Leslie mic placement

[Dave Martin]

OK, sometimes you want to cover ALL the possibilities... (And yes,there was a good reason for this.)

[DanV]

I'd like to hear the results!

[Lindell 2nd]

Dave, you are using my Patent (85.5434.594) on that mic placement. So you need to pay 30% royalty to me on all your income.
























...or not

[Drumsound]

Originally posted by Dave Martin
(And yes,there was a good reason for this.)

Top Five answers:

5) Photographer was working on a flat fee.

4) Wanted to show off mic collection.

3) Working on a record in 37.1, the surround format of the future.

2) Rick Wakeman asked for one mic per keyboard he was using.

And the number one answer...






















It sounds ****ing COOL!

Nice picture Dave.

[Kent]

Hey, Dave!

Any chance of you giving us a run-down of the mics you selected and why they were selected for their chosen tasks?

I just got done with recording a Leslie. We used an X/Y pair of AKG 451s on the upper rotary horn(s) and an RE20 for the low-end. Quite lovely.
I see what looks like an RE20 in your picture. In just about the same position as what we chose.

Would love to be further enlightened.

[doorknocker]

Anybody good at mathematics? Let's say there are 10 mics involved, how many possible combinations are there? Don't forget to phase check everything against everything else, work with stems (let's say compress the 'front stem' against an uncompressed 'L/R stem'), I won't even mention preamps....

We might not hear from Dave for a while........

Andi

[Dave Martin]

Well, there were fifteem mics used that morning, though 16 are set up (When I swapped the RCA 77b for the Royer, we unplugged the RCA but didn't take it down).

This set up was to record some examples that will accompany an article on recording Hammond organs and Leslie cabinets for Recording Magazine.www.recordingmag.com that ought to be out in the next month or so.The reason for putting them all up like that is so the performance wouldn't be a variable.

There will be 8 examples:

1. R84's at a 45 degree angle with an RE20 low.
2. UM 47's at 180 degrees with a Lawson L47 low (All three mics aboout 20" from the cab)
3. SM57 high 421 low.
4. Royer 122 5 feet away (also RCA in the same position - the Royer will be used in the article)
5. KSM 44 2 feet away - in front of the cabinet
6. Pearl CO22 Omni mic 10 feet away
7. 2 AKG 480's at 180 degrees with 421 low.
8. 421 high and KM 184 low.

[Ted Nightshade]

Great pic!

Unless I missed something, there is not one case of a stereo pair set up to get the whole thing, both rotors as one sound? That's a severe omission in my not so very humble opinion...

[Jay Kahrs]

Most live gigs usually put a mic on the low rotor and one on the high rotor. Though I know that Trey (now ex-Phish) had his Leslie miked in quad for live gigs.

[7rojo7]

Damn I wish I still had a Leslie!
2 - 421s at opposite corners above and outside the cabinet in equal proportions pointed away from the blaster and down at the boomer, it's set up right when you don't notice the effect "too much" when listening in mono. 57s work too, less bass more eq. It almost seems like you're ignoring the instrument but you're really capturing the sound of the whole cabinet and capturing the effect also. Works better in a small dead room where the bass is tighter and stronger, it's also easier to set a level. Great Gig.

[Dave Martin]

Actually, a stereo pair - about 10 feet apart, 5 feet away from the cabinet was discussed in the article. What I'm bummed about is not mentioning Loudist's approach of putting amic aboutve the Leslie, pointing straight down... Or putting the Leslie in a corner so that there's a space behind it, and putting a mic there...

There are endless ways to mic a leslie - these were only some of them.

[Ted Nightshade]

Originally posted by Dave Martin
Actually, a stereo pair - about 10 feet apart, 5 feet away from the cabinet was discussed in the article. What I'm bummed about is not mentioning Loudist's approach of putting amic aboutve the Leslie, pointing straight down... Or putting the Leslie in a corner so that there's a space behind it, and putting a mic there...

There are endless ways to mic a leslie - these were only some of them.

Glad to hear it, and yeah, there are a lot of ways.

I personally find that treating the horn rotor and bottom rotor independently makes it very tricky to get "natural", it needs to be reassembled just so. And of course you don't have to be anywhere near 5 feet away to get both the horn and bottom rotor on each mic of a pair. It's easier with the short cabinets where the rotors are closer together, but doable either way with some thought and a mic with a nice off axis response.

Still it remains a classic picture!

[RichT]

The old adage of 'the camera adds 10 pounds' has mysteriously changed to 'the camera adds several expensive microphones'...

Now, where's my 35mm ?