bleed thru

[hipknot01]

im recording a live band in one room and i wondered if there was aneway to keep the mics from picking up things they shouldnt be getting. ex. drums in a guitar mic

[timboZ]

When I record a live band in the basement I go direct in on the guitars and bass.
Then I will keep the drums and retrack the guitars with mics on the cabs.
Most of the time I keep the bass on DI.
Everyone is on headphones.

[bigtoe]

use microphones with tight patterns and arrange everyone in the room appropriately and at decent volume and bleed becomes much less of an issue.

in our one room set up i use overheads with a clean off axis response and a somewhat tight pattern...mkh40's in an x/y arrangement just over the drummer head. kick i usually have a d112 with a packing blanket over the kick. snare the 57. toms tightly miced with 012's. drum set is in a corner facing out into the middle. we can usually cut out guitars entirely and it sounds clean...

guitar amps are either coles, bk5, 77, or an SM7 (most often) in side corners...amps are pointed into the middle of the room. mics are pointed so the off axis is away from the drums.

bass is about 5 feet from the drums... 421, 4047, and a DI is my standard set up. amp is also pointed in the middle of the room. we use a gobo here in between the bass and the drums.

bleed is rarely an issue once the band gets going and gets comfortable with the sound in the room. if there's a guitar player who insists on being at 10 with a full stack while tracking - well - that sacrifices the sound IMO but it's their choice. in my imperfect world i try to save that type of stuff for reamping or an overdub...but sometimes the band loves the bleed...usually the punk/garagey stuff.

hi hat in guitar amp mics is a rough one. try using packing blankets over the amps if you can. if they're tube- leave room for ventilation!

snare rattle can also be an issue. i listen to 'the wind crys mary' a lot and tell myself it's art.

PS- no headphones are being used usually. sometimes the drummer takes a click in one.

Mike

[Valley Arts Kid]

You can set up partitions. Put a guitar amp in a closet, etc.

[Dani Pace]

Use less sensitive mics placed clocer to the sound source. By less sensitive I don't mean lower quality, some mics pick up sounds across a room, others do not. Tighter patern=less bleedover

[Kasey]

my own philosophy that few may agree with:

Don't worry about bleed at all. For a natural sound, why not let the sounds mix a little naturally in the air the way sounds are supposed to. If it is ridiculous, like the guitar is louer in the drum mics than the drums are, then maybe thats a point at which you might want to do something about it. Other than that though, why worry about it. I've often found that by letting some sounds mix naturally in the air it makes the instruments sound bigger. i just dont get the point of isolating everything like mad, and then trying to make it sound more natural by mixing it electronically (obviously you have to mix... but you know what i mean). just my two cents.

[simpleybass]

My recording experience is very small, 3 months, so please excuse me if this is a newbie comment...

I have noticed that if I try to mic multiple sources in one room, with a separate mic for each source, and there is significant bleed, the resulting phase cancellation can be horrendous.

Kasey - don't you have this problem? How do you deal with it?

[Kasey]

mic positioning is everything. yes, i do come across this issue from time to time, but a little tweaking always fixes it.

[simpleybass]

Well, I guess it depends what you are recording.

Solving the problem must be easier if you are close-micing loud sources like electric guitar cabs.

My set-up involves usind LDC's to mic live performances of vocals and acoustic instruments in a room with wood floors. The resulting natural reverb and the nature of the LDC mics makes the bleed real bad. No bafffles or anything.

X-Y stereo room mics have produced the best results.

Individually mics just got too much bleed, and the phase cancellation killed it.

I guess I would need a rugs, foam, and baffles if I wanted to try to mic the instruments separately and still record live.

[gummblefish]

hang thick curtains or blankets over the front of the amps, this should stop most bleed

[brendandwyer]

I agree with, well someone here. Bleed isn't a huge deal, DEPENDING on what you want in the end. If you want a very natural sound, bleed can be your friend. If you don't want a natural sound but a very tight sound with very clear seperation between instruments, then you should listen to the advice about tighter polar patterns and closer miking. The sm57 is an excellent guitar cab mic and can be used and will result in very little drum bleed. However, if you use condensor mics as overheads on the drums, you will most certainly get bleed of the guitar onto the drum tracks. This can be addressed by construction panels with sound insulation on either side and positioning them strategically. Bass should be done DI with the option to re-track. This however won't work as well for a very natural mix between drum set and bass. Follow the same advice for bass as with guitar, use baffles and seperator panels for bass as well but expectt some bleed.

The beatles recorded at Abbey road in a room with 20-30 foot ceilings all spread out around the room. They used panels and baffling to get seperation. Then again, back then, naturally mixing sounds created a very cohesive band feel, nowadays, we're coming off the 80's over compressed overly tight, unfeeling mixes, that while they may be *perfect, who cares? They sound shitty and that's that. (gonna probably get flack from the Phil Collins fans in here BUT WHO CARES...)

[Chibi Nappa]

Originally Posted by Kasey

my own philosophy that few may agree with:

Don't worry about bleed at all.

