Live recording instrument isolation [studio]

[seismetr0n]

I was just wondering if anyone had any ideas about isolating instruments/amps/drums in a 'live' recording setup...

all the instruments/amps/drums will have to be heard by everyone, but i'd really like to isolate the close mics (as much as possible)- and possibly the drum OH's -- for more control in the mix.

I was thinking of building some 2' x 2' or 3' x 3' panels (rockwool/703- id probably actually use wet-blown cellulose)with a reflective side (plywood) and an absorbtive side (fabric)

then i would stand these inbetween the different amps and around the drum set...

maybe hang a blanket from the ceiling just low enough to seperate the drum OH's from the rest of the band..

?????

any ideas??
anyone ever try this???

any help is appreciated..

thanks

 

[ermghoti]

IME, you're not going to get real isolation, ever. In addition to my own cheezy recordings, I did a little work at a real, live, produced-platinum-records studio. I was playing guitar for the band, not engineering or anything, but even though everything was separated into little rooms, or gobo cages, any drum or vocal overdubs had to be performed with the whole band playing their parts. We could get away with guitar and bass 'dubs. Keep it mind, the studio was pretty big; the kit was about 20 feet from the nearsest iso booth.

You can track with the guitars turned down as much as you can live with, and DI the bass, and dub vocs afterwards. The barriers help keep other stuff out of amp mics, but don't do much to limit amp bleed. Other than that, the OH's in particular are going to have a little of everything in them.

 

[simpleybass]

I was just wondering if anyone had any ideas about isolating instruments/amps/drums in a 'live' recording setup...

all the instruments/amps/drums will have to be heard by everyone, but i'd really like to isolate the close mics (as much as possible)- and possibly the drum OH's -- for more control in the mix.

If you isolate everyone, they all get headphones so they can hear one another. You will need a headphone mixer.

 

[seismetr0n]

ja i have used the extreme isolation technique...drums in one room, amps in different rooms.. chaos of cables everywhere and headphones for the musicians.. this works great for some ppl (and sounds great),..
but i have a band possibly coming in that wants to do it.. like a normal 'live' setup... and i was hoping to mostly limit bleed through tp the drums..

so no advice on this.. or is the theory ' just mic it well and it will sound well' ?

 

[Dani Pace]

If everyone has to be able to hear everyone else then the mics are going to "hear" everything too. Cloce mic everything and spread things out as much as possible. Face amps away from one another and the drums, do not set everything faceing forward like you would for a live gig. Chances are that overheads will work like room mics and pick up almost everything. Record at the lowest volume (turn the amps down) possible. Use the room ambience to your advantage, think of it as a "live recording" and let the bleedover save you some mixing, use volume levels and mic placement to do some of the mixing work. One room/all at once recording has it's dissadvantages but it captures the spontanious feel rather than the pristine overprocessed stuff that many studio cuts have. Relax and have fun with it, record the best you can, that's all you can do.

 

[timboZ]

Get everyone on headphones and DI everything you can.

 

[guitar junkie]

i have ended up doing a lot of live recordings of staged shows and its not really that bad to deal with i don't think....

here is what i have done in the past with decent luck...

ok here is a run down on gear

basic stage mics.

iMac G5

PreSonus FIREPOD

Mackie Tracktion 2



ok place the vocal in the center of the stage...

for this show the singer was using a Beta SM58

the bass player was using an amp and then we ran a line out from the back he was off to the left and the amp was sitting on the floor.

drums were also off to left and in a pattern of rejection from the lead singers mic.

lead guitar was on the right clowning around and making noise so of course i told him...


"TURN IT DOWN OR YOU GET TO USE THE POD XT!"

he turned it down and i miced it with a nice AKG 770 (great for distorted tones and really dark clean sounds)

he was using a smallish looking 4x10 amp turned down low... i think it was a mesa (big deal right?)

any way the lead singer also played guitar and he had a Fender twin right behind him on stage miced with a e609.

drums were mice with a kick and an AT 4040 on top, looking back i wish i had done things a better way but i only had 8 channels of snake running out from the stage to front of house....

this band rocks pretty hard and what i learned in those recordings i would not trade for anything ever again!

ok so now its three weeks after the show and have one hours worth of audio to mess with....

here is what i was fighting with.....


blead!

the lead guitar was pretty pure!
bass had nothing at all in it since it was line out.
the singers guitar had a lot of blead and the tone needed some tweaking.... that was some in part due to the e609 and how it picks up i thought the tone was thin, so i ran some EQ and compression later....

the drums were really not that bad but i wish i had just found a way to get a snare mic so it would crack out a little louder.... but the AT4040 could have just needed better placing i will try more later...

any way the vocals sounded good but.... i was getting a lot of blead from the drums!!!!!! gah the cymbal sounds were great! but they did not need to be there at all!

so i ended up gating the vocal and pretty heavy i might add and then cleaning up with a reverb in the end to creat some sustain after the fact, guess what! it worked like a charm!

bass was fine although i have been playing around still with running it through amplitube for some grit to make it sound a bit more like a cab signal...

over all i got some nice recordings and i learned a lot, one thing about the live set up was that i learned to track things at rather low levels and crank them up later in the mixing, as they say once the audio clips its always clipped!

good luck man my lunch break is over!

 

[seismetr0n]

thanks for the story junkie..