Mic setup for harp and jazz singer

Raspin

New member
As a videographer, I'm soon to record (video and audio) a harp player accompanying a female jazz singer and I'm looking for some advice with mic setup.

The venue is a living room in a Victorian house in London - about 5mx5m. The floor is wooden, covered partially by a rug, the walls are fairly busy with shelving but otherwise quite reflective. Believe it or not there will also be a very small (well-behaved) audience (for ambience and b-roll).

One small (or perhaps big issue) is that the mics should either not be seen or be very discreet. This might be fairly easy with the harp but for the vocals I was thinking of a hypercardoid boomed overhead (video will mostly be quite tight). The harp does have a pickup but not sure this is key to the audio - I'm thinking of one or two small cardoids around the harp.

We're not expecting a perfect recording as this will be distributed online mainly for video consumption, however I want to try my best. Does anyone have any suggestions? What's ideal and what do you think is a minimum? Could a mid-side setup work in a room like that? (not that I have the skills to pull it off). How could I best try to capture a stereo image of the harp in a small room?

Audio will be recorded to a Zoom H6 (up to six channels). We do have access to a range of mid level mics (perhaps better if I can argue the case).
 
The boom mic on the vocal seems like it will be too far for good control of bleed. How about a top end headset mic? Or a shotgun? At least the sound board of the harp will be lower so you'll have some natural distance between that and the vocal to help with isolation. So, one on the vocal, a couple on the harp (I wouldn't worry about stereo image so much as being sure you get something usable) and a coincident stereo pair a short distance in front of them, up fairly high.
 
Two choices really - if they have a natural balance, then a stereo pair will do the job nicely - IF - the room sounds nice. Harps are notorious for recording badly - so if the room doesn't help, and there is an imbalance between the two musicians, then close miking will be critical. Harps also tend to have nasty thumps if they are the larger ones with pedals (orchestral type).

If you want to be discrete it's tricky. If they are playing more classical style, then a lav mic on the singer, and perhaps even one on the harpist might works surprisingly well.
 
Thanks, that's helpful. I could go shotgun but I suppose it's a compromise between all the issues of a shotgun indoors and a bleed from the harp with a hypercardoid. I will have a little time beforehand so could experiment with a shotgun and try to find a sweet(ish) spot. I don't think a headset will work (visually), but I might use a lav on the vocals at least as a backup. I never thought of one on the harpist. It will all be experimental on the day but I also like the idea of trying a stereo pair high up. I've heard pedals can be an issue so will certainly take caution. With six channels and a few mic options I might record with a load of redundancy and play with it afterwards.
 
Do the video with whatever configuration you think will give you the best results. I note you have a few channels to play with.

If the audio is not as you would like it, you still have a Plan B, which is to play the video and re-record the audio as the harpist and singer perform along to the video.

Unless the music is so unstructured that it is impossible to replicate!

---------- Update ----------

Or record the audio first, and get them to lip- and finger-synch to it.
 
I was going to suggest a shotgun, below the singers head pointing up towards the mouth. I have done this live with chanting monks to keep the mics out of the sight lines of the audience.

The tight pattern will reduce the harp spill as well.

Alan.
 
Well I went for a supercardoid boomed from above and the musician had his own Behringer. After worrying so much about the vocals it was the bleed of the vocals on the guitar mic that was the most difficult to accommodate (I had to have in pointed somewhat towards the vocals to avoid being visible in the space and setup we had). I've attached a guitar piece as opposed to harp. In the end there were three instrument changes and a costume change (as well as a sunset). More than I'd expected. But overall, given only about two minutes monitoring, I'd got the audio I'd needed. The final video is still in train.

 
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