Topic: Best configuration for unobtrusively recording an intimate living room show?

[hardrain62]

Hi all,

I'll be seeing a few very intimate unamplified solo acoustic living room gigs next month, and am wondering the best way to go about setting up to record. I would ideally like to put a very, very low-profile stand with stealth mics in front of the artist, but I want to be very mindful of the audience and don't want to get in the way. I feel that leaving the mics behind the crowd would not result in a good-sounding recording, and I'd rather not stealth. I was thinking something like this mount ( http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-GNA-3 ) on a super-slender mic stand, with one mic pointing in the general direction of the guitar, and one in the general direction of the singing. I would be very, very appreciative of any guidance any of you can offer. I've never taped in this type of environment before! Tips, suggestions, and past experiences are all welcome!

Thanks,
David

[hoppedup]

I've been doing just that with omnis. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXujxOnXFXY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I have several other videos from a duo and even a 5 piece on my YouTube page. I use the same set up every time.
 
The first recording when you click on the LMA link in my sig is a house show taped this way with links to more videos.

Living room shows are my favorite shows.

[page]

Living room shows are my favorite shows.

Ditto.

I've done a number in this sort of environment and I run my lowest profile mics and keep them out of sight lines. If people are sitting, I keep it at head height or slightly lower, if they are standing, same thing. I like to run as close to the stage as realistically makes sense depending on what goes through the PA. Since you're in an environment that doesn't use one, it's just a matter of getting close and not bringing attention to yourself (that's different than staying out of sight, take note).

[hardrain62]

A belated thank you to you all for responding!

hoppedup - Your clips sound great! What is your mic config. in the video? Is it AB? Do you have one or both of the mics angled a certain way?

[hoppedup]

A belated thank you to you all for responding!

hoppedup - Your clips sound great! What is your mic config. in the video? Is it AB? Do you have one or both of the mics angled a certain way?

Those are omnis with a 12" split. I used to run both omnis and cards. The omni sources sounded better to my ears so I got lazy and stopped running cards. The next time we have a solo artist, I was thinking of running cards, one high for vocals and one a bit lower for the guitar. A-B would probably work well with cards.

Here is someone else's recent recording from the same venue with cardioids:
 https://archive.org/details/Yarn2013-12-06.yarn2013-12-06.aud.deliadog.skm140s.flac16-44.1

He used an angled stereo configuration but I'm not sure which (it was not X-Y)

[Len Moskowitz (Core Sound)]

I was thinking something like this mount ( http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-GNA-3 ) on a super-slender mic stand, with one mic pointing in the general direction of the guitar, and one in the general direction of the singing.

This is an ideal situation for a TetraMic. It's an ambisonic microphone, and you can't think of it like you'd think of other common microphones. All you have to do is place it at a spot where the sound is good and balanced, and then decode it later into the microphone setup you prefer.

The decode can be into almost any arrangement of microphones. For example you can create and point one or more hypercardioids as spot mics, and also use a pair of crossed figure-8s as a Blumlein array to capture the direct sound and room ambience.

Or you can place an array of cardioid, supercardiod and hypercardioid mics that record a surround sound mix.

You can decode into mono, stereo or full surround (including height information) from the same four-track source recording. And you can combine and mix different decodes together, like mixing spot mics with room mics.

On top of all that, TetraMic is very small.

See: http://www.core-sound.com/TetraMic/1.php

Here's a torrent link to a recording of a string quartet made this way, with a single TetraMic: http://www.ambisonia.com/Members/LenM/ambisonicfile.2009-03-22.4604155072/

[F.O.Bean]

I was thinking something like this mount ( http://www.soundprofessionals.com/cgi-bin/gold/item/SP-GNA-3 ) on a super-slender mic stand, with one mic pointing in the general direction of the guitar, and one in the general direction of the singing.

This is an ideal situation for a TetraMic. It's an ambisonic microphone, and you can't think of it like you'd think of other common microphones. All you have to do is place it at a spot where the sound is good and balanced, and then decode it later into the microphone setup you prefer.

The decode can be into almost any arrangement of microphones. For example you can create and point one or more hypercardioids as spot mics, and also use a pair of crossed figure-8s as a Blumlein array to capture the direct sound and room ambience.

Or you can place an array of cardioid, supercardiod and hypercardioid mics that record a surround sound mix.

You can decode into mono, stereo or full surround (including height information) from the same four-track source recording. And you can combine and mix different decodes together, like mixing spot mics with room mics.

On top of all that, TetraMic is very small.

