Topic: Help me solve the puzzle of this room (Cake Shop NYC) -Results

[acidjack]

The Cake Shop in NYC is one of the most difficult rooms to record in that I have encountered...

For starters:

It is long and narrow.  Board is all the way at the back, stage is in front.  A bar runs along the entire left side.
The PA is tiny and is at eye level.  The system is about the size of a large home stereo system. 
Where the stage is, the ceiling over the stage is only about 7ft.  Immediately after, the ceiling height is like 10+ ft.
There is no "stage" - the "stage" is just where the overhang starts (maybe there is a 3in rise, but if so that's it).  Artists are at floor level with you.

So the following things won't work:
Stand at back of room - I think even with hypers, it will sound awful.
Stand anywhere else in room - anywhere you'd be would seriously screw up traffic
Clamp to ceiling - nothing to clamp to, plus you'd be way, way above the PA.

In the past, Dan and I have taped the DPAs to a jutted-out area along the right side wall.   This produces decent but not amazing results, and also results, of course, in a stack tape.  No band I have ever played a recording like this for liked it.

The only good result I got was wearing DPA 4061 and standing right in front of the band between the PA.  But this means  the entire time.

My thought is to try the following:
Put the DPA 4061 in PZM mounts and mount them spread 3' to the edge of the overhang (so, just forward of the band).  The downside is it is behind the PA, but I am assuming I will still pick up vox from the monitors since the mics would be almost directly above.
+
Run a long SBD patch cable.

I figure the patch will contain vocals, and therefore compensate for anything lost by running the mics behind the PA.  Also I don't think all instruments are run through the PA, but I could be wrong about that.

Any other ideas?  The other obvious one is "onstage" 4021s, but the problem with this again is there is no stage, and any stand would be very susceptible to being kicked.

[SmokinJoe]

I was in a similar situation recently.  Except in my case there was a light bar over the stage lip.  I have a superclamp with a homemade bar about 1 foot long, which meant I was able to put the mics out about a foot into the audience...  Other times I just run clamped to the light bar, but I think even that foot helps a little.   Anyway, this recording by itself wouldn't be great, but I also grabbed a SBD patch into another recorder, and mixed together they sound pretty decent (even though I have an R4, I couldn't run cables in this situation so it was a 2 deck situation).
Luckily the SBD patch was better than average... not just vocals and kickdrum.
Here is the result, and I'm quite pleased: http://www.archive.org/details/rmb2010-02-26.akg414-sbd-mix.flac16f

I'm guessing my light bar would be similar to your "taped at the edge of the overhang" situation.

Here is another place, with just the mics on the lightbar, and no SBD.  Here I was lucky to have a pretty quiet audience.  The vocals are low, but it's not terrible...  If you had a chatty crowd under the mics, it would be terrible.
http://www.archive.org/details/nwg2009-07-01.akg414.flac16f
http://www.archive.org/details/amorphous2009-02-04.lsd2.flac16f

[acidjack]

Both of those sound very nice-- even the low vocals one is pretty good, I think.  Sounds like I will give this method a shot.  I guess I will also see if I can talk to the sound person in advance to maximize the chance of my feed actually being good...

[Gutbucket]

Extending the 4061s on the overhang idea-
If you need it, you might gain more mic positioning freedom by taping the mics to some long, thin wire rods and afixing those to the overhang.  Not sure where the PA is located relative to the overhang, but you might be able to get the mics far enough out into the room to get some vocal reinforcement if necessary.  Basically an upside down version of a way I like running 4060s- fixed to welding rod stalks taped to the the stage-lip curving up and towards the band- sometimes four mics spaced across the front.  I've also taped the same curved rods to the monitors when there is no lip, which gets the mics out of the way and allows you to bend the rods around a bit to get the right balance of monitor feed and direct stage sound.  Balancing the monitor feed that way for vocals (or the PA contribution with them on the overhang) takes some trial & error.  Always has worked great for instrumental stuff. 

