Topic: 4 mic on stage placement

[china_rider]

Hey all... I have not had much of a chance to record on stage, however, it looks like I will be doing it this Thu for a group of local musicians.  I wanted to tap the TSKB and see if anyone had any ideas for mic placement.

Location: The Loft, Tempe, AZ - Great place to see a show, bad place to record a show.  This venue is very long and narrow.  Probably less than 40' from the stage to the back of the room length wise, 3-4 x  that width wise.  Speakers are directly above each side of the stage pointed down at a very severe angle to focus around 5-10 feet behind the stage lip.  Stage faces the shorter length and not the width.

I'm plugging my R-9 in for the SBD feed so that leaves me 4 channels on stage with the R-4. I have 2X480(1,2,3) and 2X ADK TLs to work with.  On the R4 I'll be using StereoX2 or MonoX4 and control the mix afterwards.

So I have been thinking about a few options.

a) I've never ran MS and am curious to try.  I was thinking MS center stage and split 482s on the side.  But I'm wondering if a drum setup in the middle of the stage would kill this idea.

b) 481 or 483 center with split TL omnis.  The only downside is that the room can sound like crap depending on where you are and I don't want the omnis to suck that in.

c) 483 din center, TL card din center.  Just to get 2 images from the same spot.

So does anyone have any opinions or other suggestions for a good mic setup?

Any input is appreciated, :-}
Dana

[BayTaynt3d]

Tell us more about the instrumentation.

An XY in the center and flanking cards might be worth thinking about (if flanking omnis are too sketchy b/c of the room).

Another option is to skip the 6-channel thing, and run a single stage lip stereo pair through the house snake back to the SBD. Then run that AUD pair and the SBD into the R4. Makes for super-easy post. Otherwise, you'll have to sync the sources and stretch/compress one of the sources to keep a lid on drift. That's do-able, but just that much more work, and a stage-lip matrix can sound great.

[balou2]

An XY in the center and flanking cards might be worth thinking about (if flanking omnis are too sketchy b/c of the room).

I do this regularly and get REALLY nice results.

[Charlie Miller]

I think you're gonna learn a lot about phase this week

[china_rider]

I was thinking about using the snake also, however, I don't know if I will have access until I get there.  Never did a snake before If that happens I should be able to take the XLRs from the snake directly into the R-5 and then take RCA from the board right? (I know the SBD is RCA... It's more the snake I was asking about.)

The instruments could be anything... The only constant in the band is one local guitar player.  Every show the band will rotate with other musicians.  The entire show will be improv jamming.

[BayTaynt3d]

You'll need two sets of two XLR cables to be safe when using the snake. You'll run a pair of cables from your mics into the snake box on stage. Then, you'll run from the snake back by the SBD into your R4 with the second set of XLR cables. You might be able to plug the end of the snake into the R4 directly, but I would NOT count on that -- you'll want to be able to move out of the way of the FOH too. Also, they may have those channels of the snake running right into the SBD, so they may have to pull them out for you to connect your second set of XLR cables to. Then of course, you'll need to be able to go from the RCA outs of the SBD into your R4 via either XLR or 1/4" -- so make sure to have the right adapters, and also make sure to have enough length to get out of the way from the SBD (if you don't have long enough cables, you may get screwed if you try to be right in the FOH engineer's face with your gear. So, bring a long pair of XLR cables for use on stage (to get from your mics to the snake), bring a shorter pair of XLR cables for back at the SBD to pick up from the snake, and then bring a third pair of cables and adapters for the SBD patch.

[BayTaynt3d]

Also, DON'T SEND phantom to the SBD! 

[china_rider]

Thanks for the info... T+ around.

 I think the snake is going to be the way to go if I can get access.  That way the mics will also be synced to the SBD.

[bdasilva]

I like the AKG din in the center and the TLs in the corners... card or omni (if you can) running all cards sometimes leaves you with not enough crowd noise (what a problem)

"Then of course, you'll need to be able to go from the RCA outs of the SBD into your R4 via either XLR or 1/4"

The board I patch out of most gives one  mono aux... 1/4 trs that I send to two mono RCAs or two mono TRSs

[Todd R]

I think you're gonna learn a lot about phase this week

Any quick input on this Charlie?

