Topic: On stage mic positioning?

[Shawn]

wow... I gotta disagree with you there chris. Many instrumental bands sound great when taped on-stage. I can point you to tons of amazing on-stage tapes on archive.org... check stuff by  Fareed Haque, Steve Kimock, Lotus, and a few others.

[Church-Audio]

wow... I gotta disagree with you there chris. Many instrumental bands sound great when taped on-stage. I can point you to tons of amazing on-stage tapes on archive.org... check stuff by  Fareed Haque, Steve Kimock, Lotus, and a few others.

I think you most have got lucky the balance on stage is never as good as it is out front unless the front of house guy is a knob. The other major point I am trying to make is the balance changes big time depending on where your standing on a stage...... If you have ever stood on a stage while a band is performing and listened you would hear what I am talking about. I am not saying it cant be done, I am just saying if you want to be more certain of getting a good tape the sound on stage is not it. Besides with the monitor mixes and with whats coming back from the front of house it ain't really what a musician would ever want a listener to hear. For example  a guitar player might want some bass guitar and some keys in his monitor mix with no lead vocal. If you put you mics near him your not going to get a real mix. Does this make sense? times this by 5-10 guys on stage each with there own monitor mix fully capable of drownding out any other stage position and you get the idea..

The other major issue is frequency balance  ( it ain't balanced frequency wise ether ) Cymbals are eating up a huge chunk of the high frequency  bandwidth. Never mind a snare drum this forces you to reduce gain levels. When you do that you lose parts of the performance that are below the cymbals and snare drum. This can be a cool effect but unless its mixed with the front its going to sound like dog shit.

If its an acoustic performance by all means put the mics where you want to but I really don't understand what it is your trying to achieve with a onstage mic setup? Can you explain.

I would love to hear a recording of just the stage I don't think anyone has made one that sounds anywhere near as good as a really good front of house mix....  As a matter of fact I will bet the first person who sends me a recording that sounds as good as a out front recording I will give that person a FREE SET OF MY CARDIOID MICS.  Just to Clarify I am only giving away 1 set of mics Not 4,000 sets OK.... So who ever sends me the first recording that I deem to be as good as a out front mix of an amplifyed band meaning EVERYTHING GOING IN TO THE P.A SYSTEM. I will honor my bet... And I will fair an impartial..This mix can only have THE ON STAGE MICS ONLY! NOT JAZZ OR COUNTRY MUST BE ROCK! we all know jazz bands always sound good so does country...


That's the true test. IMO
Chris Church

[Nick's Picks]

http://www.archive.org/details/cht2005-05-26
sounded just as good as the house, i thought.
got lucky.  sparse ensembles always com out better.

[Church-Audio]

http://www.archive.org/details/cht2005-05-26
sounded just as good as the house, i thought.
got lucky.  sparse ensembles always com out better.

This recording lacks warmth and the balance is horrible. The guitar is too loud the bass has a huge bump at around 100-150hz.... Not something I would ever consider as good as a good out front mix....
I am talking about track #2 I did not really listen to the rest as I could tell right off the top the mix was not very good..

[Shawn]

wow... I gotta disagree with you there chris. Many instrumental bands sound great when taped on-stage. I can point you to tons of amazing on-stage tapes on archive.org... check stuff by  Fareed Haque, Steve Kimock, Lotus, and a few others.

I think you most have got lucky the balance on stage is never as good as it is out front unless the front of house guy is a knob. The other major point I am trying to make is the balance changes big time depending on where your standing on a stage...... If you have ever stood on a stage while a band is performing and listened you would hear what I am talking about. I am not saying it cant be done, I am just saying if you want to be more certain of getting a good tape the sound on stage is not it. Besides with the monitor mixes and with whats coming back from the front of house it ain't really what a musician would ever want a listener to hear. For example  a guitar player might want some bass guitar and some keys in his monitor mix with no lead vocal. If you put you mics near him your not going to get a real mix. Does this make sense? times this by 5-10 guys on stage each with there own monitor mix fully capable of drownding out any other stage position and you get the idea..

