Topic: Onstage questions...

[Gutbucket]

From now on, If I don't have time to test the setup, I'll probably just use 2 recorders, unclocked sources again.

That's what I usually do simply because it makes me more invisible to the crew and makes juggling all the preshow variables less stressful for myself. Aligning and shrinking one source in Samp is leasurely and far less error prone, so the bit of extra work in editing is an easy tradeoff.  If I can get in early during the sound check and am sure that I'm not getting in anyone's way, then sure, taking home 4 aligned tracks on the R-44 make me smile. But it's more about logistics, minimizing my intrusion, and eliminating the potential for error that often pushes me to two (or more) locally placed recorders.  Just works for me.

[kirk97132]

While I am far from an expert, I think the reference to ground loops is slightly misplaced.  The place you are likely to encounter ground loops is on the power side of the equation not the audio side necessarily.   A ground loop on the AC side will be the culprit of that 60Hz hum we have all heard through a PA.  But from what I know this is an issue caused by the AC power problem, not an issue of "ground loop" on the audio side.  and the other big contributor of unwanted noise is using an unbalanced cord where a balanced one should be used which induces unwanted current into the signal chain.  A ground loop is different devices being powered have the grounds hooked up at different points along the power path and not all being grounded to the same point in the power path.   

But, I think the intent of the post was to say that by not having any of your own signal chain into the house equipment you avoid the chance of picking up any residual noise in their system.  Of course this will not change the guitar pickups that have the occasional 60Hz hum or any other amplifier noise especially the amps that have mics on them for the PA.   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_loop_%28electricity%29

[Patrick]

While I am far from an expert, I think the reference to ground loops is slightly misplaced.  The place you are likely to encounter ground loops is on the power side of the equation not the audio side necessarily.   A ground loop on the AC side will be the culprit of that 60Hz hum we have all heard through a PA.  But from what I know this is an issue caused by the AC power problem, not an issue of "ground loop" on the audio side.  and the other big contributor of unwanted noise is using an unbalanced cord where a balanced one should be used which induces unwanted current into the signal chain.  A ground loop is different devices being powered have the grounds hooked up at different points along the power path and not all being grounded to the same point in the power path.   

But, I think the intent of the post was to say that by not having any of your own signal chain into the house equipment you avoid the chance of picking up any residual noise in their system.  Of course this will not change the guitar pickups that have the occasional 60Hz hum or any other amplifier noise especially the amps that have mics on them for the PA.   

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_loop_%28electricity%29

When two devices are connected to two different ground sources, there is going to be potential for audible noise caused by electrical ground loops.  This is a something that's very important in audio.  A lot of devices that use Pin 1 as ground have ground lift switches that lift pin 1 from the device in hopes of the noise going away.  If there is a ground loop issue in the house console that you're taking a patch from, there's no doubt that your recording will be noisy.

However running your onstage mics through the house snake and directly into your recording deck is not going to introduce electrical hum (unless the snake is poorly run next to electrical lines from lights, etc).  The passive nature of stage snakes is why this is the case. 

[yltfan]

Just found this old thread, made me think of a weird issue I had a few weeks back. I ran my 9self-powered c1000's on stage, through the snake and back to the board. When I plugged the cables directly into my 680, I got nothing but static. I then ran them into the board, taking two direct outs, and everything was fine. Anyone have an idea what was going on, or how to make the snake work next time?

[Patrick]

Just found this old thread, made me think of a weird issue I had a few weeks back. I ran my 9self-powered c1000's on stage, through the snake and back to the board. When I plugged the cables directly into my 680, I got nothing but static. I then ran them into the board, taking two direct outs, and everything was fine. Anyone have an idea what was going on, or how to make the snake work next time?

Could the batteries have been dead?  When you patched them into the house console they could have been powered by phantom.  If I remember from when I owned c1000s, phantom overrides the internal battery.  But it doesn't sound like a cable issue since there was signal on those channels when you patched into the console.

