input needed... live recording.

aww man, this is exactly the reason why this forums is so great. thanks to everyone for their input. i'd buy a round of beers for everyone if i could.

im at work right now, so i'll post some replies now and possibly other later...

[quote author="rodabod"]So the room is sorted. What equipment / mics do you have access to?[/quote]

I have 2 alice mics, a ribbon and a consender that I use at home. I gave the 2 alices to my friend so he can try them out. Im not doing the recording, the friend of mine is, I have to ask what type of mics he has. I believe at least 2 sdc's that he has used before. he played me some of his recordings...

[quote author="PRR"]>
> micing different instruments, using baffles, reflection filters etc. ... control the phases

It's not rock-n-roll! Or if it is done rock-style, you will spend hours in set-up and mix-down. And the players have got used to standing together on stage, may be very put-off when pulled apart and baffled. At least for the first sessions, let them play normally, capture the sound. Music thrived for 400 years before microphones were discovered. (The flaw with that assertion is that performance practice HAS changed to reflect the rise of recordings... there's a book.) [/quote]

heh, I just told him how I would record something in a studio environment, using different things to control reflections/bleed etc... :grin: :grin:


again, i would like to thank everyone for their input. It has been a huge help to get some ideas!

If a get a permission from the friend of mine, i'll post some examples what he has recorded already so you can have input on that. I already gave him some pointers based on the recorded tracks.


edit. I talked to my friend a bit more. It's a school (music institute) for young classical students and the concert hall is at that school. The live situation is where the students perform. I think it's part of their studies at the school. I remember I had them in my studies when I studied the Violin in my teen years.

[quote author="clintrubber"][quote author="pstamler"](ORTF: two cardioid mics, set with the capsules 7" apart and pointing outwards at a total angle of 110 degrees. You can also do pseudo-ORTF with hypercardioids at 90 degrees, still spaced 7" apart.[/quote]

Hmmm, would Paul have the guts to call 'NOS' a 'pseudo-ORTF' method or does he mean a third setup ?!? :roll: :wink: [/quote]

Well, yeah, third setup, since I think NOS used cardioids and a different spacing. Maybe I should call it a pseudo-NOS setup instead...NOS with hypers (Hyper-NOS?)

Peace,
Paul

[quote author="EEMO1"]
[quote author="rodabod"]So the room is sorted. What equipment / mics do you have access to?[/quote]

I have 2 alice mics, a ribbon and a consender that I use at home. I gave the 2 alices to my friend so he can try them out. Im not doing the recording, the friend of mine is, I have to ask what type of mics he has. I believe at least 2 sdc's that he has used before. he played me some of his recordings...
[/quote]

As has already been pointed out, getting a good stereo pair set up is a good start. I think like with drums, if you get your overheads/room sounding very good then the spot mics tens to have less of a role to play.

I'm of the opinion that you should consider the placing of the musicians in the hall and the sound of the hall first before choosing what stereo setup to go for. For instance, if the room is very reverberant, I might not choose to go for say, a Blumlein pair. Monitoring is difficult if you don't have a seperate control room - the best I have in these situations is a set of DT150s which give adequate isolation, but not perfect obviously. Anyway, listen as best you can and consider if the stereo pair gives a good image and a nice sound. I'm not against spaced pairs here either - they can sound great, especially if you can fill the hole in the middle. ORTF and its variants is a good compromise between spaced and crossed in a way as you get both phase difference and level difference (pan).

Judging by what you said you already have, it sounds like you could probably go with M/S (assuming the ribbon is fig. of 8), crossed pair of SDCs, ORTF with SDCs or possibly a spaced pair assuming you watched out for bass-loss seeing as these are not omnis (you'll find the low-end will droop as you move further from the source).

[quote author="SSLtech"]Spendor, -Is this "British-style" Brass-banding? as in 30-ish piece with E-flat tenor horns?[/quote]
I believe so! They are in a crescent shape with the percussion at the rear.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, when the room is large enough, and the sound sources are 'multi-dimensional' or 'spread-out' enough, the Decca tree is a great way to 'capture the size', but if that size isn't there, don't try to capture it.

I have a great room to work with here - I just saw a pic of Abbey road studio one and it's not dissimilar. Where abouts in the crescent do i place the tree? I dont have 3 omnis mics the same - does this matter?



18 tracks... sounds like a digi 002... :wink: dead giveaway really

-There are several great New Zealand bands who also play in the British style... I wonder if I've heard of the band that you're recording? -Let me know!

St Kilda Brass

'Pots-n-pans'... one percussion spot mic may be one percussion mic too many. -You'll probably be asked to turn it off at the mix time, unless you're doing a christmas album and they are playing sleigh bells. -Percussion isn't usually high on the conductor/MD's preference list. -They play a supporting role, and this ISN'T rock...

If you have a spare track, stand, preamp and cable, put whatever mic you have available somwhere pointing towards the section. -Watch the conductor. -He usually spends most ot his time waving to them to play softer... if so, the last thing he'll ask for is more percussion at mix time!

All of your comments are extremely useful - thank you very much. Maybe you could email me and discuss further - I could attach the set up for you to see. Cheers