See: http://www.core-sound.com/TetraMic/1.php

Here's a torrent link to a recording of a string quartet made this way, with a single TetraMic: http://www.ambisonia.com/Members/LenM/ambisonicfile.2009-03-22.4604155072/

I absolutely LOVE the whole concept and idea of an ambisonic mic like yours and the soundfields, but I would go CRAZY, because I would NEVER be able to find the "perfect" config for me I would have like 10 different configs and would pick a new one every week! Thats why I havent leaped into M/S yet, because even tho Ive been taping a long time, I like the simplicity of running cards and supercards and just using schoeps active bars or just PAS in a few places I record. But 99% of the time, Im FOB/DFC, so Im just very happy with what I pull just doing that

But if I wasnt such a perfectionist and an OCD nut, Id have bought one of those Tetramics LONG ago

[Gutbucket]

It would help to know a bit more about the room and the music.  How big is the room and how reverberant or damped is it?  How many people in the room?  Is this primarily a music listening event or more like a cocktail party?

Mic placement is key, configuration matters, but is secondary.  Placement is often more critical in small rooms than in bigger ones, and more critical if the audience is noisy rather than quiet. 

Here's a few atypical ideas to consider, which draw minimal attention to the recording-

If this is instrumental, you may be able to run the mics very low, placed between the performer and audience.  That works especially well for chamber classical or americana stuff with fiddles, cellos and upright basses.  It gets the mics close enough to improve the ratio of direct sound to reverberant sound and keeps a fiddle from sounding overly shrill in such a confined space by mic'ing them from underneath where they are warmer sounding.  The mic's can be placed way down at floor level as long as they are not in danger of being trampled on.  They are then near cello and bass level, and in close-enough proximity to the violin to keep it present sounding without the screech. Mandolins, guitars and singers are better with higher mics placed closer to those sources.

Boundary mounted spaced omnis on a wall, or on the floor in front of the performer(s).  Depending on the situation you could use the wall behind the performer(s), the wall behind the audience facing the performers, or a side wall. Boundary mounting works well in a small room because it acoustically 'erases' the ambience off wall the mics are mounted on and seemingly 'zooms in' on the direct sound.  It will allow you to place the mics farther away without getting to 'roomy' sounding.  Since the mics are mounted on the wall, it can be one of the least intrusive recording setups. 

Vertical A-B.  Place a skinny stand in front of the performer(s) or in the first row of the audience, with the mics spaced vertically along the stand.  This is a way to use omnis without  a horizontal crossbar, making for a less visually intrusive setup that also works well when stage space is limited and there isn’t much room for the performer to move around.  Just make sure both mics have a direct line of sight to the source.  You don’t want the lower one obscured behind something.

[Gutbucket]

Bean, I use a Tetramic and it is an excellent tool for this sort of thing.  You are correct that there is plenty of opportunity to endlessly tweak the virtual microphone configurations and get lost in doing that, but I usually pretty quickly home in on a few appropriate alternatives, decide between them, then go on to fine-tune the settings for that.  Usually for something like this I'd end up with a pair of crossed hypercards or crossed sub-cardioids, and I usually prefer either of those more than a straight Blumlien or X/Y cardioid decode.  The ability to adjust patterns and tweak mic angles can really help in optimizing the direct sound and the reverberant balance and making the best of that mic location in that particular room. I can exclude or include room sound to a large degree by the settings I decide on, but it is ‘truthful’ to the room sound, be that good or bad.  It is flexible but restricted to single-point coincident configs.  The Tetramic is excellent for small ensembles up close and/or when I don't know what the situation and room will be like.

If I do know what the situation will be like I might choose other setups, or run other mics into another recorder in addition to the tetramic. I often use configs with space between the mics and if arranged thoughtfully, small room setups with multiple mics can get a good direct sound from each instrument while sort of synthesizing an ambience from the crosstalk between mics which can make a mediocre room sound better than it really did.  Sometimes that creative control allows me to make a more enjoyable recording than a ‘truthful’ recording of the sound in the room.

[adrianf74]

I recently recorded something similar (unplugged, small room with 35 people in it) and ran my CK61 actives (as I have no omnis) and personally wouldn't do that again.  Next time, I'll run miniature omnis with some sort of baffle/disk between the capsules because it would've served my purposes better.   I don't often get the chance to go to these kinds of shows but my experience was a let down with the cards.

[bombdiggity]

^ "Is this primarily a music listening event or more like a cocktail party?"

The reason I like these sorts of shows is they are always listening rooms (at least in my experience).  It's a party and event but once the music starts it's (near ?) spiritual... 

We've hosted a few from time to time and still do it despite all the work involved because the music is magic (of course we pick what we feel will be worth all the effort). 