The other major issue is frequency balance  ( it ain't balanced frequency wise ether ) Cymbals are eating up a huge chunk of the high frequency  bandwidth. Never mind a snare drum this forces you to reduce gain levels. When you do that you lose parts of the performance that are below the cymbals and snare drum. This can be a cool effect but unless its mixed with the front its going to sound like dog shit.

If its an acoustic performance by all means put the mics where you want to but I really don't understand what it is your trying to achieve with a onstage mic setup? Can you explain.

I would love to hear a recording of just the stage I don't think anyone has made one that sounds anywhere near as good as a really good front of house mix....  As a matter of fact I will bet the first person who sends me a recording that sounds as good as a out front recording I will give that person a FREE SET OF MY CARDIOID MICS.  Just to Clarify I am only giving away 1 set of mics Not 4,000 sets OK.... So who ever sends me the first recording that I deem to be as good as a out front mix of an amplifyed band meaning EVERYTHING GOING IN TO THE P.A SYSTEM. I will honor my bet... And I will fair an impartial..This mix can only have THE ON STAGE MICS ONLY! NOT JAZZ OR COUNTRY MUST BE ROCK! we all know jazz bands always sound good so does country...


That's the true test. IMO
Chris Church

This seriously the first kimock show I clicked on.  tell me which one sounds better...

http://www.archive.org/details/skb2003-02-15.shnf
http://www.archive.org/details/skb2003-02-15.dpa4022.shnf


don't give me any shit about the guitars being loud... this is a band led by a guitarist. it should be louder. I don't even consider this a great example. I'm sure I could easily find better examples with minimal effort. just about any charlie miller source would probably be great. For this type of band I'll take on -stage anyday.

[it-goes-to-eleven]

http://www.archive.org/details/cht2005-05-26
sounded just as good as the house, i thought.
got lucky.  sparse ensembles always com out better.

This recording lacks warmth and the balance is horrible. The guitar is too loud the bass has a huge bump at around 100-150hz....

Sounds just like CHT up close to me!

I'd expect the guitar to be LOUD with the CHT since it is Charlie's Trio...  And the bass has a bump because it is a 7 string guitar with a couple of bass strings. So the bass range is limited and he can't pluck/hit it nearly as hard as a regular bass player.

FOH recordings rarely, if ever, match the clarity and crispness of stage/lip recordings. And shall we talk about sound stage accuracy and *depth*?

CHT sets up with the drums on one side or the other.  House sound will often center the drums. That creates a conflicted soundstage.  You have the very loud drums at their actual position on the recording.. and then you have a similar sound coming from the PA but not aligned the same way.

But please... Don't listen to me.  Run hypers from the section. Have some beers. Leave the stage area clear and I'll take one for the team and risk making those awful recordings.  Sometimes they don't work out.

I am not saying it cant be done, I am just saying if you want to be more certain of getting a good tape the sound on stage is not it.

Absolutely agree.  Stage or stage lip are high risk for poor sound. Positioning changes of a few inches can make a big difference. Major unknowns.. Much safer to move back.  But there you have more talkers and screams and breaking bottles...  AND.... You can't see the band! You can't hear their banter.  There is a world of difference watching a performance from the first 1-3 rows and anywhere else.

[todd e]

chris,

i see some of the points you are making, but you haven't mentioned that the on-stage amps 'may' sound better than two speaker arrays in a club setting (based on nice tube stages and different effects that can be done on the fly.)  i just did my first, so i'm pretty new to onstage, but at this club i always have the house pa dialed in.  however the on-stage, blows the house sound out of the water, simply because you are closer to the sound source (less crowd.) i'm suggesting that the house sound has a somewhat negative rating (in my book) with a room full of drunk people, even with hypers directly at stacks, dfc.

i find the best thing from my recording i just made, was the true separation of sounds from the stage.  it may not be correct balance, but it was loud and sounds great (24/96), so i'm with shawn on this one.  onstage can sound great, but the setting is everything.  onstage, for a huge venue, not a good idea.  for a small stage/act, easier to make the tape sound AWESOME.

all of this is for instrumental, acts, that don't pump a vocal mic.

