Mics Omni Directional for room recording

lazyi

New member
Hi Just joined today, I am looking to get a mic to record drums, Bass, Guitar, and vocals at the same time. in 140 Sqr FT room. Our band wants to make a demo, but not pay through our teeth. We have a Tascam 4track recorder as well, and have considered buying 3 mics for the instruments. There seems to me that there will be bleeding from the vocals through these as well but maybe more control on the instrument levels. Big studios mic drums first then bass and so, but we want a live sort of bleeding feel to our demo, and yet be able to have the levels are correct.

So I guess my question is do I go for a omni directional mic that pics up everything with no control on levels or mic each device separately.

if 1 mic and suggestions which one I should look at.

TKS
 
Big studios DON'T do drums first, then bass, etc. Aside from that, Lately I've been experimenting with two omni's and a Jecklin Disc for tracking whole band live to two tracks and I have to say so far I'm loving the sound.
 
Track Rat said:
I've been experimenting with two omni's and a Jecklin Disc for tracking whole band live to two tracks and I have to say so far I'm loving the sound.

T-Rat, What omnis are you using, I have been using ECM8000 in YX with good results but they tend to be a bit boomey. I fix it later with a P-EQ?
 
For what you are doing the trick is to be very very very picky about mic and instrument position. With only a pair of tracks of the entire band you won't be able to fix a lot after the fact as you could with each and everything on its own track. With individual tracks for each instrument you can move them around and boost and fade them after the fact.

There are two approaches that a typical amateur can take for this.

The first is what are called spaced pair. Think of putting one mic in the exact spot which has the correct sound for what you want coming out of the left speaker and the other mic being at the exact spot for the sounds coming out of the right speaker. Expect to have to run a lot of tests. For spaced pair you most likely will use omnis since you are trying to capture all of the sound at that point.

The second approach is called a coincident or near-coincident pair, also called an XY pair or ORTF pair. For this approach you want to think of where you want to simulate the head of the listener be. In other words think of an 'ideal listening position' for your band. Then for an XY pair you put two microphones at that place, one pointing 45 degrees to the left to be the left ear and left track, the other pointing 45 degrees to the right for the right ear and right track. (For an ORTF pair you separate them by about six inches and spread the and a little wider, more like real ears.) For this type of micing you must use cardoid mics The reason is that two omnis, place at the same point, give exactly the same signal and so you do not have a stereo recording.

BTW with either of these approaches you are going to sound like the room you are playing in. So unless your 140 square foot room sounds really good you might want to think of what room do you really sound good in.
 
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