://bswusa.com/Codecs-BARIX-INSTREAMER100-P1048.aspx It converts the analog signal to MP3 and streams it. Ours doesn't have the SP/dif inputs. We send the streamed signal to the station via Comcast and they stream it out from there using a service provider. We broadcast the first set almost every Saturday with the exceptions being like Dec 24th when the club will be closed and in the past on a couple of other occasions. We broadcast the first set usually in it entirety.

You would be surprised how far away the audience sounds even in a small club like this. Its not because they are far away, its the room acoustics.  I run two mics at stage lip for ambient and usually run them omni but to keep from messing with the sight lines and to protect my mics they aren't higher than the monitors. That also keeps me from picking up the monitors. I can't stress how different the monitors sound from what the audience hears. The sound in the monitors is tailored to what the musicians need to take cues from. For example, sometimes the bass player only wants the kick drum. I try to avoid picking them up because they will mess up the sound.

I've done a bit more reading here and there on the web and so far most folks think a compressor on the audience mic channel(s) is the way to go but not the whole solution. I'm finding the most useful responses coming from people in the broadcast industry, live TV audio engineers mostly.

[cybergaloot]

I got shot down for recording last night (a rarity) so I didn't get to try anything. I probably wont get to try anything more than using an omni instead of the hyper tonight but I have some mic signal inverters coming so next weekend I'll be able to try that.

[capnhook]

I got shot down for recording last night (a rarity) so I didn't get to try anything. I probably wont get to try anything more than using an omni instead of the hyper tonight but I have some mic signal inverters coming so next weekend I'll be able to try that.

I'll try to be a good audience member tonight..!

[Gutbucket]

11:20 heading over to ride the stream..

[cybergaloot]

I got shot down for recording last night (a rarity) so I didn't get to try anything. I probably wont get to try anything more than using an omni instead of the hyper tonight but I have some mic signal inverters coming so next weekend I'll be able to try that.

I'll try to be a good audience member tonight..!

You were!