[Church-Audio]

http://www.archive.org/details/cht2005-05-26
sounded just as good as the house, i thought.
got lucky.  sparse ensembles always com out better.

This recording lacks warmth and the balance is horrible. The guitar is too loud the bass has a huge bump at around 100-150hz....

Sounds just like CHT up close to me!

I'd expect the guitar to be LOUD with the CHT since it is Charlie's Trio...  And the bass has a bump because it is a 7 string guitar with a couple of bass strings. So the bass range is limited and he can't pluck/hit it nearly as hard as a regular bass player.

I am a guitar player I have been playing for 35 years. I would freak out if my out front mix was that bad for my band..... As for a 7 string bass I mix them live all the time a bass guitar should be even with no huge ugly bumps this sound would not be acceptable to me as a live sound engineer or a musician for a out front sound...

FOH recordings rarely, if ever, match the clarity and crispness of stage/lip recordings. And shall we talk about sound stage accuracy and *depth*?

Sound stage accuracy are you kidding me? This is a live band I would think the best place to get an accurate representation of the performance would be from the audience perspective... Clarity and crispness have nothing to do with mic placement they have to do with quality microphones....


[/quote] CHT sets up with the drums on one side or the other.  House sound will often center the drums. That creates a conflicted sound stage.  You have the very loud drums at their actual position on the recording.. and then you have a similar sound coming from the PA but not aligned the same way. [/quote]

House sound centers the drums obviously the sound engineers your listening to do use a pan knob

There is no such thing as actual placement when your talking about real stage monitor levels trust me I can make the acoustic drum kit disappear in a live show with a good pair of monitors...

[/quote] But please... Don't listen to me.  Run hypers from the section. Have some beers. Leave the stage area clear and I'll take one for the team and risk making those awful recordings.  Sometimes they don't work out.[/quote]

If you were taping from the audience you would be able to drink more beer because you could stand beside your gear all night

I am not saying it cant be done, I am just saying if you want to be more certain of getting a good tape the sound on stage is not it.

[/quote] Absolutely agree.  Stage or stage lip are high risk for poor sound. Positioning changes of a few inches can make a big difference. Major unknowns.. Much safer to move back.  But there you have more talkers and screams and breaking bottles...  AND.... You can't see the band! You can't hear their banter.  There is a world of difference watching a performance from the first 1-3 rows and anywhere else. [/quote]

Thus my point..... You are more likely then not to get a better sound if your not trying to capture it on stage thank you...
Hey I like having these debates I think we should start a debate team
Chris Church

[/quote]

[Church-Audio]

chris,

i see some of the points you are making, but you haven't mentioned that the on-stage amps 'may' sound better than two speaker arrays in a club setting (based on nice tube stages and different effects that can be done on the fly.)  i just did my first, so i'm pretty new to onstage, but at this club i always have the house pa dialed in.  however the on-stage, blows the house sound out of the water, simply because you are closer to the sound source (less crowd.) i'm suggesting that the house sound has a somewhat negative rating (in my book) with a room full of drunk people, even with hypers directly at stacks, dfc.

i find the best thing from my recording i just made, was the true separation of sounds from the stage.  it may not be correct balance, but it was loud and sounds great (24/96), so i'm with shawn on this one.  onstage can sound great, but the setting is everything.  onstage, for a huge venue, not a good idea.  for a small stage/act, easier to make the tape sound AWESOME.

all of this is for instrumental, acts, that don't pump a vocal mic.

