Recording Glockenspiel, clips at low levels? Any tips?

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brand0nized

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I just recorded a glockenspiel part. A glock is kind of like a xylophone.

It sounded find at first, but as I couldn't really hear it in the mix, so I turned it up and the master quickly clipped when I still couldn't hear it very well. I think it's because of the mallet hitting the metal bars that clips the track, or maybe i'm wrong.

Does anyone have any tips on recording the glockenspiel or processing it differently so that I can get it do a decent level in my mix without it clipping the master?
 
Glocks have a pretty hard, sharp attack.

I'd room mic it for sure, and maybe play with compression to tame the transients.
Either way, I don't think close micing would be on the cards.

The type of stick is going to make a big difference too, but if you need to capture a sharp sound, there's little you can do here, I suppose.


Playing with the height and direction of the mic is bound to make a difference too.
I guess if you're above or below, you're likely to pick up more of the attack, whereas on a flat plane with the bars might give a smoother sound?
That is a guess though. Maybe experiment with that?

How did you do it?
 
Distance, angles -- large-diaphragm, heavy, slow coils (SM7b, RE20, PR40, etc.) if you're even in the same ZIP code.

When I track classical, if I get the opportunity, I record extreme transients separately. "Extreme transients" pretty much equates to glock and triangle...

There are normally a couple mics in between, but I usually only ever use the room mics -- around 30 feet, around 30 degrees from the source.
 
Massive Master said:
There are normally a couple mics in between, but I usually only ever use the room mics -- around 30 feet, around 30 degrees from the source.
Click to expand...

That sounds interesting to do, but my glockenspiel is a really small travel one, and I'm doing the whole "home-studio-in-the-bedroom" thing, so I don't want to catch too much of my room with a room mic. Thanks for the ideas!
 
brand0nized said:
...It sounded find at first, but as I couldn't really hear it in the mix, so I turned it up and the master quickly clipped when I still couldn't hear it very well. ..
Click to expand...
As partly peaks might have lots to do with a tracks liveliness or character, not so much relative loudness.
 
My thoughts

As others have said I agree with giving your mics some distance and maybe angle. Id try a distance of 18-24" to start and play around untill your happy with the sound. As youve said you dont want to much room sound in your mix. Also straight down may work just fine at a distance. The closer you are you may want more angle.

My thoughts on the peak though. As long as youve tracked it with no clipping I would use compression. If you have a lot of attack it may work well to compress it simular to what you would a typical snare drum.

I would start with a faster attack setting at a 4:1 ratio. Adjust the threshold until your getting about 4-6db of reduction on peak levels. You might also need to boast the out of the compression plugin to make up the difference in loss of volume.

You dont want to over compress it and loose the natural sound so it will take some experimentaion. Yet If you can get this right you will have plenty of volume to put in the mix and you should be able to control the clipping.
 
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