In our room at least I've run just about every configuration of card with nice results.  The sweet spot for us (with PA) seems to be right about in the middle of the crowd about 6 feet back, which is rarely feasible since it's nearly always too full.   

No PA (which is my preference) my best result may have been with wide split cards essentially on either side of the front edge of the "stage" area pointed to converge mid-stage in front of the performer/s, though from the back is OK too. 

A friend ran M/S once but it was too far back (too crowded and arrived too late to get in front).  It was from where I run the cards these days (unattended and out of the way in back which may be 15 feet). 

It's really hard to go wrong but probably does depend a lot on the room and specifics of the performer/s. 

I'd actually like to try some chamber music this way but don't really know anyone in that vein well enough (and not sure how I'd recruit what might be a very different crowd than our usual few tribes...).  Doing "promotion" you really find people move in tribes for music...  Almost no one seems to take it on faith it'll be good and comes for anything they don't already know well. 

[lukpac]

How important is "unobtrusively"? If the artist doesn't care, I wouldn't care too much. I've never had a complaint from the audience.

Recording from this past Saturday:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61DgL-uij10

57 with windscreen for the vocal, 57 and 545* for the guitar, two widely spaced (I think about 3'-4') AT853s at the back of the room for audience/ambience. The only real "trick" I'd say (for more flexibility later) is to put the guitar mic higher and angle it down, and do the opposite for the vocal mic. It doesn't affect the intended sound from each mic much, but it greatly increases rejection of the other sound (guitar sound into the vocal mic and vice versa). The stands in front are just standard On Stage Stands boom stands. In my case I mounted the AT853s above the opening to the dining room using some 3M Command hooks and some small bits of wire.

Of course, if you're only recording on 2 tracks, that won't work, unless you do a live mix...

Once (before I had all of the gear I do now) I did a recording with the AT853s spaced maybe 9" apart and angled up towards the artists. It sounded pretty nice, except the guitar tended to overpower the vocal due to the guitar being that much closer to the mics. If you're doing that type of setup you'd really want the mics more up at the level of the singer's mouth. But I haven't experimented at all with that, since I haven't had to. And of course if you're just using 2 mics it's more important to get a nice balance, as there's no way to change it after the fact (unlike with my setup, where I can I can adjust the balance of the close and room mics later).

*Normally I'd just use a single guitar mic, but I was setup for another performer who ended up having to leave early, so I moved that guitar mic over; I thought the two sounded nice in stereo. Otherwise I usually pan the (single) guitar mic left. The 58 in the video is unused.

I've had a 6 piece band twice (well, 5 of them were there the first time), amplified vocals, instrument amps...that was something totally different. Ended up with a very nice 8-track recording.

[Len Moskowitz (Core Sound)]

It is flexible but restricted to single-point coincident configs.

Gutbucket has probably not tried this, but if you use two TetraMics you can do non-coincident (spaced) arrays like ORTF and others. And two TetraMics are still very small.

[bombdiggity]

How important is "unobtrusively"? If the artist doesn't care, I wouldn't care too much. I've never had a complaint from the audience.

Recording from this past Saturday:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61DgL-uij10

Thanks.  Picture/video helps... 

Looks like a forest though maybe that's the extra mics... 

The guitar mics down and vocals up from a plane like that seems very effective for separation.  It could be done two track with a solo performer but presupposes multitrack in any other configuration. 

I don't think I'd do this at one of our shows but would consider this for a studio type setting.  I'm OK with a little room when the room is quiet (and cards pretty close don't really pick up much room, but do provide a little more lively sound).  This approach should really give you a lot of control over balance especially on occasions when there's no PA and the performer isn't doing that themselves. 

In a live setting really well versed performers will sometimes rather manage their own dynamics/blend in which case a more room oriented approach (as opposed to direct micing like this) conveys that better I'd think.  A lot of vocalists also like to have a PA to put some effects on their vocals.  I like dry vocals but I don't know many professional singers who do... 

The balance between wet and dry is interesting.  I've come to understand how a little bit of tweaking can be nice, but I still lean a lot drier than most singers would.  Of course you can do that in post to some extent with a direct mic'd source (and do it to your taste rather than the dictates of room or other factors). 

[page]

How important is "unobtrusively"? If the artist doesn't care, I wouldn't care too much. I've never had a complaint from the audience.

Looks like a forest though maybe that's the extra mics... 

Yeah, I've done that before, mostly when the house wants a spot sound and is stingy with any DOs or assistance in general. Just don't be a dong about it (act professional, be courteous, try and use smaller mics or position them in such a way that you're not the most obtrusive one) and most people don't care.