room/ambience mic-ing?

G

GreenDank

New member
if there's a good thread, just point me there please.

I'm wondering about room/ambience mic-ing for my home recordings of amped guitars and vocals (drums were done direct). I dunno if this would add a dimension, or just waste a track and get swallowed up or add nothing. Rather than tweak out too much on experimenting, I thought I'd see if anyone does this.

I guess I'm shooting for a natural reverb/live feel to add something to otherwise boring/stale home recordings I do. Perhaps this isn't the way to liven them up?
 
Hi..

what type of music are you recording?

In most cases, guitar cabs should be isolated and recorded in a 'dead' room, with reverb/ambience added with a plug or outboard processor.

This goes with Vox too, but if you had a stellar room, and the music calls for it.. you could move a nice LDC around the room and see if anything catches your ear.

There are no rules..just experimenting.

Personally, I use a modded Apex 460 for some vocals, which has 8 different settings that allow you to hear a little (or alot) more room if desired.

Hope this helps a bit..

Cheers,

LIMiT
 
Room mics are good if you have a good sounding room. Most home recorders don't. That being said, if you're having trouble capturing the sound you hear "in the room" with microphones, a room mic might be just the right thing. Guitar amps are a good example. A dynamic mic right on the speaker will give you the midrange punch, but adding a condenser a few feet away (or even behind the cab) and blending them together can sound really cool (you have to be careful of phase problems, though).
 
I've used anything from a crappy behringer omni mic to a AKG Perception 400 in Omni as room mics and everytime i've got a decent sound. Even the behringer suprisingly. Just experiment with it. If you're room is large it'll give a natural reverb effect but doenst allways fit.
 
...

thanks guys!

to answer some of the above questions: the room ain't so great - small, drywall walls, thick carpet. sounds seem to disappear somewhere. but I may toy around with setting up in a nearby room with really tall walls that might achieve an echo of sorts.

the music is kind of like a beastie boys meets annihilator kind of thing. medium overdrive guitars played with the precision of jeff waters with phat distorted drums, clean vocals and clean bass. yes, i'm confused too. and i don't usually use the word phat but it seems to work in this case. let's just call it "experimental."
 
I live in a manufactured home (trailer). A double wide if you will (saving to buy a house w basement studio). My music room is 10 x 11, being terrible for ambient recordings. I've tried everything, but the best solution for me was to sound treat all the surface area of the walls. I get killer results with a LDC (at3035) in the center of the room with the guitar cab in the corner or against the wall. This works only with a clean guitar tone though. For heavy or distorted guitars I always have to close mic with a 57 or 421.

Moral of the story, IMO if you have a small square room it is better to deaden the room completely.
 
gcapel said:
I live in a manufactured home (trailer). A double wide if you will (saving to buy a house w basement studio). My music room is 10 x 11, being terrible for ambient recordings. I've tried everything, but the best solution for me was to sound treat all the surface area of the walls. I get killer results with a LDC (at3035) in the center of the room with the guitar cab in the corner or against the wall. This works only with a clean guitar tone though. For heavy or distorted guitars I always have to close mic with a 57 or 421.

Moral of the story, IMO if you have a small square room it is better to deaden the room completely.
Click to expand...

roger that. thanks.
 
Do you know what a Live Chamber is?

What you can do is keep recording in the dead room, but if you have a live or ambient space somewhere in the house..an attic, a bathroom, a shower, a stairwell, and make a live-chamber out of that space. Tile and porcelain are dandy materials. Or hard wood, brick, stone, cider-block, even bare sheetrock.

Run some cables and put a mic and a powered speaker (like a wedge monitor) in there. Put the speaker where it will cause maximum ambience, like in a corner pointing up and in to the room, or on the floor pointing up. Point the mic OFF-AXIS from the speaker.

After you have recorded and edited the guitar part (or vocal or whatever), send the track out through that speaker, filling the live space with the sound, which will be picked up by the mic, and record the ambience from the mic back on to a track of your DAW. Then mix that with the "dry" signal.

