Been enjoying NPR's "Tiny Desk Concerts" so much, felt compelled to thank Bob and staff, and ask how they record these, this is their response:
I used to mic these myself with a good stereo mic.
I love having the band play to the mic.
These days, our engineer Kevin Wait has been micing and mixing the shows.
Here are some of Kevin¹s thoughts
Hope it helps
All the best
Bob
Production Tools for NPR All Songs Considered Tiny Desk Concerts:
* In the spirit of the Tiny Desk Concerts, we don¹t always know beforehand
how many musicians will arrive or even what instruments/arrangements will be
played. After a quick set up we generally have the act play a half-song for
levels, and the show begins. For ease of use and flexibility, I have fallen
in love with the Sennheiser 418s mid/side stereo shotgun mic:
http://www.sennheiser.co.uk/uk/home_en.nsf/root/professional_wired-microphon es_broadcast-eng-film_005284
* Besides the simplicity of ³a mic on a stand,² the mid/side configuration
allows the user to instantaneously (electronically) vary the width of the
stereo field. This allows the same mic to be ³focused² for a solo performer
or, on a moment¹s notice, a group of 10 or 12 (or 30) musicians. The 418s
has very low self-noise as well. Note: this mic by itself will NOT decode to
stereo. It will need to be mid/side decoded the old-fashioned way (3 faders,
phase-flip on a mixer, or by a device like the SD722 below!)
http://www.wikirecording.org/Mid-Side_Microphone_Technique * The recorder is a Sound Devices 722:
http://www.sounddevices.com/products/722.htm <http://www.sounddevices.com/products/722.htm> This recorder has fantastic
(forgiving) mic pre-amps and handily decodes the mid/side signal from the
418s into stereo L and R. It¹s menu includes requisite phantom 48V power,
high pass filters to keep the rumble out, and a super-nice limiter for when
levels get out of control.
* We have experimented lately with micing the host discreetly so the host
questions can be heard better in the mix. We add a Sennheiser Wireless
ENG100
http://www.sennheiser.com/sennheiser/home_en.nsf/root/professional_wireless- microphone-systems_broadcast-eng-film_ew-100-series_021418 with a stock omni
lavaliere mic. This addition necessitates a small mixer. The other option is
to simply raise the level of ³chatter² in the stereo mix at post-production.
Both techniques are far from ideal but we strive to keep it technically
simple as to not disrupt spontaneity of the performances.
* The last step is mastering the audio. Even with great tools, the
limitations of the space include difficult mic placement, resonant surfaces
(lots of glass in the skinny end of the 635 Mass. Ave. building,) small
acoustic space, street noise, etc. I use Adobe Audition to EQ out annoying
resonant frequencies, then apply some normalization and slight compression
to get the hottest, most transparent signal to the web listener.
Final Thought: Having said that, truly, the success of the audio recording
is in the mic placement. Results similar to the NPR method can be realized
with any decent stereo recorder and a point-source stereo mic or stereo
array (2 mics properly arranged.) Most audio SD/CF flash recorders (Marantz
PMD-620, for example) have stereo mics built in. There is no set technique
to record music, though I find closer is better. Have your act/band stand
physically as close together as possible and aim your mics/device about
mouth level maybe 2¹-3¹ away. (Look at the Tiny Desk videos and can see our
mic (albeit low) in some of the shots.)