Live in the room acoustic band recording

[Elton123]

This is such a fun way to record. This was a 4 piece band. 3 vocals, guitar, acoustic bass guitar, mandolin and cajon. I ended up setting up 9 microphones up in the room. C-414 on acoustic, Peluso pencil on the mando( although I prefer a ribbon, but the bleed was too much from the lead vocal). On the acoustic bass guitar we ran it through an amp and miced it with a MD-421. I used a single peluso pencil overhead, a 57 on the front and 421 on the back for the cajon. Lead vocal mic was a Rode Classic II tube, The high vocal was a U87 and the low vocal a Shure KSM 27. The fun in doing something like this is dealing with all the mic bleed. You can hear the distance in the vocals because the are bleeding into other mics. We messed around with positions, mic placements, etc. never got it right in my opinion, but man is that alot of fun to trouble shoot. You also have to consider the room. This room is not a real big room, a good sounding one, but not huge, and probably doesn't lend it's self to this type of recording. It also helps to have good singers and players.

 

[BurningBridges]

I just did something like this myself, although with a completely different sounding band. This sounds really really good man. Great performances all around, especially the lead vocal. I like the vocal sound, even with the room (which is pleasing by the way, not muddy). Like you said, it helps when you have great musicians.

 

[robgreen]

I think any concerns you have about the room here are beyond my listening capabilities Elton! It sounds as good as your mixes always do - you manage to capture the textures of the players and a natural reverb sound very well. As you say, they're generally pretty good musicians in the first place!

Thanks for sharing this one

 

[rayc]

Were you sitting in a circle?
Sounds great to me - a touch of liveness and a lot of good playing nicely captured.
Good job mate.

 

[Mr Clean]

Very very nice. Great performances and capture.

 

[Elton123]

Yeah. Pretty much in a big circle. Cajon and mando were sitting down. Other two were standing. I had gobos placed around. I wish I had the high vocalist sitting behind a gobo. His vocal is bleeding a lot into the lead vocal mic. Like a lot of us I think, I spend a majority of my time recording solo sources. This in my opinion is a great exercise in mic technique and a heck of a good time. Very very fortunate to have these guys in.

 

[famous beagle]

I'm kind of surprised actually to hear you talk about trying to avoid bleed on this song. It sounds nice, but, IMHO, I think this music would benefit from a not-so-separated sound. Just my two cents, obviously, and ... really ... what do I know?

 

[Elton123]

No, i love bleed. here I'm talking about bad bleed. here it was mostly the vocals bleeding into other mics. It would make the vocal sound distant in a bad way. i still hear it in the high harmony vocal a bit. But i love bleed. Makes everything sound fuller IMO. I love using room mics, or multiple mics on a source. My favorite of late is sticking an LDC in a closet with the door slightly open. Does wonders for guitar amps IMO.