What type of mics to use for vocals in full band live recording

Hillelstud1

New member
I’m an engineer just starting out. I have a group wanting to record all in one take like a live performance. They have three vocalists and I already have one Samson C01 condenser mic. Should I get two more condenser mics or use a dynamic mic?

Any suggestions on either?
 
Hi there, and welcome to HR!

Will the singers by isolated or are they sharing a room with live acoustic instruments?

Are you close miking everything and aiming for recording isolation?

Tell us a little more about the setup and the goals. :)
 
The room and monitoring type (floor vs in-ear) can make a difference too.

Condensers are going to capture a lot of everything else, no matter what you do, unless everyone is in their own room.

Off the top my head, I'd grab a modern-ish hyper-cardioid dynamic if they have any mic experience, i.e., so they can use the mic's tighter pattern. Otherwise a good cardioid dynamic, but there are a lot of variables to consider.
 
It will unfortunately be setup in an untreated open room. Everything will be direct in for low volume ( I’m in an apartment). So no, there won’t be isolation of vocalists. But there will be no acoustic instruments. They have an electric drum set they want to use.
 
Then it's the age old question - which mic?

Select the most appropriate mic for the voices. To be honest, if you have dynamics, then use them. EQ can sort out most problems - and the biggest one could well be the God awful noise electronic drums make in the room!
 
It will unfortunately be setup in an untreated open room. Everything will be direct in for low volume ( I’m in an apartment). So no, there won’t be isolation of vocalists. But there will be no acoustic instruments. They have an electric drum set they want to use.
Heh. Well, those electronic kits still make a bit of noise when there's nothing else going on so I'd definitely try to set up so the singers face the drummer, i.e., the backs of the mics are directed toward the drummer.

I did something similar last Spring with some former co-workers who came over to jam, but since we were in an open space in the house (wife watching TV in the bedroom) we did have the benefit of small amps (Cube type stuff) and used a Bose at very low output for monitoring with the drums coming through that slightly. Still, the first recording I did had some folks asking, "What's that clicking sound?" Well, it was the drummer hitting the hi-hat, of course ;)

Recording of one song here. (Except for vocal mic, all tracks were direct to a Zoom6.)

P.S. If the kit has MIDI out and you can capture that, it will give you a lot of options when mixing. My experience was with a $200 kit that had L/R and headphone only to pick from.
 
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Yes I was thinking about that too. Probably going to have the drummer further from them and would probably put everyone in a circle so no mics pick up another person.
 
If you don't have the ability to get different monitor mixes to those phones you'll be wrestling with that, too, I suspect.

Oh, if you're not on the ground floor, your downstairs neighbors are going to hear that bass pedal almost as well as if there was a real drum there.

Good luck!
 
If you don't have the ability to get different monitor mixes to those phones you'll be wrestling with that, too, I suspect.

Oh, if you're not on the ground floor, your downstairs neighbors are going to hear that bass pedal almost as well as if there was a real drum there.

Good luck!

Ooh I didn’t think about that...

I should be able to get different mixes because the interface has 8 outputs.
 
I record a lot of bands live in the studio, If the band is acoustic I use Large condensers, but in a rock band situation I use Shure SM58's. It's the only way to keep the band mostly out of the vocal tracks, you will still get the spill but less than using a large condenser. As said before, have the singers facing the band so to minimise the spill into the mics.

Alan.
 
I glombed on to a second KSM8 and I'm looking forward to our next acoustic band in-home-studio get together (we haven't in a while. This would be our first trial.. ('vs RE20. :>)
 
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