Micing Folk Band Setup

[daveblue222]

My band and I are going to be recording soon. My setup is:-

Presonus firestudio project
Samson C03 Omni Condenser
Sm-57
Cubase Le

Band Consists of

acoustic guitar (mainly fingerpicked stuff, some strumming)
acoustic bass
Acoustic guitar (lead style playing with pick)

We want to record everything together (at least the basis of the songs) rather than track everything.

I am thinking of getting a pair of behringer c2 stereo matched mics to use to mic the bass and one of the acoustic guitars. I know these are not the best mics but i dont have much money spend. are there any more mics out there in this price range that come as a pair that are better?

would a different mic arrangement be better for this setup??


all help greatly appreciated

cheers

 

[woundedknee]

good question, I am a fan of recording on a tight budget! I would suggest getting a used B-2 (pro maybe) for that price on ebay or something and mic up the bass with that. It's tough of course because you want to do it live. Tracking would enable you to get pretty good signal for each instrument with the mics you already have (ie double micing the bass with the 57 right up on the strings and the condensor a few feet back to fatten up the sound).

But live, im thinking the first thing I would try is put both guitars on either side of the omni (with plenty of practice licks to find how far back each guitar should be to get a good mix of the two) Then mic up the bass with the 57 and other (as of yet undicided) mic and then mix those to the guitars.

OR if you get another (or set of) condensor, just use that on the acoustic bass and in the same fashion as above, place both guitarists around the omni with the 57 focused on the lead. This way, the rythym guitar is covered on the omni and the lead is covered by both the omni for a good range, and the 57 for the higher lead parts and to get a good "natural fingers on the fretboard" sound. You'd want that 57 at about the 12th fret, slightly angled toward the soundboard. Maybe someone else has done it differently, but I think this might be a good place to start. Good luck.

 

[Tadpui]

How good are the acoustics in your recording area? If they're good enough, you can try a couple of LDC mics in the middle of the room, in an XY configuration or as a spaced pair. Then use the SM57 to close-mic the bass. Set up your ensemble with the guitars on the left and right, bass in the middle.

What the LDC mics can do in an XY or spaced pair configuration is give you a natural, yet stereo, image of of your performance. They will also pick up quite a bit of the acoustical ambience of your recording space. In a well-treated room, or even in a moderately well treated room, that ambience can sound terrific. Way better than any VST plugin reverb for your purposes. But with a stereo image of the two acoustic guitars, you can have some stereo separation between them in the mix. Pan the mics wide or even hard L and R in your mix.

And even though the SM57 isn't really known for its ability to pick up low frequencies, it's capable of doing the job. It can at least pick up enough of the low end of the upright bass to allow you to apply some compression and probably some EQ to it in the mix so that you'll end up with a nice full low end in your finished recording. Those low frequencies tend to get lost when you use microphone placements that are too far from the source sound. Putting the SM57 up nice and close might give you some proximity effect, which might help boost those low frequencies. It might make the bass sound boomy though.

Anyways, that's my idea. It may not work very well but that's what I would try first.