Need advice for improving isolation in miking a string bass live on stage. Jazz mostly

[Mr. Moscode]

I play the acoustic upright bass in a jazz trio + 1 or 2, and we routinely make multitrack recordings of live gigs. Recordings are made by the house engineer on house equipment. My bass sounds pretty good acoustically and at least 1 of my 2 pickups get tracked as well as a cardioid mic in front of the bass fairly close to the F holes on the G string side. The issue is bleed from the grand piano on the right and drums on my left and probably my monitor on the floor behind me.

I'm thinking of trying a vocal shield around the mic. I don't want to block too much of the bass visually because the audience likes to see it. That may be my best option.

I've also hung a lipstick mic between the legs of the bridge with rubber bands but that doesn't provide any isolation. It works well in a booth though.

I know sound is reflected off the belly of the bass into the mic so outside of setting a plexiglass barrier on the floor I don't know if I can do much for that.

If you are willing to share any tricks or suggestions on how to keep the drums and piano out of the mic without blocking the view of it from the audience please share. If I can drop them by 10db I'd be happy. The drums are the main issue. The drummer uses his kick like a rock drummer.

 

[abbey road d enfer]

Have you experimented with a fig-8 mic, orienting the nulls toward the piano and drums?
Con is you may pick up too much of the audience.

 

[john12ax7]

You should experiment with mic pattern and instrument placement on stage. Have the mic pattern null(s) lineup with the other instruments. A figure 8 pattern might work better with instruments to your left and right.

Edit : didn't see abbey's response when typed this.

 

[Mr. Moscode]

Good idea. Thanks. I would probably have modify my mic. I have a cheap Chinese cardioid big dual capsule. 1 side for warm, the other labeled bright. I modded the circuit but didn't do the capsules.

That still leaves me with reflected sound off the belly of the bass.

Maybe a figure 8 with a vocal screen at the back. Maybe on the head shell.

Any way to make it hyper cardioid?

 

[Electrobumps]

Can you put a pickup on the bass. Obviously it will not sound as nice, however you might be able to blend the DI with mic to get a bit more control when bleed is limiting your options.

 

[Mr. Moscode]

Can you put a pickup on the bass. Obviously it will not sound as nice, however you might be able to blend the DI with mic to get a bit more control when bleed is limiting your options.

I already do. 2 of them. One for my on stage amp which I put on a pole stand at ear height, and one for the house. The house also has a mic on the bass. And yes, will not sound as nice but with a mic to get the body it gives me an acceptable sound for recording. I'm looking to improve isolation for the mic from the drums.

Thank you.

 

[soapfoot]

An old teacher of mine, Lynn Seaton, used to wrap a D112 in foam and wedge it in the bridge, addressing the top of the bass. He'd use this to feed an amplifier, but you could just as easily track the output.

You could experiment with different mics that might achieve a better or more-neutral result, but the form factor of the D112, Beta52, and other "kick drum" mics does seem to lend itself to this positioning.

Will it sound like a U47 2 feet in front? No, but it should have substantially less spill from drums and piano.

 

[Mr. Moscode]

I know Lynn, he's a great bassist. You probably play pretty well if he was your teacher.
I have a Beta52 but it's heavy and stuffing it in foam in the bridge weighs down the feel of the instrument. I've tried lipstick mics hung with rubber bands in the bridge but I've not solved the bleed, even with foam.

Thank you.

 

[Electrobumps]

I already do. 2 of them. One for my on stage amp which I put on a pole stand at ear height, and one for the house. The house also has a mic on the bass. And yes, will not sound as nice but with a mic to get the body it gives me an acceptable sound for recording. I'm looking to improve isolation for the mic from the drums.

Thank you.

As well as pattern as mentioned you should experiment with position. Moving your position can be helpful. This might not be practical in your stage setup. Moving you/mic a few to many degrees one way may greatly improve spill of one instrument, but may increase spill on the other.

The best way to do it is to get someone to move the mic and listen to how the spill changes and find the spot that works the best. Ideally in a separate room, but headphones will work.

You mentioned screening with a vocal shield try it out and see if it helps, take note of reflective surfaces that might reflect sounds back into the mic and try and avoid these reflecting back into the mic.

If the floor is hard, can you get a rug to play on? that will help with reflections coming back up of the floor.

 

[Mr. Moscode]

I'm in the middle between piano and drums. The guest du jour is usually in front of me and only occasionally is there an open back amp used by guitarists.

