Live: mic shrouds? drumkit baffles?

[C_flat]

I'm in a band of basement heroes playing once a week and recording things "live" occassionally as we go. We're doing instrumental jazz & blues, with:

- drums

- bass

- a guitarist playing a stereo guitar rig into 2 Princeton Reverbs blended with guitar synth into a small PA

- a trumpet player who occasionally sings

I'm using a Yamaha AW16G digital machine to record 8 mics at once with the room set up as shown here:

http://home.cinci.rr.com/jeffkeller/Recording/Band_layout.JPG

Everything sounds pretty good, but I'm getting a lot more bass & guitar in the drum overhead condenser mics. I'm thinking about trying 2 ideas, and would appreciate your thoughts:

1) buy the2 inch thick 4 foot by 8 foot pink foam insulation boards I've added to my sketch to place on both sides of the drumkit, it hopes of blocking the direct blast to the drum overheads. I'd also move my 2 bass cabs back along the same wall to put them "around the corner" from the drumkit.

2) make up condenser mic "shrouds" out of 20 oz. styrofoam cups with a terri-cloth lining to make the mics more directional - about like this sketch:

http://home.cinci.rr.com/jeffkeller/Recording/Mic_shroud.JPG

Any chance this will improve things, or will the bass & guitar notes just sneak around the corner into the drum mix anyway?

Thanks,

Cb

 

[crankz1]

You would pry get better results by building some gobo's using compressed fiberglass. Surround the entire drum set. The fiberglass will absorb the sound whereas the pink foam will most likely reflect the sound. You could try the pink stuff and attach some fiberglass ceiling tiles to the side facing the drums. If you completely surround the drum set, you will pry have a lot less bleed through. I guess it wouldn't hurt any to try out the beer cups on the overheads.
Nothing ventured .... Nothing gained.

 

[c7sus]

The pink board stuff you're referring to is styrofoam, right?

You don't want that.

Make some gobo's with Knauf or Owens/Corning 703 or 705 like Crank said.

Instead of using a cup, you might try some small plexiglass circles, maybe 6 or 8-inch diameter. Tapers at Grateful Dead shows used to use them a lot in 2-mic rigs. If nothing else it will give you some decent rear rejection.

I think the cup will cause a lot of phasing problems.

Check out the Studio Building & Display forum for some ideas.

Check this out too:

http://johnlsayers.com/index.html

John has some nice ideas that can be made somewhat portable.

 

[C_flat]

Yeah, the pink board stuff is similar to styrofoam in that the surfaces are flat with a bit of a sheen - I was thinking they'd be effective more as "barriers" eliminating the direct shot between the guitar amp speakers and the overhead condensers. I've got a big roll of egg-crate type foam rubber I could line the inside of the pink boards with to tame reflecting drum noise.

I've seen the 8" clear plexiglas disks on horn mics before used by live bands, that's what got me thinking about the mic shrouds. I'm hoping using the cups would extend the principle a bit further - getting both rear and some side rejection. Good point on the potential phasing problem- maybe it'd be better to use a shallow (2") cup mounted out near the mic end to avoid having an 8" deep "chamber" around the mic.

Cb

 

[C_flat]

Thanks for the John Sayers link - that's a great site! I just hope it doesn't wind up costing me a bunch!

 

[TexRoadkill]

You will be better off trying to isolate the guitar amps instead of the drums. If these are just jam sessions then your best bet is putting the amps in another room and having the musicians use headphones to monitor everything. Otherwise you are guaranteed a certain amount of bleed. It's not neccessarily bad just make sure it all sounds good before you start recording.