Again as a guitar player/sound engineer I have heard very few guitar amps on stage that I did not have to eq the living shit out of just to make them sound good Its called the blow by my leg syndrome where no one ever gets down on there hands and knees and actually listens to how things sound in front of the speaker

I would disagree strongly guitar sounds are very hard to get from far away that's why you will never see a sound engineer in a live show use a mic further then 1 foot away from a guitar amp unless he is a moron. The proximity effect is needed just to warm the sound of a 12 inch speaker up. If your on stage sound blows your PA out of the water you don't have much of a PA.... I am not talking about a small club show here I am talking about comparing the best on stage recording with the best out front recording and I will tell you the best out front recording WILL SMOKE the onstage recording....

The whole point of recording is to get the real balance of the event and it ain't on stage If you don't have a good mix from your recording what exactly did you capture that night??? My point is put the mics where the mix is good and 9 x out of 10 it ain't on stage...

[Church-Audio]

wow... I gotta disagree with you there chris. Many instrumental bands sound great when taped on-stage. I can point you to tons of amazing on-stage tapes on archive.org... check stuff by  Fareed Haque, Steve Kimock, Lotus, and a few others.

I think you most have got lucky the balance on stage is never as good as it is out front unless the front of house guy is a knob. The other major point I am trying to make is the balance changes big time depending on where your standing on a stage...... If you have ever stood on a stage while a band is performing and listened you would hear what I am talking about. I am not saying it cant be done, I am just saying if you want to be more certain of getting a good tape the sound on stage is not it. Besides with the monitor mixes and with whats coming back from the front of house it ain't really what a musician would ever want a listener to hear. For example  a guitar player might want some bass guitar and some keys in his monitor mix with no lead vocal. If you put you mics near him your not going to get a real mix. Does this make sense? times this by 5-10 guys on stage each with there own monitor mix fully capable of drownding out any other stage position and you get the idea..

The other major issue is frequency balance  ( it ain't balanced frequency wise ether ) Cymbals are eating up a huge chunk of the high frequency  bandwidth. Never mind a snare drum this forces you to reduce gain levels. When you do that you lose parts of the performance that are below the cymbals and snare drum. This can be a cool effect but unless its mixed with the front its going to sound like dog shit.

If its an acoustic performance by all means put the mics where you want to but I really don't understand what it is your trying to achieve with a onstage mic setup? Can you explain.

I would love to hear a recording of just the stage I don't think anyone has made one that sounds anywhere near as good as a really good front of house mix....  As a matter of fact I will bet the first person who sends me a recording that sounds as good as a out front recording I will give that person a FREE SET OF MY CARDIOID MICS.  Just to Clarify I am only giving away 1 set of mics Not 4,000 sets OK.... So who ever sends me the first recording that I deem to be as good as a out front mix of an amplifyed band meaning EVERYTHING GOING IN TO THE P.A SYSTEM. I will honor my bet... And I will fair an impartial..This mix can only have THE ON STAGE MICS ONLY! NOT JAZZ OR COUNTRY MUST BE ROCK! we all know jazz bands always sound good so does country...


That's the true test. IMO
Chris Church

This seriously the first kimock show I clicked on.  tell me which one sounds better...

http://www.archive.org/details/skb2003-02-15.shnf
http://www.archive.org/details/skb2003-02-15.dpa4022.shnf


don't give me any shit about the guitars being loud... this is a band led by a guitarist. it should be louder. I don't even consider this a great example. I'm sure I could easily find better examples with minimal effort. just about any charlie miller source would probably be great. For this type of band I'll take on -stage any day.

Track #2 of the dpa4022 source sounds very good. But again there is not much going on and the guitars lack a real warmth that would be there in the house PA... I did not bother listening to the first source.. Track #3 shows the real problems with on stage recording the mix is f'ing horrible where are the drums?? All I can hear is bass and guitar the rhythm guitar is a bit to low in the mix and the lead is way too loud.... This mix is not happening... Sorry... But who ever did record this did a good job all things considered... So why only tape the guitars??? why not tape out front where you can capture the whole band in properly mixed format???

Chris Church

[rokpunk]

I mean I have spent 20 years as a live sound engineer I have done both monitors and front of house and in all my years I have heard maybe one or two shows that sounded really good on stage with a great balance.

