Live Recording

McMajik

McMajik

New member
So I've landed a gig recording someone live, and I could do with some tips... :p

I have/will have all the gear I need, and it won't be my first time recording a band live. I've got 16 tracks to play with, and I'm planning on taking all the mic signals before they reach the main mxing desk (Y splitters, with an outboard phantom power box for the drum overheads).

This won't be my first time recording a band live, but this is kindof big for me (Anyone heard of Donnie Vie?), so I really want to nail it, and I was wondering a few things.

Firstly, I don't have that many oppertunities to experiment, so what would you say is the best positioning for room mics? The venue is quite small (200 people, perhaps). I was thinking either center, quite far back about 1/3 in from each wall, or center XY stereo positioning.

Secondly, for room mics I have either a pair of AKG C1000s, or a pair of Behringer B2 Pros. (SDC and LDC respectively). Which would be most appropriate for this? I was thinking the Behringers, but I was hoping someone with a bit more experience could give an oppinion, or give me the pros and cons of each (beyond the obvious tonal differences).

And finally, does anyone have any general advice or know anything unexpected that's tripped them up during live recordings before that I should watch out for?

Thanks guys,
Lewis
 
Since you are capturing the whole band on multi-track you don't really need to get PA or stage wash in them, so out in the room may not be that useful. I would put one next to each stack, as off axis as possible, aimed down at the middle of the audience. Then they'll be in phase with everything else right from the get go. You'll have to high-pass them due to the proximity of the stack, but that's fine for audience. I'd be tempted to use the C1000S mics with the supercardioid adapters on.

If you put them out in the room use an X/Y pattern absolutely equidistant to both stacks so they can be time aligned in post. If they are closer to one stack you won't be able to time align them well to the rest of the mix.
 
If your supplying phantom power to all of the condensers be sure that the Front-of-house and Monitor consoles have their phantom turned off!!!
 
@Bouldersoundguy
Thanks! The thought had occured, but I wasn't sure if that'd capture the venue/band comming through the PA enough. But you it will? (Sorry, I'm a bit parranoid after hearing some pretty attrocious live mixes that a certain band I am(was) a fan of are selling as a live album)

@moresound
Of course! I doubt my multitrack or phantom power box would agree with +48v going into it. (That said, replacing it completely would still be cheaper than 14 transformer isolated XLR splitters, I think)

Thanks guys!
 
McMajik said:
@Bouldersoundguy
Thanks! The thought had occured, but I wasn't sure if that'd capture the venue/band comming through the PA enough. But you it will? (Sorry, I'm a bit parranoid after hearing some pretty attrocious live mixes that a certain band I am(was) a fan of are selling as a live album)
Click to expand...

Is that a live mix or a multi-track recording mixed later? I would call it uninspiring rather than atrocious.

If the live mix is great and the system is great and the room is great then you could just stick a stereo pair up and skip the multi-tracking. But if there's one weak link in that chain you may not really want much if any of the live sound in the mix. But you do want audience reaction, and you'll get at least some reflection of the live sound in those mics whether you want it or not. I would lean toward getting more audience in those mics than room sound. You can always add reverb in mixdown. Heck, you could record an impulse response of the system and room to use with a convolution reverb plugin. Then it would be controllable and, in a sense, authentic.
 
A live multi-track recording mixed later. And I can't figure out for the life of me why they not only removed the room mics completely for most of the song, but removed the crowd from the drum overheads.

But yeah, good points there. Recording an impulse response would be...interesting, but I don't think I'll do that. :p

The mic placement makes a lot more sense now, but which sides of the stacks should I have the mics? I could get them more off-axis having them on the inside, but wouldn't I get a lot of bleed from the kit there? Or would putting them quite low or really high avoid a lot of that?


Also, transformer isolated XLR splitters. I've been looking at a rackmount box of 8 for about £200, and almost been talked into it. Are the advantages over Y splitters worth the extra money though?

Thanks guys, keep it comming! :p

Edit: Sorry if I'm asking a lot of questions, I just want to make sure I've got everything covered and understand everything
 
I had a 16-channel splitter snake made for this purpose. It has individual ground lifts on each channel. Not only good for dealing with ground loops but also blocks phantom from one side of the split. I think transformers are almost always overkill. But then there are rare times when they save the day.

I'd have to scope out the venue before deciding on audience mic placement. Experiment during soundcheck for the best compromise.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
I had a 16-channel splitter snake made for this purpose. It has individual ground lifts on each channel. Not only good for dealing with ground loops but also blocks phantom from one side of the split.
Click to expand...

That's all you have to do, lift the shield (ground) on the record side of the split. I do the record side so that I don't interfere with the PA guys set up as you will always get blamed when something does not work. I also have some direct channels (not connected to the PA) so I can run extra mics that the PA does not use, for example some small venues do not run drum overheads to the PA. The shield is connected on these as there is not connection to the PA.

Alan.
 
Revisiting this, thanks for all the suggestions guys! I'm recording onto a pair of Zoom R16's, which, as it turns out, aren't grounded at all. So ground loops arent an issue.

Okay, so I recorded a local covers band live, as a sort of practise run, and I think it all came out pretty good! They just had the drums miced up, so I used Y splitters on them and miced everything else up myself (Although I did make the mistake of assuming the drummers mics were half decent since he used them at a lot of their gigs. I had one tom track that took a hell of a lot of processing to make usable). I took Bouldersoundguy's suggestion to use the C1000S mics with the supercardoid adapters at the front, since that's where the sound desk was anyway. Unfortunately, there wasn't any room next to the stacks without them being behind the PA speakers or practically on top of the kit, so I had them quite a bit further forward.

But yeah, I think it came out quite well overall. At least, for quite an inexperienced attempt at live recording.




What do you think? :p

Thanks again guys! You're awesome!
 
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