Topic: AUD recording approaches to use with a Multitrack??

[disco]

I have the chance to tape for a band on friday who will be doing a multi track of the show.
They are having their old sound guy come out for the show and he will be running the board and taking care of
whatever he needs to do for a nice multi track sbd recording.
I asked if I could run some auds for them to mix with in exchange for a ticket, so I'm just taping to fill out their final product.

I have a set of cards and omni's (CA-14's) that I'm planning to run. I have separate recorders (dr07 & m10) for each set of mics so they can remain individual until the band mixes them. I only have 1 full size stand, which I plan to run on the first rail (about 25' from the stage)
I have a smaller second stand that I usually use for personal recording or jamming with friends. I imagine I could run that on stage but
since the band is running a sbd that may be more repetitive than beneficial. Unsure there....

What I'm looking for is mic config recommendations for the cards and the omni's. I don't plan to run my cards any different (NOS) but wasn't sure if running the omni's in a different setup or pointing differently would benefit the final product. Open to suggestions on both setups though. I won't be seeding either recording on it's own so I'm just trying to cover as much as I can. I don't have the cables to run split omni's of more than an 8' split.

Thanks

[bergerdml]

I have the chance to tape for a band on friday who will be doing a multi track of the show.
They are having their old sound guy come out for the show and he will be running the board and taking care of
whatever he needs to do for a nice multi track sbd recording.
I asked if I could run some auds for them to mix with in exchange for a ticket, so I'm just taping to fill out their final product.

I have a set of cards and omni's (CA-14's) that I'm planning to run. I have separate recorders (dr07 & m10) for each set of mics so they can remain individual until the band mixes them. I only have 1 full size stand, which I plan to run on the first rail (about 25' from the stage)
I have a smaller second stand that I usually use for personal recording or jamming with friends. I imagine I could run that on stage but
since the band is running a sbd that may be more repetitive than beneficial. Unsure there....

What I'm looking for is mic config recommendations for the cards and the omni's. I don't plan to run my cards any different (NOS) but wasn't sure if running the omni's in a different setup or pointing differently would benefit the final product. Open to suggestions on both setups though. I won't be seeding either recording on it's own so I'm just trying to cover as much as I can. I don't have the cables to run split omni's of more than an 8' split.

Thanks

I'm afraid I can't be of much help but I'm quite eager to hear the responses.

[Walstib62]

If there will be a multitrack pulled from the board, that will comprise most of the final recording. However, it is still good to get some ambient sound of the room and /or stage. The best would be to get those sources input to the multitrack unit to minimize time drift issues later. That is more difficult to do since your mics are unbalanced, and therefor you are somewhat limited in cable length. You might want to mount the omnis over the stage, spread to cover the band more or less in 3rd's. Then use the cards in the aud. and send an output from that to the multitrack unit also. Then you may or may not decide to try to mix in the stage source to the multitrack. If you are more "on your own" then you may consider just getting sbd and stage sources, then mixing those later yourself. I hope that makes sense.

[TNJazz]

What you can do is send your mics directly to the multitrack and then patch your deck out of it.  Otherwise, synching two separate audience recordings with a multitrack without a common clock could turn into a nightmare of epic proportions.

What you SHOULD do is use the cards on stage facing away from the stage to pick up the audience and send it to the multitrack (and forget about recording it yourself), and then use the omnis up close with one of your recorders and make your own recording.

[disco]

makes sense guys, thanks

I'll see if I can run the omni's on stage and get them into the mix.
Then I can just run the cards on my stand.

If the stage bit is a no go, then I'll take the card-crowd option.

Thanks again

[Gutbucket]

This is a full-on multitrack gig, think like a pro multitracker and go with TNJazz- cards spaced as far apart as possible on stage facing the audience and fed into the snake, it's a classic and excellent way to add missing crowd excitement to a close-mic'd multitrack.  Power the mics with your preamp on stage (if you have one) or patch out of your deck and into the snake. 

Seperate omni recording from the AUD FOB sweet spot to your other recorder, un-synced.

The other way can work too, but that's more thinking like a taper, not a multitracker.   How often do you get to think like a multitracker?

[Walstib62]

This is a full-on multitrack gig, think like a pro multitracker and go with TNJazz- cards spaced as far apart as possible on stage facing the audience and fed into the snake, it's a classic and excellent way to add missing crowd excitement to a close-mic'd multitrack.  Power the mics with your preamp on stage (if you have one) or patch out of your deck and into the snake. 