[yltfan]

Just found this old thread, made me think of a weird issue I had a few weeks back. I ran my 9self-powered c1000's on stage, through the snake and back to the board. When I plugged the cables directly into my 680, I got nothing but static. I then ran them into the board, taking two direct outs, and everything was fine. Anyone have an idea what was going on, or how to make the snake work next time?

Could the batteries have been dead?  When you patched them into the house console they could have been powered by phantom.  If I remember from when I owned c1000s, phantom overrides the internal battery.  But it doesn't sound like a cable issue since there was signal on those channels when you patched into the console.

I suspected the same thing, but the engineer siad there was no phantom power. He tried to find out what was going on as well, but could not.

[fleish]

I ran onstage for the first time last night. It was an acoustic performance by Matisyahu & guitarist Adam Weinberg @ http://www.jfcs.org/11th-Annual-Emigre-Community-Gala. I got there just in time for sound check and luckily they were having some issues which gave me time to score a round base mic stand that would fit onstage without being in the way. I wanted to run a wide pattern since I was so close so I setup the AK40's NOS for the first time as well. And here were exactly 2 free channels left in the nearby snake which I then plugged my KM100's into and they patched me over to the side of the stage where one of the audio engineers (the FOH was at the back of the room) & a guy who was running video were setup. I also pulled a mono XLR SBD feed and ran everything into the trusty R-4. I set my levels during the soundcheck and then left the recorder running (gotta love having a hard drive and 2 full, fully redundant batteries) while I left to get some dinner and change.

Below is a picture of the setup - though without Matis or Adam - but they were basically setup inside of the 3 wedges you see. I'm not sure if I maybe ran it a little too wide since it was the 2 of them on the stage. I think it sounds a tad strange without the SBD mixed in - but otherwise am happy with it as a first attempt. I'm curious if anyone would have done anything differently based on my description and pic(s). You can find a full sized version of the below pic and some others showing the room (and 1 dark KM184 on a stand picture - thought it was cool they were apparently using a bunch of those for something - not for Matis) here: http://www.fleish.org/pics/toleib/

[stevetoney]

Nice setup Todd.  I guess the only thing is that since there were only two of them, NOS might have been too wide and compressed the soundstage for the mic pair towards the center of the recorded image, but you might not have been able to know ahead of time where they were going to be once the music started.  I think NOS is a good rule of thumb config for close up and stage lip though.  If you know it's going to be just a small number of performers on stage that stay well within the bounds of the range covered by the mics, I might be inclined to go with something narrower next time.  I'm curious, is Matis still hairless or has he started letting it all grow back?

[fleish]

Thanks for the feedback Steve. I actually knew roughly where they would be positioned and I also considered going ORTF (and I'm curious what configuration you had in mind). Heck, I briefly considered turning the mics around and just using them to pickup the crowd - which I'm glad I didn't since the crowd got plenty close to the stage during the performance and can be heard on the AUD source just fine.

He's letting it grow back somewhat. I didn't get a good close-up shot of him - but you can sort of see it in IMG_0406.JPG on the above link. When I said hey during sound check I told him I was glad I didn't trim my beard too much since I was aiming to have a longer one than him for once

Oh and one thing I forgot to mention is that during the performance I had to lower the channel closest to Matis when he started beatboxing ~20 minutes in because of clipping. He had the FOH turn up the subs when he was beatboxing and it wasn't a problem during soundcheck but it definitely was during the show - I lowered that channel 1.5 "notches" on the R-4.

[stevetoney]

Thanks for the feedback Steve. I actually knew roughly where they would be positioned and I also considered going ORTF (and I'm curious what configuration you had in mind).

My thoughts are either DIN or NOS since both guys were probably standing near the middle of the stage.  The 110degree angle of ORTF have been too much in this case, although probably not if there's a full band on-stage. 

