Stereo Mics..LIVE ....which mics and technique?

[Fuel]

I have to record a project that is acoustic music...live performance ..

vocals andf acoustic Gtr ..singer plays guitar.

under de circunstance the mics have to be not closer than 6 feet.

which mics could be a good choice and which stereo technique for this situation?

and do you recommend a stereo mic instead of 2 mics? and which one.

Te budget would be around 3k..maybe more

What about Shotguns?

[JEGG]

Use a pair of hypercardioids. Possibly angled, possibly parallel, possibly placed directly on the floor.

Shotguns are not good indoors, and they are essentially hypercardioids anyway. Depending on which hypercardioid mic you choose, you may have to boost the low end.

[tsvisser]

Stereo mic vs a pair of mics used as a stereo pair... I don't see an inherent advantage of one over the other except for the fact that a stereo mic might be quicker to set up and a bit more discrete. Stereo pair would allow you to have more flexibility in setup and depending on the mics in question, might allow you to use better quality mics.

Do you have a figure 8?

Since it is a live event, the room might not be great acoustically, or the crowd noise might be an issue... having a M-S pair with the M or mid mic, effectively being a nice direct mono signal that maximizes gain to noise ratio - usually an cardioid, but could also be a super/hyper/omni mic too. The fig-8 would be your S or side mic and you could then mix in stereo effect and room ambience as appropriate later.

[John Willett]

Depending on the circumstances and the room, I would either use an MS pair of Sennheiser MKH 30/40 or an ORTF pair of Sennheiser MKH 8040.

[twotracker]

I've tried 940 Gefells xy and Schoeps both M-S and xy
If there's no drummer or bass amp to swamp the vocals both worked great.

But the singer found both setups distracting so recently I've been using a stereo Royer as xy

[tINY]

It really depends on the venue - acoustics and noise (crowd, traffic, etc).

But, as a safe starting point, a M/S pair front and center and a pair of cardioid mics A-B back a few feet and spread several feet apart or more gives you some options afterwards. Make sure to record the M/S as M/S - don't decode to L/R before tape/disk. This will let you adjust the stereo image later.

You may want to put up a few spot mics as well. You can use cardioid PZMs to be descrete, or hypercards as close as you can.



-tINY

[gainstages]

Originally Posted by tINY

It really depends on the venue - acoustics and noise (crowd, traffic, etc).

But, as a safe starting point, a M/S pair front and center and a pair of cardioid mics A-B back a few feet and spread several feet apart or more gives you some options afterwards. Make sure to record the M/S as M/S - don't decode to L/R before tape/disk. This will let you adjust the stereo image later.

You may want to put up a few spot mics as well. You can use cardioid PZMs to be descrete, or hypercards as close as you can.



-tINY

I like this suggestion, although an X/Y setup up would also work well in place of the M/S (but I love working with M/S) If you aren't real familiar with them, check out the recent article on my blog about stereo mic'ing techniques.

[tsvisser]

ultimately, XY and ORTF are better at rendering a true stereo image, but this would generally only be super critical if working with Jazz ensembles or classical work. M-S is great because it offers you that safety of being able to fall back to an on-axis mono track. I think it sounds fabulous, and given that it is a solo performance, seems like the best bet.

put an XY in a live venue... and you have to account for splash from the walls that they end up being pointed at. obviously the closer you can get the mics to the performer, the less this will be a problem, but keep in mind that the performer will end up being completely off axis of either mic. with ORTF, the effect would be even more pronounced.

you will have to make the call when you get there and set up.

my favorite setup is ORTF with a pair of spaced omnis close or on the stage. ORTF tends to have poor bass sensitivity, so having a pair of omnis up close, low-passed at mixtime, can help you mix in some of that missing information. 9 times out of 10, for something like this, though, I'd probably go for the M-S.

[fifthcircle]

If you are going to use a stereo mic- the AKG offerings give you an enormous amount of flexibility. They have a 9 pattern switch for each capsule. Means you can use crossed hypercardiods (image of blumlein, but without the room), M-S with anything in the center, etc... Whenever I'm not sure of what I'm getting, I use either a 422 or a 426 stereo mic. I've also used the C-34 with similar results, but the mic itself is a brighter microphone.

--Ben

[pootkao]

One more HUGE thumbs up for the 426.