drstawl puts on the engineer hat

drstawl

Banned
The venue was Malones, a friendly sort of bar in Santa Ana, CA.

The band was The Three Blind Mice.

The song was, "Looking for Trouble".

My usual rig. Two Rodents direct to CDR.

Oh yeah! the music is at:



~4MB.

The band was playing @~110dB! I brought my meter. Also my earplugs. It felt great to listen to both sets, feel the thump from the low end in my body and go home without a throbbing headache from the sensory overload. The bass sounded a lot louder live, so I guess the Rodents aren't the hot choice for that.
This is one step above a "stealth" concert recording.
I'm hoping it's a large step given the effort expended.
This post is about gathering comments regarding that comparison.
I've recorded them elsewhere many times. This is the first one where I was able to position the mics far enough away from their rig to include the vocals coming through the PA. While the drums sounded weaker at the time, everything but the kick cut through the mix quite well. Same Rodent problem as with the bass I suspect.
 
X-Y? How far away?

I ask 'cuz we're prolly gonna start recording our jams that way, probably with a couple of Rode NTKs. Depends on how many bills I gotta pay here in the next month or so.

What are your impressions of the live performance as far as acoustics vs. what you hear on the recording? Was it more open, closed... (we play in a small barn of sorts, you've seen it, and wondering about the feel of it through condensors).

Did you EQ this at all?
 
Yeah- X-Y, about 6 feet in front of the stage. The only thing different about the sound on disc vs the room was the lacking low end. No EQ or compresion during tracking. A little bass boost done with the Vegas EQ and some lite compression also in S/W.
 
I do the live-to-2 thing a lot these days, in a variety of rooms, and with a variety of styles. One thing you might want to consider for a midfield XY setup: try small diaphragms rather than large, just for yuks. This is a great application for MC012s with the cardioid capsule, or the small-diaphragm Marshalls that Harvey suggests (603s, isn't it?). Large diaphragm mics (especially less expensive ones) often have some really bizarre off-axis behavior with big spikes and dips in the response. Unfortunately, in a distant micing situation, much of your signal is coming at the mic off-axis *by definition*. Response wierdies that provide nice "color" close in on a piano or a vocal can provide _mud for days_ when set up distant. This is a case where small mics will often win over large...

Other fun things to try with small diaphragm condensers: ORTF setup (space them 9" apart, facing out with a 110deg included angle), do an XY coincident pair with less than 90deg included angle and hypercardioid capsules (this can be a lifesaver for really trashy live rock&roll rooms, or venues with excessive audience noise), build a cheapo Jecklin disk with a sheet of plastic, some foam, and a pair of omnis...

I've started using the latter for one theatrical venue I play in from time to time, hanging it from the house beam catwalks over about the 10th row of seats. This can work astoundingly well, and the audience never even knows that it is there.
 
Thanks for the suggestions, Skippy. Two other configurations that I've wondered alot about but haven't had the cash to try are PZMs on a plate and ribbons as a drop-in replacement for my cheapo condensers.
 
You can do some really useful things with a pair of PZMs and a sheet of clear plexiglass- not the same as the Jecklin, but similar. Good stealth, hides well in a venue. Too bad PZMs are so damned expensive, and so much less versatile than a regular small- or large-diaphragm condenser. I used to own some just for this, but sold them when I cold the rest of my mic locker- and a damned fool I was, too. They are slao fun to tape up in the middle of the control room window as an ambience mic when tracking drums...

Figure-8 ribbons in a Blumlein configuration can also provide a wonderful sound in a good room, but there aren't many of those for rock music. Using a pair of figure-8s starts to be really hard when the back wall is less than maybe 4x the distance to the source: if you put such a rig in the middle of a smallish room, you can get some very amusing, but maybe less than useful, results...

I'd never take good ribbons out live, though. Guess that comes from finding out what a sneeze can do to a Coles 4038, and how much it costs to undo it. The small condensers are cheap, and therefore disposable: a very highly prized quality for location work!
 
I'm jinxed again trying to listen to your stuff. I tried dl ing this one and got 17seconds of it the first time and 12 sec the second time. The hi hat sounds great

Ray J
 
excellent man ... very real sounding ...
I put on the headphones and I feel like I'm there.
It's very true sounding ... I almost want to hear more of the crowd ... it adds to the mood.
Sounds like it was a good gig.
 
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