This is how I feel. Forget blankets and closets and all that nonsense. If you're looking for the best live sound you can get, it's much more important that the band is as comfortable as possible playing. I don't think they'll be comfortable if they're spread all over the house with their gear burried down a hole or something. Just let them set up and play. If you're mic technique is anywhere near decent the bleed won't be a problem. Live music = mic bleed.

[punkin]

I'm just lurking here...I've had similar problems with live (whole band) recording as well I try to avoid it when working with rock bands just becuase I've not had good results.

Smaller acoustic groups no problem but it always seems that when the young rockers show up, they want to do it all live and all loud. As if on stage. I'm convinced that many of the musicians fear taking seperate tracks simply because they lack confidence or ability to do a solid take on their own and that asking them to do repeats will show their lack of ability. What's worse, is the singer-guitar player that wants to do his/her vocals and guitar all at the same time...talk about phasing issues! But hey, they're the band and it's their stuff...I'm just there to get it on tape right?

I too would like to hear more about techniqes and set up for doing recordings this way.

[simpleybass]

Originally Posted by punkin

What's worse, is the singer-guitar player that wants to do his/her vocals and guitar all at the same time...talk about phasing issues!

Yeah, that's where we had the worst phase cancellation problems. I was blown away how bad it was.

Originally Posted by punkin

Smaller acoustic groups no problem

Originally Posted by Chibi Nappa

If you're mic technique is anywhere near decent the bleed won't be a problem.

What specific mic techniques do you use for smaller acoustic groups? Close mics on each instrument? Room mics? Stereo? Please elaborate. Just learning here.

[Alexbt]

This is a good question. We're planning on doing one acoustic track for our next album, and I haven't figured out how I want to engineer it yet.

Currently we record drum set with scratch guitar & vocals, and then just go from there, but this will be like bongos, acoustic guitars & bass, acoustic piano (keyboard to start, real eventually). I think a live take would be awesome... but practical? Not so sure.

[punkin]

I've simply had good results by close micing...the lower volumes of acoustic instruments help alot with minimizing the bleed.

My favorite technique is to set them up in a semi-circle or 1/3 circle. Close mic the quiet or critical instruments, mics for vocals. I then like to put a couple Omni's out front to get the natural blended sounds.

Usually with acoustic groups, I find the calbre of talent to be a bit higher. I tend to get more buy in to recording rhytms seperate then add instruments and then finally vocals. This works best for me but going back to the junior rock bands, what if you can't and you're working with a loud group that wants to do the whole thing in one live take?

[dr.colossus]

Most of the recording I do is live (I only record my own bands). I think the most important thing is players comfort, and to some degree I don;t interfere with where in the room the guys set up. We don;t use rugs or gobo's. I could right about five pages on why I do what I do with this band, and a lot of it is probably HR alchemy. After much trial and error, I have found myself using dynamics primarily. I have removed the drum oh's and gone for an SP B1 on each tom, theory being that bleed in LDC's is prettier than Bleed in dynamics, and I need to pick up the cymbal somewhere. Another key to mixing a "live" recording is be extra sublte on the eq. If you spend too much time eqing the guitar bleed from the bass, you lose detail in the bass, and you start subtractin gimportant parts of the bass sound just to kill a tiny bit of guitar, which in truth is probably doing you the favour of adding body to the guitar sound.

Of course, this works for ME with MY band in MY room.

[punkin]

Thanks for the input. I take it your recordings have an intentional live sound to them then...I mean you're not trying to go for that perfect sterile over-dubb'd done in a studio sound.

I hope you won't mind if I ask a few more questions;

Do you get the guys to keep the level down or do you just let it rip?

Tell us more about the orientation of the gear...are you set up ala sound stage or do you have people in every corner of the room? What kind of spacing do you have between the sound sources.

Do you take the vocals live as well?

Seriously thanks for entertaining these questions. If you're having success, I'd sure like to learn a little somethin'.

[dr.colossus]

1. We let it Rip.... The engineer should be like a ninja, unseen. Musicians shouldn't have to compromise so you can get a little less hihat bleed in the snare.

2. Were all facing eachother, so we hear eachother clearly, generally each in a corner bass and drums next to eachother etc. What ever is most comfortable for the musicians.

3. Instrumental group... So, once we work out how to get rid of the guitarist it will be the perfect band . My other band does have vocals, but that is a "studio" band and there are only two of us that play all the instruments. WE do still record bass and drums together live with no gobo etc.

The techique I mentioned above is at www.myspace.com/thevannuyscollective track "While you were in Japan". It was a Saturday morning mix, you can download the mp3 its 192Kbps. The other track "Foundation's Edge" was recorded with about a third of my gear in a dodgy room.

[brendandwyer]

i agree. the engineer should be unseen, but this isn't always the way it works. Some baffling and panels can be very helpful. If you are going for a great natural room sound, and a natural feel of a band playing in the same room, it's sort of important to have a room that doesn't sound like crap. If you have a room with extra reverberation, blankets and baffles work well.

There is no *1* way to record in any application. Mic's, preamprs, baffles, and blankets are tools to achieve a desired result.