Topic: what configuration ???

[Krispy D]

hey all,

I'm a total newby, with maybe 15 quality recordings under my belt.  I use a mosty homemade rig that pruduces a suprisingly good recording.  I have a decent ebay light stand (12 foot, air shock) not bad for thirty bucks.  a home made T bar and home made shock mounts, I'll post pics at a later date they came out awesome and could be easily modded to work for any other rig! 

I use two different mics and haven't decided which I like more.  Now, before anybody jumps in and says "go buy mics", I'll let you know that these both have made good quality tapes.  maybe not A++ but deffinate A material.  I am very new to taping but not new to listening.  I have been trading live concert recordings for ten+ years and know a good tape.  (and the real reason I'm still using these is I am closing on a house this week and can't afford it   )  all in good time...  I currently use a pair of matched old sony ecm 260f electret condencers or audio technica atm11 (also electret condencers)  Both pairs sound better with a battery box.  I use a spsb-1 with adjustable bass rolloff and a rat shack headphone volume controll into a sony mz-n10 net md recorder. 

Now with all that out there is one venue in town where my fav local band plays regularly and iI can't get a good recording no matter what I do.  I've gotten great recordings of the same band at different venues as well as great recording of other bands at those venues so I'm left with blaming the venue.  The room is fairly small only holding a few hundered people but the cieling is probly 30+ feet and the whole thing is concrete.  the stage is only inches off the floor and the stacks are maybe 5 feet tall on the floor. 

My stand is about 25 to 35 feet back from the stage (against the wall) and 10 feet up still getting crowd noise though (but I don't get crowd noise at 8 feet in other venues??)  I don't know enough about mic configs to even name how my mics are set up but it works great everywhere else...  I have used two different setups in this venue and neither sounds any better.  one is with my mics about ten inches apart pointing away from each other lik a (*V*).  right mic pointed right and left mic pointed left.  The other is the same spread but opposite direction (*^*)  This one sounds the best in most venues and I've kinda stuck with it for the most part.

My recordings in this room sound like shit...  muddy, noisy, can't hear anything when the band is quiet you get crowd noise, when there loud it's just kinda noisey... I know I'm not giving you guys very much to work with  but every bit of advice I've gotten on this board has been used to improve my recordings so I thought I would give it a shot.  I have recordings if it helps...

please help
sorry for the windy-ness
~Kris~

[F.O.Bean]

what patern of mic capsule?


or did i miss it somewhere?

[Krispy D]

I'm not sure to be honest.  is omni cards the right answer??
 

[jacallery]

If omni's, there is your problem, you will get ALOT of crowd noise.
Also that 30+ foot concrete ceiling is throwing all kinds if reflections at you.
The voices in the bar have no low ceiling to absorb them.  A hyper or supercard
mic would be the best to cut out these ceiling reflections, as they have the most
rejection of unwanter (off axis) sound of any mic (polar)pattern(except shotgun mics)
Cardioid pattern would be the next choice.
If you can't change mic polar patterns and are using omni, I would suggest trying to get closer
to the stage or sound.  This will give you more of a direct sound to your mics.
Also if your using omni's, the mic setup isn't that important, just spacing of the mics, but
with that 30'+ ceiling your in for very muddy sound.
hope some of this helps,

callery