You are a monitor engineer and have only heard one or two shows that sounded really good and balanced on stage?
That's not saying much about your monitor engineering skills.    

[Church-Audio]

I mean I have spent 20 years as a live sound engineer I have done both monitors and front of house and in all my years I have heard maybe one or two shows that sounded really good on stage with a great balance.

You are a monitor engineer and have only heard one or two shows that sounded really good and balanced on stage?
That's not saying much about your monitor engineering skills.    

LOL hehe you should know as a sound engineer its not about making the mix on stage sound good its giving the guys in the band what they ask for and half of them are deaf 

Here is a picture from my perspective this is a show where I was doing monitors for April Wine, Kim Mitchell, AND David Wilcox... and trust me with these guys it aint about pretty its about LOUD!!!!! and giving them what they want or being on the next bus home The other main problem with stage sound now is we have in ear monitors and most of the bands I work for have them now so the stage sound really sucks because its not about how it sounds on stage its about how it sounds in there ear monitors..... I have done monitors for acts like Aretha Franklin now she wants it to sound like a concert on stage And I had a full size P.A system on stage to make that happen I had 10 12AM monitors on her front line + 8 Clair Brothers P4 piston cabinets And 4 2x18 subs for sidewash, and well it sounded like front of house but on stage So to say I have only heard it two times is not exactly true if I figure in all of the R&B and Jazz bands I have mixed.... But for rock there are very few rock bands that actually had things so I could get a good sound on stage I did monitors for ELO a few times they had a nice stage sound. But when I worked for Edgar Winter in Canada it was all about VOLUME!! Carmine Appice on drums need I say more?

[rokpunk]

dunno....i've done plenty of stages with 12 or 14 wedge mixes, complete with 650P/MSL4 sidefills, and i'd argue that it sounded just as good on stage as it did out front. would i stick mics on stage to record it...nah, but then again, i'd take a board mix over an audience mic recording any day of the week...but most of the tapirs here would disagree. usually if i have mics on stage to record anything, they are pointed at the audience to record ambience or to pump ambience into ear mixes between songs.

[Shawn]

It's a trade off... you take the chance that the mix might be a little off but you avoid the shitty sounding room and all the audience chatter. IME there are some bands that more often than not the mix is very good on-stage. Also IME all to often crowds are excessivley chatty and taping sections are shoved in the back corner of room that already doesn't sound that great. Given that, if I know a band doesn't have vocals or a pile of DI instruments, and they have decent on stage mix I'd rather try to run on-stage. Why??? because on-stage tapes have infintley better stereo image than audience tapes, they have less chatter, and they are less susceptible to bad sounding rooms. The last two can (and often do) ruin audience recordings.

I'd really like charlie miller to chime in here because he probably has as much experience as anyone recording on stage. Like I said the example I provided wasn't the best just simply the first one I clicked on. I can easily find you dozens of amazing on-stage kimock tapes that have a great mix, amazing image, and nice full warm sound. What they don't have is a bunch of drunks screaming into the mics all night long, and they aren't taped 50 feet from the sound source in a giant echoey/boomey concrete box.

I'm not saying it's always possible to make a great tape on-stage every time, or that you make a bad tape from the audience every time. I'm also not saying that you can't make a better tape from the audience sometimes. what I am saying is that in certain specific situations you can make an absolutley amazing tape on stage that is way better than anything you can make from 50' away with drunks screaming into your mics. 

put it this way... If Kimock still allowed on stage taping I'd do it every time I taped them. Just like I'll tape on stage for Fareed Haque, CHT, Skerik, and plenty of other bands that meet the criteria I discussed in my first paragraph. I guess I'd rather listen to a tape where the mix is slightly off than a tape made from the back of a crappy sounding room with two drunks screaming over the music about when they were on tour with the monkees and got back stage to get an autograph from Michael Nesmith.

[rokpunk]

/is NOT amused