advice on miking up acoustic instruments live

[kosten koper]

hola i'm new here and new also to the netherlands and also to doing a reasonable sized PA sound instal.

what i want to know is if there any suggestions on mics or techniques to use for miking acoustic instruments in a live situation?

i have to mic up several individual performances where the musicians use instruments such as acoustic guitar, saxaphone, trombone, piano, flute clarinet, violin in combine with 'straight into the desk' instruments such as keyboards, laptop, bass guitar.

the space is a boomy echo box with columns as it used to be the foyer of a large office building, PA is 3KW bi amped. what i have right now is are a few SM 58's and 57's but not sure (haha) they will do the job.

any suggestions or pointers would be appreciated

x

kk

 

[mshilarious]

i have to mic up several individual performances where the musicians use instruments such as acoustic guitar, saxaphone, trombone, piano, flute clarinet, violin in combine with 'straight into the desk' instruments such as keyboards, laptop, bass guitar.

the space is a boomy echo box with columns as it used to be the foyer of a large office building, PA is 3KW bi amped. what i have right now is are a few SM 58's and 57's but not sure (haha) they will do the job.

any suggestions or pointers would be appreciated

Good luck with that room. I suffer the same problem.

Flute and violin I like a SDC even for live. I use SM94s which are handy because they are cheap, durable, fit the same clip as the 57/58, and can be battery powered if a board doesn't have phantom. Acoustic guitar can use a 94, but I prefer a pickup instead. Makes life easier. There are violin pickups too, but some fiddlers aren't used to wires.

Sax & trombone the 57s are fine. If the horn players like to move around, there are little clip-on mics for brass that work well. Clarinet I don't know but I'd probably try the 57.


Piano, for an upright mic the back of the piano with a 57 or two. For a grand there are a few different things to try--boundary mic on the underside of the lid, the lid opened a little with a 57 crammed inside (placement is critical), or even a mic under the piano.

 

[DJL]

Try to get them to keep the louder instrumenets away from the quieter instruments when they set-up on stage... use the back side of the mics to reject un-wanted instruments and etc.

 

[Ape32]

Another thing from a FOH engineer at a club that does loud rock to acoustic acts (and mixes of the two)

Make sure your stage is not too boomy - stage resonance will get into mics, especially those that are cranked up to capture quiet instruments. This will drive you nuts with feedback and ugly looks and gestures from the band. Low cut (High pass) your mics as much as possible without compromising the tones of the instruments themselves. I guess the stage has aready been built so you can't do anything physical with it. If subwoofers are installed under the stage of if mains are on the stage you will have more problems here.

Also try to keep your monitor mixes as quiet as possible while still keeping the players on track, try to rely on their actual acoustic sound. The "technology guys" will want to be hugely loud of course.....

 

[petimar]

My fav mic for fiddle and mandolin is Shure KSM137, mic right on the f holes with the larger bass roll off switched in. This mic has a lot of gain.

The elcctric instruments have to keep the stage volume low, or the acoustic instruments have to be turned up in the monitors and that is your most likely feedback source. Its not fun to play acoustic instruments in a loud electric band when you depend on a mic for your sound!