Seperate omni recording from the AUD FOB sweet spot to your other recorder, un-synced.

The other way can work too, but that's more thinking like a taper, not a multitracker.   How often do you get to think like a multitracker?

Good idea, but I'd be concerned about the unbalanced output from the CA-14 rig running through a snake. Could cause noise issues. (?)

[Gutbucket]

True.  I second the onstage aud facing cards becasue I think that would make the best ambient room contribution to the multitrack effort, which seems to be the goal here.  But for all I know the sound tech may alreay have a pair for this, which would make it pointless.  If not, then it's worth a try.   

In that case, If the unbalanced output of the on-stage recorder is connected to the snake using balancing transformer adapters, the run beyond the recorder will be balanced.   Even if using a simple adaptor with pin 1 lifted making the run through the snake unbalanced.. and it picks up hum, the recorder on stage will hopefully be hum free, though that recording would be unsynced.

If it was just for myself without the multitrack effort, I'd put the omnis on stage and run the cards from the sweetspot.

[raymonda]

I run live multi track recording sessions on minimally a bi-weekly basis and usually run 2 pairs of ambient mics, cards set up in the hall as a stereo pair (ortf) and split omni's at the stage at around 8-10'. When mixing I always use the split omni's and to some smaller degree the ortf's. But when I start to run out of channels for larger acts I always choose running  the split omni's over the hall stereo pair.

However, depending on the acts, amps on stage, DI's etc. the split omni's are not always the best for straight 2 channel recordings. They work great in the mix but can fall apart on their own when the hall stereo will almost always be fine on their own.

Bottom line is that there are alot of variables to consider and depending on how you ultimately want to use them, the type of music and whether or not they have a lot of DI's and little stage amps it will drive what you decide to run.

Recording engineers that run cards on the stage, facing out are actually just looking to get some crowd noise and a bit of hall. This is a legit way of going about this but what I try to to is actually create a live recording that puts you in the best seat in the house, therefore, the actual recreation of the sound stage and hall ambience drive me to use split omnis and a hall stereo pair. Sometimes it works and sometimes it works to a lesser degree. It is all a matter of compromise. It just depends on what you value and what you are willing to give up.

Enjoy!

[Walstib62]

When you say split omni's at 8-10' do you mean facing the stage or over the stage? I like your approach. You stated it much clearer that I did. Thanks.

[raymonda]

Right up to the stage lip, head level with the band, 8-10' apart with the mic facing the band.

[Gutbucket]

Take it from the guy that does it regularly.. Ray makes some very nice recordings!

FWIW, when I run mulitple omnis across the front of the stage, I often have about a 4' spacing between each.. sometimes a bit more for the outside flanking mics and a bit less for the inside pair depending on the stage layout, monitors and such.  Doing that puts the outside flanking pair at about a 8'-10' spacing.  Which works well in combination with the other pair or a SBD feed.

[runonce]

Do I understand correctly that someone else has been hired to record a show in multitrack and you are not really part of the project?

You will be making recordings that - for your own enjoyment - you will attempt to add your recording to the final commercial mix?

[SmokinJoe]

What I've been doing is running my multitrack and including a typical set of "taper mics" into the recorder, meaning on a stand near the SBD. I'm not saying it's the best way, just that it works for me.  Including a small amount of this in the final mix adds a little bit of "fatness" and natural reverb along with the crowd cheering after a song.  If there is too much chatter in places, cut back on the AUD channels in the mix.  Plus I can patch those channels into a small deck so I have something to listen to on the ride home.

I tried running ambient mics on stage, specifically 414's subcards.  What I got was a serious phasing/timing issue.  When the drummer hit the snare, I got a snap into my mics 6 feet away, then I got another snap from the stacks overhead, but they were 40 feet away, so it was "snap-snap" from the time delay.  I decided not to use those channels, and I kind of gave up on that approach.  I have clamped ambient mics to the overhead light bar, and that worked better because it so happened that the distance-to-snare-drum and distance-to-the-stacks was similar, but depending on the place, it can be a bitch to hang from the light bar.  I need to keep experimenting.

What I see "the pros" doing is putting mics fairly near the stacks pointing outward, frequently shotguns, and perhaps inverting the output.  This way they capture crowd noise, capture stack sound without delay, but probably not much on stage sound, so no timing issues.  It's a good way to add crowd cheering, but I it doesn't add the fatness and ambience.

I think these all become "tools in the toolbox", but I admittedly have a lot to learn regarding which tool is the best for a particular setting.