I got a 4ch mixer recently, and have been thinking about running center XY cards with 3' spread A-B cards (for PA taping, not onstage).  I've run a few mixes with center cards mixed with spread omnis, but haven't yet tried it with spread cards.

I seem to remember phase cancellation is less of an issue with omnis, but I'm afraid I might run into problems if I try mixing in spread cards.  I've got my New Stereo Soundbook lent out at this point, so I can't do any reading up on it.

[bluegrass_brad]

I think you're gonna learn a lot about phase this week

Any quick input on this Charlie?

I got a 4ch mixer recently, and have been thinking about running center XY cards with 3' spread A-B cards (for PA taping, not onstage).  I've run a few mixes with center cards mixed with spread omnis, but haven't yet tried it with spread cards.

I seem to remember phase cancellation is less of an issue with omnis, but I'm afraid I might run into problems if I try mixing in spread cards.  I've got my New Stereo Soundbook lent out at this point, so I can't do any reading up on it.

Not Charlie but...Todd for PA recording in this manner you arent likely to encounter a whole lot of phase issues (possible, but not likely)  if the mics are running close to the same horizontal and vertical plane:

XXX                                    XXX
PA                                      PA



^                    ^^                   ^
Mic                  Mics                  Mic

In the PA scenario you are running all the mics pretty much the same distance from the sound source, so sound is hitting them at the same time.  You start to get into phase issues when the sound is hittin gthe mics at different times.  A good example would be onstage mics.  If you have mics split to the edge of the stage and a stereo pair in the middle the sound from the drums and amps are gonna hit the mics at different times, which can cause phase problems (kinda depends on how far apart the mics are, how far from sound source, etc., in which case you would throw one pair of the mics out of phase to see if that helps the problem.  Drum micing in FOH work is a place where you often encounter phase issues if you have a full kit and alot of mics.  Another place I have encountered it is when a musician has an internal mic and a pickup on the same instrument (alot of acoustic musicians do this to get a better tone), sometimes there are phase problems there as well. Does your mixer have phase inversion?

[Todd R]

Thanks for the input, Brad!

I guess I thought that even small variations in distance could mean one mic could be getting the negative phase of the soundwave and the other mic being mixed in could get the positive phase, resulting in problems.  I may just try it out and do some experiments.  With my setup, I can get a 2ch recording from my center pair, and then get the 4mic mix.  So if the 4ch mix sux, I'm not out anything other than lugging the gear.

I'm using a Marenius MM4210 4ch mixer.  A lot of good features in a small package, and good sound taboot, but unfortunately no phase inversion capabilities.

[bluegrass_brad]

Thanks for the input, Brad!

I guess I thought that even small variations in distance could mean one mic could be getting the negative phase of the soundwave and the other mic being mixed in could get the positive phase, resulting in problems. 

For PA recording this isnt going to be an issue unless you have one set of mics several feet in front of the other set.  For a drum kit, small variations will make a difference as their are several sources (many drums) of varied distance from each mic.  The PA speakers are on the same plane both vert and horiz. so that isnt an issue.

[BayTaynt3d]

Not saying you'll need this, but there are phase inverting in-line adapters that aren't too expensive. Just plug one into the XLR cable chain and you can easily invert the phase. One of the reasons I love the R4 is I can play with inverting the phase in post to listen to the difference. God I love my R4.

[bluegrass_brad]

Not saying you'll need this, but there are phase inverting in-line adapters that aren't too expensive. Just plug one into the XLR cable chain and you can easily invert the phase. One of the reasons I love the R4 is I can play with inverting the phase in post to listen to the difference. God I love my R4.

Yep.
http://www.shure.com/ProAudio/Products/Accessories/us_pro_A15PRS_content
 
You can make them yourself as well, I have a couple of these I made, only about 12" long.
All you do is wire the cable backwards.  Make the negative positive
and the positive negative and you're 180 degrees out of phase

I had one of these when I was working with YMSB. Lets you dial in the phase perfectly to any degree.  Works great with instruments that have internal mics and pickups.
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/nov03/articles/littlelabs.htm