I'll be honest.  I'm getting away from standard configurations lately and I think the sound quality on my recordings are improving.  Looks like you're using bars, so you're sticking with the standard configs...my thoughts probably won't help you since I'm not using standard config bars.  Anyway, for amplified shows from the audience in a non-irregularly shaped room, I'm happiest with the results when use DIN spacing and point straight at the stacks.  If the room is funky shaped, I improvise.

In this case, I'd probably have gone with the 20 or 30 cm spacing so that there's a good stereo imaging on the recording (due to time difference between the mics) and angled the mics so that I got 'coverage' such that both guys and the instruments/amps were gonna be inside the recording angle, but not so much so that they sound like they're squished into the middle of the soundstage.  That would probably mean less angle, but from the picture I can't really say.  The goal would be to have one person sound predominant in either channel, but not so much that you can't hear the other guy at all in the opposite channel.

My strictly amateur thoughts anyway.

[tgakidis]

I'll be honest.  I'm getting away from standard configurations lately and I think the sound quality on my recordings are improving.

I have been doing this a lot lately myself.

[One Cylinder]

>>> I used to run ORTF most of the time when taping on stage. Usually this configuration worked quite well, although at a few venues the recordings came out a bit "boomy." I think this was because the mics were picking up both direct sound, as well as a considerable amount of the sound as it came off the walls @ the sides of the stage. The boomier (?) recordings were always in venues w/ shitty acoustics, usually ones that weren't necessarily designed for live music. Lately I've been going w/ DINa on stage and have been pleased with the results. Haven't experienced any of the boominess and the stereo imaging is very close to ORTF.

[page]

Thanks for the feedback Steve. I actually knew roughly where they would be positioned and I also considered going ORTF (and I'm curious what configuration you had in mind).

My thoughts are either DIN or NOS since both guys were probably standing near the middle of the stage.  The 110degree angle of ORTF have been too much in this case, although probably not if there's a full band on-stage. 

I'll be honest.  I'm getting away from standard configurations lately

i'll play the devils advocate card and say ortf over either din or nos. I've found in my onstage/stagelip stuff that angle matters less than cap spacing in determining stereo push. I have some samples of around 65, 75, and 110 all at 17cm in the same environment/band to compare, and if I could run about 13/14cm and 90 degrees, I'd do it in a heartbeat for what I'm recording. Right now though I'm running 65-75 degrees and 17cm since I can't get the mount any smaller and go wider simultaneously.

The trick is what is the angle of the band's sound? Truly onstage you could have a soundstage of anywhere from maybe 90 to a full 170 degrees. The wider the soundstage, the smaller I want to make the angle or spacing. ymmv, best of luck.

[cybergaloot]

I run split omni's onstage a lot. Make sure you are to the side or behind the monitors (away from the speakers). That monitor mix can be anything and will negatively affect your recording most of the time.

[Gutbucket]

Generally, omnis can be more forgiving of on stage placement and setup configuration than directionals- partly because the primary factor in their setup is spacing alone and the angle between them is far less important to image (but may still be important to tone). In addition to being less tricky to setup to achieve a good, generally balanced if not razor-sharp stereo image, on stage is one of the places where omnis have a better chance of sounding good due to the direct/reverberant pickup of the pattern and proximity to the sound sources, where farther away in less than ideal situations, that aspect can be the biggest challenge in using them sucessfully.

Directionals can sound great on stage too of course, and sometimes may be the better choice, but they do require a bit more thought into which setup is appropriate.  I guess my point is that I'd recommend using omnis as a simple starting approach for recording on stage because it works well most of the time- the 'path of least resistance'.  I'd suggest setups using directional mics to those wanting to improve on something they otherwise aren't getting from the omnis on stage and are willing (like in this discussion) to put some thought into what angle and spacing combination is most appropriate for the situation.  That assumes both omnis and directionals of similar quality are available, if not that should influence the decision as well.