I just bought a mic hood type vocal mic isolator that I'll try next week.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BTQ215NG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1


It sure looks like that may improve the situation. The stage has rugs so that's cool. It helps absorb grand piano. Won't need the pop filter.
The most reflective surface is the front of the bass. I don't expect total isolation but if I can get 10 or 12 db attenuation that would help.


I thank you for the suggestion.

 

[Gold]

I would want to try an omni lavalier clipped to the tail piece in front of the f hole. The problem with tight polar patterns is that they exhibit enhanced proximity effect. Exactly what you don’t want. With an omni you can get a better sound up close and the off axis response would sound much better. In other words the bleed may not be significantly reduced but it will sound better overall.

 

[k brown]

I play the acoustic upright bass in a jazz trio + 1 or 2, and we routinely make multitrack recordings of live gigs. Recordings are made by the house engineer on house equipment. My bass sounds pretty good acoustically and at least 1 of my 2 pickups get tracked as well as a cardioid mic in front of the bass fairly close to the F holes on the G string side. The issue is bleed from the grand piano on the right and drums on my left and probably my monitor on the floor behind me.

I'm thinking of trying a vocal shield around the mic. I don't want to block too much of the bass visually because the audience likes to see it. That may be my best option.

I've also hung a lipstick mic between the legs of the bridge with rubber bands but that doesn't provide any isolation. It works well in a booth though.

I know sound is reflected off the belly of the bass into the mic so outside of setting a plexiglass barrier on the floor I don't know if I can do much for that.

If you are willing to share any tricks or suggestions on how to keep the drums and piano out of the mic without blocking the view of it from the audience please share. If I can drop them by 10db I'd be happy. The drums are the main issue. The drummer uses his kick like a rock drummer.

What problem is being caused by the bleed you're currently getting?

 

[Ike Zimbel]

I play the acoustic upright bass in a jazz trio + 1 or 2, and we routinely make multitrack recordings of live gigs. Recordings are made by the house engineer on house equipment. My bass sounds pretty good acoustically and at least 1 of my 2 pickups get tracked as well as a cardioid mic in front of the bass fairly close to the F holes on the G string side. The issue is bleed from the grand piano on the right and drums on my left and probably my monitor on the floor behind me.

I'm thinking of trying a vocal shield around the mic. I don't want to block too much of the bass visually because the audience likes to see it. That may be my best option.

I've also hung a lipstick mic between the legs of the bridge with rubber bands but that doesn't provide any isolation. It works well in a booth though.

I know sound is reflected off the belly of the bass into the mic so outside of setting a plexiglass barrier on the floor I don't know if I can do much for that.

If you are willing to share any tricks or suggestions on how to keep the drums and piano out of the mic without blocking the view of it from the audience please share. If I can drop them by 10db I'd be happy. The drums are the main issue. The drummer uses his kick like a rock drummer.

Are the recordings multi-track, and if so, do you have access to them? If they are, you might want to try massaging the time alignment between tracks. I have mixed jazz trios live, and I found that once I started using an X-Y /ORTF-ish mic'ing arrangement on the piano, bleed problems basically went away. Was there still bleed? Absolutely, but because it was, let's call it "phase (time) coherent bleed" it was no longer objectionable but actually musical bleed. This is another aspect of my "never mic anything bigger than your head" philosophy (ie...don't used spaced mics on a piano, or an audience, or for drum overheads)...you can't put one ear over the bass strings and the other over the high strings so the time difference between spaced mics (to me...) makes the piano sound un-natural and makes the bleed from the drums, in particular sound really not good.
Now I realize that changing the mic'ing is different from fiddling with delaying tracks to try and fix it, but if you have the chance, give it a try. I've never had the opportunity, but here's a couple of things you could experiment with.
1) If you know that the piano was mic'ed with a spaced pair (video of the gigs might be helpful here) you could try delaying one of the mics a few ms to bring the apparent center of that pair together and see what that does to the overall mix. And/or...
2) If your bass is between the piano and the drums, you could try making the bass "time zero" and delaying the drum and piano mics back to the bass position.
I know this may sound insane to some people, but don't knock until you try it.

 

[richardhx]

Monitors moving over to IEMs can be good if you have control over monitor mixing. That could reduce spill from monitors.

I have used with good success on both Bass and Cello one of AKG's micromics: the C411. It is a microphone though pretty resistant to bleed. I get better sound from that than typical pickup type feeds.

 

[k brown]

I always recommend trying an RE15/16 - tight supercard pattern, nearly perfect off-axis response and virtually no proximity effect.

