Single Mic Recording Challenge

[elbandito]

The other day, I decided to give myself a little challenge: Choose one mic and use only that mic to record every track. Further, do only one take of each instrument and use as little post-processing as possible. Finally, do everything you need to do in 24 hrs or less.

For my first one, I chose to use my Audio-Technica AE3000 LDC. I recorded drums, bass guitar and bass clarinet. I used only a bit of EQ on the drums, some compression across the three tracks to "glue" them together and some plate reverb to place it all in a room. I went a bit crazy on the bass clarinet and used delay and chorus plugs on it. Finally, I used a limiter plug just to push the overall level up a bit.

Here's how it sounds:


Today, I will use an Electro-Voice 635a omni mic and see what I come up with. I challenge anybody that's interested to try this game. It was fun to do and I'm surprised at how well everything came out - the drums were an especially nice surprise, as I feel that all the pieces came thru well... clear and easily distinguishable.

 

[dainbramage]

Sounds surprisingly good for a lo-fi kind of sound. The drums sound very thin but better than I would expect from a single LDC.

 

[elbandito]

I suppose that in order to truly make this a "technique" thread, I should speak a little on how I set up the mic.

For the bass, it was straight at the speaker in my 2x10 cab, just a little off centre.

For the drums, it was beside the kick, maybe 4" back from the batter head, and about the same above the center line and away from the shell. It was tilted back slightly and facing toward the snare and hat, with the null point of the mic facing the leg on the kick drum. My room is completely untreated.

The bass clarinet was recorded into the mic as it was set up for the drums. I just moved myself around for the "swell" effect.

 

[Dr.SpringReverb]

sounds very good.
doesn't think it sounds lofi. i think it sounds like some drums and bass etc in a room. that's perfectly cool.

 

[Justsomeguy]

It sounds really cool to my ears I love the crazy effects on the clarinet, sounds at times like an electric guitar, at other times like a clarinet swirling around, LOVE it!

For a couple of years in a row we did a similar project with students over a term where we started with just one mic (Rode NT1), then 2 (NT1 and SM57), then four (NT1, SM57, pair of Oktava MK012's), then any mics they wanted to look at what could be achieved with fewer mics and really concentrating on mic placement. The drums were always our biggest issue. The first couple of years sounded ok, but the last year we did it we moved the drum kit out of the live room and out into the hall (big old Victorian house, huge space, high vaulted ceiling) because by sheer luck nothing else was timetabled in the building at the same time and the results were much better. We tried a couple of positions but what you've described (similar to this in my head but pointing up at the snare) worked really, really well and gave a really nice balance across the whole kit. The other position that worked well but with less kick was an overhead about 6 foot up, about 6 foot back from the kit, and aimed down to point between the kick and snare.