stop the bleed

[electricabanana]

Does anyone have suggestions to cut down on getting tracks leaking into each other? for example, there is always a tiny bit of guitar in the vocals, or sometimes one guitar will come into another guitars mic.

i know it is inevitable unless one is in a proper studio, but how can i cut it down.

i have experimented a bit with mic placement, and actually moving the people, but its a pretty small room, and we need to see each other to be able to keep the flow together.

would dynamic mics have less of this problem than condensers? (i use mostly condensers but could borrow a decent dynamic...)

this probably sounds totally naive, but would it be at all possible to strategically place a sheild of some kind to create a little noise "shadow" or prevent some of the unwanted sound waves from getting to the mic? i know there would still be reflections and room noise getting in, but i am just trying to minimize the problem.

i guess this should be in the newbies area, but what the hell, i already wrote it so im posting....

 

[ermghoti]

If you can hear a sound, a mic probably can too. A dynamic will be less sensitve (a good thing in this case) and by close-micing, the sound you want will be that much louder than the sound you reject, barriers may help a little bit, but basically, bleed is part of a recording. Capture better-sounding bleed, and it will make you less miserable.

 

[Track Rat]

Embrace the leakage. It's not really a bad thing and can be your friend unless you get some phasing going on. But to minimize it, you can try Gobos (free standing baffles) around the offending instrument or isolation boxes to put amps in. Common sense stuff like that. I'd only jump through those hoops if I heard something bad in the the two track mix though.

 

[dirtythermos]

You could record the instruments one at a time....

 

[RAK]

I was going to say what Track Rat said. One option is to use baffles, but definetly think about actually moving everyone closer together to "embrace the leakage" The reason you move them closer is to hopefully avoid wierd phasing issues.

I think more than dynamic Vs. condenser the issue is polar pattern. A mic with a super or even hyper cardiod pattern will offer more rejection than a standard cardiod mic.

 

[Dani Pace]

If you are recording an entire band (or even more than one instrument) at the same time in the same room, you will always have bleed. No matter how cloce you mic things there will be a hint of bleed. Most of the time this is more of an annoyance than actually a problem unless you have some phasing issues. Use the bleed to help create a room ambience sort of effect. For me the trick was to learn to use it instead of fighting with it. One thing to keep in mind is, the louder a band plays... the harder it is to control bleed.

 

[Signal 9 Studio]

EB,

Check out this old thread. I never got around to building my amp iso box. My wife wanted the kitchen remodeled hehehe. But I will someday. It will make my life easier. Sometimes I get groups with too many instruments. Groups never seem to be able to communicate their headphone needs either. They'll play a whole song and then come in the control room and say. I couldn't hear a thing because of the mix in the phones. Well say so stupid! (Thats where this iso box would be handy) But I just say cool I'll get that fixed for you. I'm venting. Anyway there is your link.

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=197878&highlight=DIY+amp+box

Sorry that it didn't come out as a link but cut and paste it in your address bar.

 

[Signal 9 Studio]

DOH! It did come out as a link...just click and smile.

 

[ecktronic]

Dynamic mics should give you less bleed.
I would close mic each instrument/amp and also record each seperately rather than live. If you have to record live then angle the amps away from each other, and have them at a volume so the bleed is minimal. Practice the song so yous all know it back to front so you dont need to hear each others parts to know where you are in the song. You could for example use a vocal PA as a guide for everyone if its the vocals you follow to know where you are in the song.
DI the bass and also mic, if the Mics has too much bleed then you can use the DI solely.
Put up some sort of partition so the drums dont go as loud around the room. Thats what Queen used for Bohemien Rhapsody. That was done in a small room and alot of it was live rather than seperately recorded.

Eck

 

[electricabanana]

thanks for everyones input.

as far as embracing the leakage...wouldnt this only really work if i plan to keep all the tracks im recording at once? say hypothetically i was recording drums and bass together, with scratch guitar and vocals, i wouldnt want any of the scratch tracks in my keeper tracks would i?

i see the benifits though of embracing rather than fighting bleed... thanks

 

[ermghoti]

Unless you are going to record radically different keeper tracks, the bleed from the scratch tracks will get drowned out nicely. Make sure you have your orchestration straight before you start. If your local Brahms decides he just wants voice and drums soloed on the last pre-chorus, the band better sit the hell out during the scratch track, or you'll be mythically lucky if you can punch in the drums and fix it.

 

[RAK]

Unless you are going to record radically different keeper tracks, the bleed from the scratch tracks will get drowned out nicely.

Second that. You might end up with a "ghost" in there, but chances are no one will hear it in a million y(ears).

I apologize for that really awful joke, if you can even call it that.

 

[ermghoti]

Not punny.

(Edit: meaningless rambling about solo-ed tracks)

 

[Rokket]

Another thing that no one has mentioned: add a noisegate to your signal chain when you are mixing. You just have to be sparse with it because it will alter your sound, sometimes to undesireable lengths. If the bleed is excessive and really bugs you, that's one way to take it out.

 

[chessrock]

Run all the bass and guitar tracks direct while you track, monitoring everything with headphones. Then go back and re-amp them.

.

 

[rockabilly1955]

we do "live multitracking" all the time. Vocals, guitar, snare drum, and upright bass. The room isnt that big either. The finsihed product sounds pretty decent and cant even notice any bleed. If some bleed is noticeable, say in the vocal track, while there is just music and no lyrics going on.... I just edit out that part in my DAW

 

[Han]

Some bands should be recorded in one room, jazz, soul, blues for example and some bands can only be recorded together in one room, like bigbands and orchestra's.

So don't fight with bleed, use it and find out all about patterns, off axis response etc. That's the difficult part of recording, getting to know your mics and how they behave in a certain application.

You'll find out that an MD441 has a much better off axis response than an SM57 and that's why the bleed into an MD441 is quite usable.

You'll find out that the quality of a Beyer M88 is extraordanairy.

Another mistake engineers make is thinking that a cardioid is always better, which isn't so. Put an omni in the bridge of an upright bas and you'll have a little more bleed from other instruments, but i'll sound better and you'll not end up with a boomy bass because of proximity.

Get to know the mics and embrace bleed, bleed is great, you're gonna love it.
Capture the energy of the band, that's more important.

Here's an article about my place and how I record bands:

http://www.eqmag.com/story.asp?storyCode=15269