Making an omni a uni

bachelorb

Cowboy Chord Virtuoso
This past month I have been doing a bunch of recording. I really like my “sound” except for one thing. Right now I’m recording with two mics at the same time. One (Omni-directional dynamic) on my voice and a condenser mic on the guitar. After fiddling a while, I really like the setup.......except...... the Omni allows a little too much of the guitar to bleed into the vocal.
I do have a cheap uni-directional mic (Nady sp4c) that doesn’t allow the bleed, but doesn’t sound nearly as good to me. The real answer is a Shure SM58, but it’s just not in the cards right now.....

All that set up for this question ..... Is there anything I can use near the Omni mic (....or even inside the screen)to filter out the guitar bleed so I can control the mix better?

As always...... thanks!!!

Brad
 
Have you tried it the other way around...the condenser on your voice and Omni out front of the guitar?
 
You can make a cardioid (pressure gradient) mic more omni (pressure operated only) to a degree by sealing the rear vent, leaving only the access at the front - but it usually spoils the frequency response too - you n' make an omni into a cardioid because there needs to be a vent to the rear of the diaphragm - which there won't be, and a drill seems a bit extreme.
 
Yeah, the reversible way to make an Omni not pick up something is to put something (gobo, etc) between the mic and that thing you don't want it to pick up. Block sound coming from that direction.

The right answer in this situation, of course, is to not record both instruments at the same time. This is always a compromise and actually will not get you the best possible performance of either. You can tell me about "feel" all day long, and I won't really argue because I do know what you mean, but I will point out the places in the recording where you could have played it better if you hadn't been dividing your attention. If you must (I very often must), record scratch tracks of both played at the same time, then go back and replace each on its own.
 
Another thing to look at is relative bleed level is also a function of attenuation via distance- between the wanted source-to-mic distance and the unwanted distance to the mic.
Along those lines, if you're sitting, stand up and get as much distance as possible between guitar and mic and vocal and mic.
 
I have been thinking of trying this with my AKG P150s. My idea was to find some plastic tube about the right ID and split it with a saw.
The stress relived extrusion should then slip over the vents and hopefully make it an Omni. I have two so I can compare. But, ***T! WHERE did all the 'energy' go??

Dave.
 
You can make a cardioid (pressure gradient) mic more omni (pressure operated only) to a degree by sealing the rear vent, leaving only the access at the front - but it usually spoils the frequency response too - you n' make an omni into a cardioid because there needs to be a vent to the rear of the diaphragm - which there won't be, and a drill seems a bit extreme.

I am going to do some more reading on this idea.... I wonder if changing the frequency response would be a worthy trade off.... something worth trying though....maybe....
 
The right answer in this situation, of course, is to not record both instruments at the same time. This is always a compromise and actually will not get you the best possible performance of either. You can tell me about "feel" all day long, and I won't really argue because I do know what you mean, but I will point out the places in the recording where you could have played it better if you hadn't been dividing your attention. If you must (I very often must), record scratch tracks of both played at the same time, then go back and replace each on its own.

I know exactly what you are saying and when I’m actually writing and don’t know the song good enough will actually use the two mics on one track, first recording voice, then recording guitar. The real problem showed itself when a buddy came over and wanted to record his song. He felt he had to do it all at once.
I was lucky on that one and could mix out enough of the guitar... but that got me thinking I’d prefer to do both parts at once also....(....once I know the song.....)
 
Another thing to look at is relative bleed level is also a function of attenuation via distance- between the wanted source-to-mic distance and the unwanted distance to the mic.
Along those lines, if you're sitting, stand up and get as much distance as possible between guitar and mic and vocal and mic.
This is another thing y’all have got me thinking about. I did experiment with mic placement, but everything is close mic’d. .....maybe changing horizontal distances will help too.....
 
I have been thinking of trying this with my AKG P150s. My idea was to find some plastic tube about the right ID and split it with a saw.
The stress relived extrusion should then slip over the vents and hopefully make it an Omni. I have two so I can compare. But, ***T! WHERE did all the 'energy' go??

Dave.
Thanks Dave..... this might be a worthy experiment.... Now I’ll be searching the interweb all morning to see if anyone’s tried it...... :)
 
This is what those people who insist on cupping the microphone are doing - covering the rear and making hot more and more omni - and a bit weird sounding.
 
This is what those people who insist on cupping the microphone are doing - covering the rear and making hot more and more omni - and a bit weird sounding.

Yes! And they can bugger your carefully set ring point as well!

Thinking further about my 'sleeve' idea? I doubt it would give good results, after all, no mic manufacturer supplies such a simple thing to convert cardiods to omnis AFAIK and they could do a precision job of it but instead supply a second capsule....COURSE! Could just be a plot to extract even more money from us?

Dave.
 
I still had mine when I sold those terrible mics.

Anyway, back to the cop's question.

The other determining factor in Mic bleed is dynamics. If you have a loud singing voice and a quiet guitar, you will have too much vocal in the guitar Mic. If you have a loud guitar and a quiet singer, you will have too much guitar in the vocal Mic.

All things being equal, if your singing and playing volumes are appropriate to each other, bleed shouldn't be much of a problem...until you have to eq something a lot. Because eq and compression play with the relative volumes of the tracks.

Doing them separately is best. If recording both at the same time, it is generally best to use mics that won't require much eq. Figure 8 mics can also help, wince you can point the null at the thing you don't want to pick up.
 
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