
elbandito
potential lunch winner
What's a good mic to use in a live application to amplify a four-piece group? Old bluegrass bands used to use one mic in the middle of the stage and the players/singers would work the mic in order to bring certain instruments to the fore... I'm hoping to recreate this. We've got an accordion, acoustic guitar, three vocalists (who double as players), tambourine, harmonica, sometimes a ukelele and some good ol' fashioned footstompin'. Any suggestions?
Oh, and since I mentioned accordion, have any of you had much experience with miking an accordion live? My accordion player doesn't seem to like putting energy into thinking about how to mike his instrument and has decided that what he wants to do is make contact mics and tape them to the squeeze box instead. Personally, I think it sounds horrible - an unacceptable amount of handling noise and terrible reproduction of the box harp's tone, as well as a completely skewed response (that is to say that when the mic is taped to the centre of the piano side, the lowest bass notes and the highest treble notes are significantly quieter than the notes in the middle).
I tried using my LDC Audio Technica AT2020 at a gig and while it worked, it just didn't have the "oomph" that it should have, upon listening to the recording afterwards. I was thinking that a ribbon mic might work nicely but the fragility of a mic like this worries me when thinking about using it in a live application.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
Oh, and since I mentioned accordion, have any of you had much experience with miking an accordion live? My accordion player doesn't seem to like putting energy into thinking about how to mike his instrument and has decided that what he wants to do is make contact mics and tape them to the squeeze box instead. Personally, I think it sounds horrible - an unacceptable amount of handling noise and terrible reproduction of the box harp's tone, as well as a completely skewed response (that is to say that when the mic is taped to the centre of the piano side, the lowest bass notes and the highest treble notes are significantly quieter than the notes in the middle).
I tried using my LDC Audio Technica AT2020 at a gig and while it worked, it just didn't have the "oomph" that it should have, upon listening to the recording afterwards. I was thinking that a ribbon mic might work nicely but the fragility of a mic like this worries me when thinking about using it in a live application.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