And you might ask, if I can do that, why don't I just put my amp in there? The answer is you might be able to, or might not. But the key is to get a good, dry signal without the possible ill effects of bad-sounding ambience, which can't be removed from the sound, and then find a space, like the shower when your wife's not in it, to add some liveness in the mix.

I know. It's a lot of work, but people do it.
 
Drewcifer666 said:
Do you know what a Live Chamber is?

What you can do is keep recording in the dead room, but if you have a live or ambient space somewhere in the house..an attic, a bathroom, a shower, a stairwell, and make a live-chamber out of that space. Tile and porcelain are dandy materials. Or hard wood, brick, stone, cider-block, even bare sheetrock.

Run some cables and put a mic and a powered speaker (like a wedge monitor) in there. Put the speaker where it will cause maximum ambience, like in a corner pointing up and in to the room, or on the floor pointing up. Point the mic OFF-AXIS from the speaker.

After you have recorded and edited the guitar part (or vocal or whatever), send the track out through that speaker, filling the live space with the sound, which will be picked up by the mic, and record the ambience from the mic back on to a track of your DAW. Then mix that with the "dry" signal.

And you might ask, if I can do that, why don't I just put my amp in there? The answer is you might be able to, or might not. But the key is to get a good, dry signal without the possible ill effects of bad-sounding ambience, which can't be removed from the sound, and then find a space, like the shower when your wife's not in it, to add some liveness in the mix.

I know. It's a lot of work, but people do it.
Click to expand...

+1

An excellent idea!

LIMiT
 
Drewcifer666 said:
Do you know what a Live Chamber is?

What you can do is keep recording in the dead room, but if you have a live or ambient space somewhere in the house..an attic, a bathroom, a shower, a stairwell, and make a live-chamber out of that space. Tile and porcelain are dandy materials. Or hard wood, brick, stone, cider-block, even bare sheetrock.

Run some cables and put a mic and a powered speaker (like a wedge monitor) in there. Put the speaker where it will cause maximum ambience, like in a corner pointing up and in to the room, or on the floor pointing up. Point the mic OFF-AXIS from the speaker.

After you have recorded and edited the guitar part (or vocal or whatever), send the track out through that speaker, filling the live space with the sound, which will be picked up by the mic, and record the ambience from the mic back on to a track of your DAW. Then mix that with the "dry" signal.

And you might ask, if I can do that, why don't I just put my amp in there? The answer is you might be able to, or might not. But the key is to get a good, dry signal without the possible ill effects of bad-sounding ambience, which can't be removed from the sound, and then find a space, like the shower when your wife's not in it, to add some liveness in the mix.

I know. It's a lot of work, but people do it.
Click to expand...

dang, that's pretty cool. ambience after all is recorded. that's brilliant.
 
Drewcifer666 said:
Do you know what a Live Chamber is?

What you can do is keep recording in the dead room, but if you have a live or ambient space somewhere in the house..an attic, a bathroom, a shower, a stairwell, and make a live-chamber out of that space. Tile and porcelain are dandy materials. Or hard wood, brick, stone, cider-block, even bare sheetrock.

Run some cables and put a mic and a powered speaker (like a wedge monitor) in there. Put the speaker where it will cause maximum ambience, like in a corner pointing up and in to the room, or on the floor pointing up. Point the mic OFF-AXIS from the speaker.

After you have recorded and edited the guitar part (or vocal or whatever), send the track out through that speaker, filling the live space with the sound, which will be picked up by the mic, and record the ambience from the mic back on to a track of your DAW. Then mix that with the "dry" signal.

And you might ask, if I can do that, why don't I just put my amp in there? The answer is you might be able to, or might not. But the key is to get a good, dry signal without the possible ill effects of bad-sounding ambience, which can't be removed from the sound, and then find a space, like the shower when your wife's not in it, to add some liveness in the mix.

I know. It's a lot of work, but people do it.
Click to expand...

I shall now steal your idea. It is great, thanks for the advice on this topic.
 
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