New Live Blues Recording - Red House

[jgourd]

Those that know me, know that live recordings are all I do. This one is a very special one because I recorded it as a discrete 5 channel recording with the intention of releasing both DTS and Dolby Digital versions. To find out more about the DTS and Dolby Digital versions, go to my 5.1 page on my site.

Here is the stereo downmix in MP3 format..

Details: This is a four piece blues band. The house engineer has a pretty big god complex which would be OK if she were compentant. For this show she declared that there would be zero electrical connections to the PA which meant no mic splitters and no close mics in the recording.

I placed 3 cardiod large diaphragm condensers at the front of the stage. They consisted of a matched pair of Octava MC319s for left and right and a Studio Projects C1 for the center. At the back of the room I placed a pair of Studio Projects C3s in Omni mode. I also aimed a little AT clip on mic at the PA stack.

Every Mic when into an Aphex 107 Tube preamp (3 units) and then into a MOTU 828. The 828 was connected to a Sony VAIO notebook. This notebook is so bad at this, I had to use the old Multimedia drivers with over a second of latency. Since I was recording and not tracking this posed no problem. Every Mic had its own track in Nuendo.

The recording went smoothly. After each set, I would do a quick stereo mixdown and burn a few CDs. The band was able to walk away from the show with CDs of the show, pretty cool huh?

The MP3 stereo mix presented here has the left and right mics assigned to the left and right channels, the center and the PA Mics are mixed into the center. The rear ambience mics are not mixed in at all except when the tune is over and then they are used for audience mics.

The 5.1 mixes include the rear mics all the time. It is a nice image of the club's ambience.

 

[Scriabin]

sounds great, possitively great... of course im partial to hendrix

 

[drstawl]

I've recorded several bands live that cover this tune. Nice job!

What was the distance from the front of stage mics to the amps they were picking up? And what was the distance from the stage to where the rear mics were placed?

If the PA stack was stereo (was it?) how did you "point" a mic at it?

 

[jgourd]

What was the distance from the front of stage mics to the amps they were picking up?

I would say about 8 feet.

And what was the distance from the stage to where the rear mics were placed?

That was about 40 feet.

If the PA stack was stereo (was it?) how did you "point" a mic at it?

No it wasn't stereo. No live engineer in their right mind would attempt to run a stereo mix in a small night club. With that being said, there was a pole holding up a lighting truss that was about 2 feet from the PA stack. I clippd the mic to the truss and aimed it somewhere in between the midrange and high end horns. In the stereo mix you can really only hear the harp coming through the PA.

 

[drstawl]

Thanks for the dimensions

>No live engineer in their right mind would attempt to run a stereo mix in a small night club

I can only look on in wonder as the mixes are generated. My job has been to capture whatever they produce. Most of the clubs were FAR smaller than the one you described. I've only seen 8 feet of stage depth at the House of Blues. Only about 40 feet to the back of the house and they used a tall stereo PA mix. I've always seen a stereo PA rig, just mixed pretty much mono.
ie each mono input panned to center.
Do you think a single stack would improve the mix in a small(er)room?

 

[jgourd]

I've only seen 8 feet of stage depth at the House of Blues.

The Mics were also about 8 feet off the ground. It was a very small, cramped stage.

The stage monitors are on the edge of the stage. You can see just how shallow it is.

When I played this for my wife she (who knows nothing about music, engineering, or sound) tried to describe what she was feeling about this recording. She said "It sounds so 'live' yet I can hear everything on stage, if I close my eyes I can picture the band". If my wife (die hard Stones fan since before they were big) like this recording, I must have done something right

In answer to your question: Yes, I think a center stack / cluster is the prefered way to go. Many times there just isn't a way to do that without raising the roof.

 

[TAE]

Damn fine job! Could close my eyes and be sitting right there in the club. Whats really wild is that it was recorded on a laptop Too Cool! very clean...

TAE

 

[CyanJaguar]

jgourd,

Wow! that was positively impressive. I love the instumental tone, even the noise added to the feel of it. Great job. THe vocals sounded kind of funky though as if there was too much room, but I know there is not much you could have done in this situation.

What I like about it is that it is not hyped. It is a representation and it makes me feel the music more.

peace.

 

[jgourd]

5.1 mixes available for download

I did not make this very clear, but the 5.1 mixes I mentioned in the original post are available for download on the 5.1 page on my site. They are huge so you need a high bandwidth connection.