well, i got to run the 8040s last night at the Chris Robinson Brotherhood show in Petaluma. fun show, cool venue, all that good stuff... as for the mics, i am very happy with the result. per the recommendation of another forum member familiar with the venue, i set up in the exact spot where i was referred (DFC at the first rail behind the dance floor), but band management thought my mic stand would be a distraction so they asked me to move to the rear of the floor. i politely complied, but quickly realized that i was very proximate to the bar and the talkers. oh well, what was i to do? i pushed on, hoped that folks would chill, and kept my fingers crossed that the mics wouldn't pick up the distracting activity to my rear (and let me say, at times it was very distracting).
the mics were set up somewhere in between a DIN and ORTF configuration. i intended to set mics at 90 degrees, but thought that the angle was too wide for my floor position and relation to the stacks. so, i let the stage setup and my position on the floor dictate the mic positions. i would have liked to keep my mics at 7'-8' feet, but ended up at about 10', which i thought was high. i really wanted to avoid the excessive talking that was very close by and decided to take what the room and the crowd would give me. going high with the stand seemed to be where i was being pushed.
when i got home and first heard the recording i had two reactions. 1) i was psyched that i successfully navigated the talkers. all those distracting talkers were significantly minimized (with a few minor and very brief exceptions that didn't amount to much at all). that was very positive. yeah, go cards! 2) on the other hand i was very disappointed. the overall sound was very "boomy" ...way too much bass and not nearly the top end that i expected from these mics. the recording was flat and somewhat two dimensional. i thought i had royally "eff'd up".
in an effort to salvage what i could from the master tracks, i applied some light EQ. i took the bass down 6db at the very low end and increased the trebles 6db at the very high end. what i ended up with was truly pleasing. the recording opened up tremendously, took on a very representative 3-D feel of the room, and had that airy top end that i was hoping for while still maintaining good low end. a night and day transformation with very little fiddling at all. (i know.... some folks hate EQ. i'll take your criticism without reaction. it's cool if you hate me for post-production "fiddling")
the post-production debate aside, i'm surprised how much bass these 8040s pull down. i'm still not sure if it was mostly my set-up or if the 8040s are just "bass monsters". if so, should i opt to run the high pass filter on my recorder to compensate or just roll off the bass after the fact with some light post-production EQ?
all comments (good or bad) are welcomed and appreciated. thanks.