 

[mylesgm]

I’ve done this exact type of recording many times and it’s always difficult. Some of my best outcomes have actually been an A/B pair of omnis placed a few meters back from the band with minimal spot miking (for recording obviously not for FOH). Close micing live shows can often be a “chasing your tail” situation so if the band sounds good and balanced on stage then this is worth adding to your recording setup.
As for actual spot micing with isolation here are a couple of options.
1. DPA4099 (or similar from AT or Neumann). The bass mount is excellent. You’ll need to experiment with mic placement depending on your bass and playing style.
2. DPA4060. This is a lavalier style Omni mic which comes with a foam windshield (or you can make one) that you can drop inside the bass through the f-hole. Tape the cable so it doesn’t rattle against the bass body. This needs lots of eq but the isolation is high and sounds much more acoustic than a pickup. This can really be great though.
3. Neumann Km85 SDC. Close up and higher up the body, a little above the plucking position. Blend this with the pickup but with the pickup low passed around 150hz or lower.
4. Any decent LDC low down below the bridge centred and pointed up towards the plucking position.
5. Mic up the amp if you are using one and the sound is good.

Obviously check phase and adjust mic positions and/or nudge tracks after recording.

 

[ashdot]

A totally different approach but one that has served me well lately, using AI.
AI de-mixing technology has evolved dramatically over the past few years and can isolate instruments from bleed.
I’ve been using Lalal.ai for removing acoustic guitar bleed from vocals of a singer playing acoustic guitar while singing, with remarkable results.
You should mic your bass to get the best sound and also record your pickups. Later, process the miked track with the AI and mix it with the pickup tracks.
Give it a try and let us know how it goes.

 

[Mr. Moscode]

What problem is being caused by the bleed you're currently getting?

Loud drums cause problems even with compression and cymbals create phase funnies with the drum mics. I want to make mixing easier.

 

[Mr. Moscode]

I’ve done this exact type of recording many times and it’s always difficult. Some of my best outcomes have actually been an A/B pair of omnis placed a few meters back from the band with minimal spot miking (for recording obviously not for FOH). Close micing live shows can often be a “chasing your tail” situation so if the band sounds good and balanced on stage then this is worth adding to your recording setup.
As for actual spot micing with isolation here are a couple of options.
1. DPA4099 (or similar from AT or Neumann). The bass mount is excellent. You’ll need to experiment with mic placement depending on your bass and playing style.
2. DPA4060. This is a lavalier style Omni mic which comes with a foam windshield (or you can make one) that you can drop inside the bass through the f-hole. Tape the cable so it doesn’t rattle against the bass body. This needs lots of eq but the isolation is high and sounds much more acoustic than a pickup. This can really be great though.
3. Neumann Km85 SDC. Close up and higher up the body, a little above the plucking position. Blend this with the pickup but with the pickup low passed around 150hz or lower.
4. Any decent LDC low down below the bridge centred and pointed up towards the plucking position.
5. Mic up the amp if you are using one and the sound is good.

Obviously check phase and adjust mic positions and/or nudge tracks after recording.

That's a lot of good suggestions. I've tried some clip ons in the past but the tailpiece has it's own vibrations and shakes the mic so there can be additive or subtractive effects as resonant frequencies that I didn't play. I think Ray Brown was using that, or at least I saw a photo with it.

Setting up mics in the audience is too much overhead. Everything is miked and has it's own track so I'm good with close miking. The room is fairly dead but the audience can be having a chat near the mic and I don't want to deal with that.

I've tried a clip on in the bass a long time ago but for amplification, not recording. Not great due to fb but that was then. That idea became the first string bass pickup. A mike on the peg inside the bass and thus Ampeg was born. Eddie Safranski used it with 2 amps in the Stan Kenton band. Maybe it's time to revisit that idea.

As of now I use a LDC on a stand centered about 1 ft away from the F hole on the G string side. The sound guy uses in the house mix with the pick up for added definition and it sounds good in the audience when other players sit in. I'm going to try the foam hood with that. In the studio that combo of mics works great. The bass is a hard surface that sound bounces off of, especially when a peak resonance is near. So without some acoustic isolation I'm still in the same boat.

I've toyed with the idea of a small gobo but that's another thing to have carry around and set up.

I really appreciate everyone's suggestions. I'm still taking calls. The phone lines are open!

 

[k brown]

RE15 rear response is far flatter and smoother than any LDC.

Bob Ohlsson even used them on violin.

Plot shows how much tighter it is than a regular card. Since no proximity hump, you can place as close as you need; aim it's backside to nearest part of the drum kit.

https://electrovoice.com/media/down...lassic_ev_microphone_design_and_evolution.pdf
Here's RE20 on bass, with the drumer right next to him (maybe not as loud as yours ; - )