Illconditioned has hung similar miniature omnis from the ceiling as wide spaced omnis on the front side of the PA & in-line with them to get a good PA/room/direct-stage mix with good results.  That's more of a permanent install though as you need to get to the high ceiling.  Just thinking the rods might make doing something like that easier from the low ceiling.

You may have seen this already or it may nat be applicable to your situation, but if you want more details you can see this thread (which the photos below came from)-

[danlynch]

I kind of like my stack tapes from this room. 
The board feed is often crap, usually all vocals and kick.  The guitar amps are loud enough on stage to fill the room.

[dmonkey]

Are there extra channels on the snake? You could plug the mics in to the snake and pull the mics + SBD at the back of the room?

[acidjack]

Ahh, yes, I have read over your thread many times   I think I may need some welding rods  

The problem is, the PA is directly forward of the overhang.  And these crummy stacks are at eye level-- meaning the further "out" from the overhang the omnis are, the more in the crowd they are, picking up jabbering. 

I'm considering now whether it might make the most sense to just do a 4-channel AUD, using the 4021s in the stack method I have before, mix that down to mono (would that be necessary?), and running the 4061s from the overhang....

Extending the 4061s on the overhang idea-
If you need it, you might gain more mic positioning freedom by taping the mics to some long, thin wire rods and afixing those to the overhang.  Not sure where the PA is located relative to the overhang, but you might be able to get the mics far enough out into the room to get some vocal reinforcement if necessary.  Basically an upside down version of a way I like running 4060s- fixed to welding rod stalks taped to the the stage-lip curving up and towards the band- sometimes four mics spaced across the front.  I've also taped the same curved rods to the monitors when there is no lip, which gets the mics out of the way and allows you to bend the rods around a bit to get the right balance of monitor feed and direct stage sound.  Balancing the monitor feed that way for vocals (or the PA contribution with them on the overhang) takes some trial & error.  Always has worked great for instrumental stuff. 

Illconditioned has hung similar miniature omnis from the ceiling as wide spaced omnis on the front side of the PA & in-line with them to get a good PA/room/direct-stage mix with good results.  That's more of a permanent install though as you need to get to the high ceiling.  Just thinking the rods might make doing something like that easier from the low ceiling.

You may have seen this already or it may nat be applicable to your situation, but if you want more details you can see this thread (which the photos below came from)-

[Gutbucket]

Metal fab business here so welding rod is easy for me. Coat hanger wire works just as well, just doesn't come pre-straightened. 

I doubt you'd need to mix stack mics or the SBD to mono, & the mix is probably mono anyway (except for maybe reverb or effects).  For that reason, if the cable length back to the board is an issue (or if there's limited room in the FOH snake, if that's even an option) you could probably run a single cable for one mono SBD channel back to the board.  Just thinking out loud.

[acidjack]

First of all, thanks to everyone for their advice.  Suffice it to say, I am now a convert to "stage lip" and related methods.

It turned out that my memory of the stage placement wasn't entirely right - it was even worse.  The "stage lip" is actually about 2-3ft back under the overhang, so the band is basically trapped in a giant reverb trap that feeds out into the room. 

I took the 4061s under the overhang and taped them as far apart as they'd go (about 3ft) directly over the stage lip and the monitors.  Then ran the cables back along the right wall to about 6ft from the right stack where Dan L and I usually run in here, and put the 4061s in a basic A-B on the jutted-out area available. 

The resultant mix is exactly what I wanted. In a pinch the 4061s alone would have worked fine, but having mics back in the audience does pick up more vocals and a bit more of the bass. 

I'll post links to the results when these shows are up on nyctaper.com in the next few days.  The end result is pretty great.  Just goes to show that reading other people's posts and asking advice around here can lead to good results

[Gutbucket]

Alright, good to hear it worked out!

[acidjack]

For the curious, you can stream and download the results here:  http://www.nyctaper.com/?p=3332