recording live the instrument nobody plays -- the room

[Halfway Competent]

Hey folks. Writing this on my Droid phone at a coffee shop. There is a badass jazz trio playing here with a great sound. It got me thinking about how I might best record this. Close miking wouldn't work too well; everyone close together, bleed would make it superfluous. Beyond that, part of what I'm digging is the warmth the room provides to the sound. So how do I get that? If I distant mic, it will sound good in beadphones, but indistinct on speakers. If I get it close enough to sound tight on speakers, I doubt my mics would hear the room sufficiently.

So how would y'all do this? Capture the tone and yet keep it distinct on transducers that have to interact with other, not as cool rooms?

Here is a shitty phone picture for y'all. :)

[Mo Facta]

Hey folks. Writing this on my Droid phone at a coffee shop. There is a badass jazz trio playing here with a great sound. It got me thinking about how I might best record this. Close miking wouldn't work too well; everyone close together, bleed would make it superfluous. Beyond that, part of what I'm digging is the warmth the room provides to the sound. So how do I get that? If I distant mic, it will sound good in beadphones, but indistinct on speakers. If I get it close enough to sound tight on speakers, I doubt my mics would hear the room sufficiently.

So how would y'all do this? Capture the tone and yet keep it distinct on transducers that have to interact with other, not as cool rooms?

Here is a shitty phone picture for y'all. :)

I would use a combination of room mics and spot mics.

Firstly, I would place my room mics so that I capture the best possible natural balance. This is paramount to capturing the vibe and ambience. Then, I would fill in the 'holes' with spot/close mics. Kick and overhead (one) definitely. From there, there's the sax and the guitar, which shouldn't be too hard to mic, even from a bleed perspective. So, total, you have about 6 mics.

You may find the stereo room mics work great on their own, dependant on where you place them. I would spend most of my time finding the best distance and balance with them. Remember that dynamic range evens out over distance so use that to your advantage. You may even find that carefully placed mid-field room mics will supply a balance of ambience and direct sound.

Cheers :)

[Aski]

In my limited experience with this type of recording, I would say use both room mics and close mics. That way you can get most of the vibe from the room mics and mix in close mics where clarity is needed.

You can also discreetly pull up the fader on the close mics for solos or other parts you want to highlight - just a TINY bit - to make the instrument come "up front" in the mix a bit.

What mics are you using for room mics? I've made some recordings where I thought the room mics were almost equally clear sounding as close micing... Different vibe though, for sure...

Another thought might be to do some mid-distance micing (kinda like spot mics in an orchestra) to balance room sound with closer miced sound...?

But for the most realistic sound you will need to transcribe every note of every part of the performance and plug it into Finale and listen back to the stock MIDI instruments recreate what the musicians actually meant to sound like... ah... it's late...

[Aski]

Ah... Mo Facta and I just typed essentially the same thing at essentially the same time... wild...

Or maybe that means that both of our ideas are not so wild....

...still late...

[Mixwell]

Close miking wouldn't work too well; everyone close together, bleed would make it superfluous. Beyond that, part of what I'm digging is the warmth the room provides to the sound. So how do I get that?

I agree with what's been said by Mo Facta and Aski, its all about the combination of close and distant relationships, but I have found BLEED CAN BE YOUR FREIND, IF YOU LINE YOUR MICS UP RIGHT, and select ones that have extremely low and/or pleasing off axis rejection/coloration. Close placement on this becomes a game where the null points on microphones are your best friend, and you are really just trying to bring direct focus to the instruments so as to hear their "note" better. This brings a closer sound, and builds the density of the audio. It is Like Mo Facta suggested, "filling in the holes", in the background, while the mid distance microphones are the entire foreground and using audience perspective. I would think about X/Y technique there with CARD pattern SDC's, but stereo ribbons can be really nice. I would spend some time thinking about M/S or 90'd figure eights depending what type of ambience I desired. Surely there are thousands of ways to get different audio here. All you can do is try and represent the room and the performance as best as you can.

If I distant mic, it will sound good in beadphones, but indistinct on speakers. If I get it close enough to sound tight on speakers, I doubt my mics would hear the room sufficiently.

So how would y'all do this? Capture the tone and yet keep it distinct on transducers that have to interact with other, not as cool rooms?

[Dan]

Adam, were you around for the Johnny A session at all? I wasn't around then, but I thought that (unreleased) live recording Fletcher did with him sounded fantastic and is basically what the OP is looking for.

If you've got an assistant (or even a co-operative bg singer or hanger-on who's standing around), I'd try sitting in the control room listening, giving direction to the assistant to move the mics around until they sound good. I'd second the suggestion of mid-distance ( say 4-8') as a starting point.

-Dan.

[Mixwell]

Adam, were you around for the Johnny A session at all? I wasn't around then, but I thought that (unreleased) live recording Fletcher did with him sounded fantastic and is basically what the OP is looking for.

If you've got an assistant (or even a co-operative bg singer or hanger-on who's standing around), I'd try sitting in the control room listening, giving direction to the assistant to move the mics around until they sound good. I'd second the suggestion of mid-distance ( say 4-8') as a starting point.

-Dan.

Yes, and I don't really remember specifically, [I only really helped for the pre-production setup at the Meth Lab] but I think I remember that he used a Horch RM2J on the hat side over head, a MTG UM92.1 on the ride, a Bock 195 on the out kick, with a MD421 inside the kick drum. Definitely a TAB 57 on the snare, no tom tom mics were used. They used a 121 on the GTR cab, I think.

He had a couple different Marshall heads he was switching in between. I remember writing down all the settings as a "Johnny A Recall Sheet". Johnny had a Monitor Guy there, doing a mix to a PA in the room to simulate the show, and there was a passive SPLIT from many of the close dynamic microphones on the stage. Also, the DI was going into an effects board, which was split with a DI track. I think they used another MD421 on the bass cab, though I can't remember. Maybe it was a MTG MT71.

I think they used the R88 or an SF12 for a rear audience room microphones. They TOOK ALL OF THE PREAMPS in the Studio [which are many, many different varieties] along with the RADAR V, and a Speck XTRA MIX to monitor the whole shebang. Yea, it sounded good.

[Mo Facta]

If it's done right, it's amazing how much depth and, surprisingly, correct balance, you can achieve with properly placed room mics. Given the right room and the right performer, sometimes it's all you need. I also find that you can really get an oomphy, diffused low end out of the room tracks that you just can't get out of close mics.

[Mixwell]

Around here, we call the room microphones "the record" microphones, because they make everything sound like a "record" in our room. Turning off any room microphones in our room, makes me want to cry.

[moose]

I've done & continue to do a bunch of live gigs... some of them even get recorded!

In a small club a lot of folks go with the "dead-style" taper thing... nice pair of mics aimed at the stage and go right to 2-track. Sometimes positioned at FOB and sometimes on the stage lip...

There's a TON of recordings like that at archive.org, like this great Garaj Mahal set; http://www.archive.org/details/garaj2005-04-10_16bit

Otherwise a lot of times its pretty easy to set up a matrix... hang some room mics, take the board feed and blend 'em right to 2-track.

Typically for big shows the "room" mics will be on stage facing out to the house and audience. Sometimes even placed on top of the subs or other cabs... there's enough "direct" sound from the close mics. Adding the sound of the PA just mucks up all of that...

I did this show with a pair of TLM103's on the sides of the stage and an AKG shotgun straight up the center. If the room tracks were muted its dry as a bone. Coffee or Ganesh would be a good place to start... maximum dynamics there. Top of the set was acoustic w/upright bass & the whole 9.

http://www.archive.org/details/swmp2009-03-14.multimix16