"Microphone Placement in Live Recording", or , "Stop reading labels and Listen!"

[Waylon]

Ok, I saw this Rudy Van Gelder quote on the RVG thread and it got me thinking...

"the only thing anybody needs to know about my studio is the sounds that came out of it."

It never fails to amaze me how many engineers ( or recordists as it were) obsess with what gear they are using... give them the wrong version of a 414 and they are in shock, wrong revision of a compressor? Death! Record without "XYZ" mic pre and "ABC" converters? MADNESS!


Now, dont get me wrong, I am as big a gear hound as the next guy, and I really do have some pretty strong preferences... BUT...
It kills me to watch ( and listen ) to some folks who insist on a particular peoce of gear and then spend all of 5 seconds placing it
and then hours complaining/making excuses for the recording chain/room/format/instrument/PA/Assistant/Catering, whatever else can be to blame other then thier lack of ability to overcome and adapt.....

How many times do we hear people asking what peice of kit will push them to the next level? I guess it is eaiser to switch tools than techniques...


waddaya all think?

[Ted Nightshade]

LISTEN! is always good advice.

I'm pretty damn picky about gear, though, as I have not found very much of it that works very well for the kind of live to 1 or 2 track stuff I do.

But I do very much agree that without a great deal of awareness and care put into placing the sources and the mic(s) within the room, all is for naught. It's distressingly easy to get awful sounds with wonderful gear.

And definitely all this fixing it after the fact is a losing battle. That people are planning to EQ and compress a track before it's even tracked blows my only mind. I could see planning to assess the track and decide if it needs help, but I don't see why it should need help if it's performed and tracked well to begin with.

In my experience, every bit of mixing and processing degrades the sound in a very significant way. Before long, you're compensating for one processor with another processor. Ay-yi-yi! It's too much for me- I just track it flat and right and leave it just like that. Even the super-high-quality mastering processors in great rooms with great monitors and great ears and skills and experience do damage every single time.

I just don't get the whole "enhance" and "excite" paradigms. I can see it if you have to mix or master something that was tracked shabbily, a situation I am grateful not to be in. But every "enhancement" that's made with processing, even the very best simple summing, comes at a steep price sonically. I think you have to be a bit of a geek, you have to have some little detail that seems SO important to you compared to the whole picture, to get into tweaking these things.

But then, hyped sound has become a value of it's own. It sounds "like a real studio!" The kind of place where they can't leave well enough alone.

So for me it's great mic(s), great pre(s), great recorder, and done. Every attempt I make to complicate that bites me on the ass. Of course, the sounds coming off the source need to be great too- the source is the limiting factor. I have to be able to get the source to sound great, or I just can't do a decent job. Whereas, I'm sure the real workin' remote types around here have a million ways to deal with sources "that need help"- the kind we're most likely to encounter, for sure!

[doorknocker]

Originally posted by Ted Nightshade
In my experience, every bit of mixing and processing degrades the sound in a very significant way. Before long, you're compensating for one processor with another processor. Ay-yi-yi! It's too much for me- I just track it flat and right and leave it just like that. Even the super-high-quality mastering processors in great rooms with great monitors and great ears and skills and experience do damage every single time.

I'd say a lot of time you need 'degradation' to make a mix work. Let's say I'm tracking electric guitar, naturally I will try to think ahead and capture a sound that sonically doesn't carry too much excess baggage, but then again I will leave all the options open. I see it as 'trimming the fat' in most cases, get a sound that is great but probably slightly too big in context. Mostly it will mean cutting some midrange or perhaps adding a bit of shelving EQ, what's wrong with that?
Just yesterday at a band rehearsal the drummer suggested I should use a cleaner sound on a certain rhythm part, I stepped on my Boss DS-1, slightly turned down the volume on the guitar and that was it. The sound WAS much better in context, adding a bit of distortion made it 'cleaner' i.e made it work in the whole picture. Mixing is the same to me, don't fix it when it ain't broken but please don't be so precious about the source.


Andi

www.doorknocker.ch

[Ted Nightshade]

Originally posted by doorknocker
I'd say a lot of time you need 'degradation' to make a mix work. Let's say I'm tracking electric guitar, naturally I will try to think ahead and capture a sound that sonically doesn't carry too much excess baggage, but then again I will leave all the options open. I see it as 'trimming the fat' in most cases, get a sound that is great but probably slightly too big in context. Mostly it will mean cutting some midrange or perhaps adding a bit of shelving EQ, what's wrong with that?
Just yesterday at a band rehearsal the drummer suggested I should use a cleaner sound on a certain rhythm part, I stepped on my Boss DS-1, slightly turned down the volume on the guitar and that was it. The sound WAS much better in context, adding a bit of distortion made it 'cleaner' i.e made it work in the whole picture. Mixing is the same to me, don't fix it when it ain't broken but please don't be so precious about the source.


Andi

www.doorknocker.ch

In the first example (tracking), you're using a processor (EQ) to compensate for using another processor (summing). If it works, it works!
I don't own an EQ myself, so I don't have that option. The only EQ that I've used that does minimal damage to the sound is a GML, and that's pretty spendy for a tool I don't need, if only I plan well. I've found that when the sounds are really tracked all at once, to the same mic(s), and well, I don't need or want an EQ. Maybe at some point I'll provide for getting myself in a jam and get a GML- maybe not!

In the second example, you're tailoring the source as a source to work with the ensemble. I'm all for it! That's the approach I always take.

It's been years since I've done an overdub, but I'm thinking strongly of taking up that black art again- requires some serious expenditures and choices even to be able to overdub, not including EQ's and compressors and other things that start to seem necessary in such a jam. We'll see what happens!

[7rojo7]

I think one can get just as lost not wanting to use gear as one could wanting to use only certain gear. In the end there's only the Shadow and he's not telling anyone.
I try to cover myself pretty well first with mics. (Brauner, Schoeps, Coles, RCA, DPA) then with pres (Millennia) and after with some convertors (Prism Dream) if I can't get close with these I have some other gadgets around that will help me in special situations (KIK, Bass, Vocals) Most of these other gadgets have a mic pre built in to them similar to what I normally use. I bought them for these special situations where the combination of instrument> placement> mic won't work alone, especially if the space is not appropriate for the above stated combination. help. If I can't get there like this I'll start looking inside at the vapor boxes, and some of them work pretty good too.
In fact it's the listening that makes me look for these alteratives, I'll move a mic before I touch a knob but when I run out of places to move the mic and I can dip 300Hz 6dB I'm happy I can do it and not spend the next year of my life trying to convince a drummer to retune his kik and hold up a session. Bleed vs proximity effect, bleed wins. I hate pickups on Contrabass but I've learned how to make them sound good or I'm stuck with too much drum room (I have a box for this too). It's this or put a tent over the bassist. I saw Charlie Haydn was travelling around with plexiglass a few years ago, worked pretty well. He has a Schoertler bug and a DI. If you have these opportunities to use Architecture instead of gear so much the better, if not, use the boxes and let the music flow. That's the important part.

[Ted Nightshade]

good stuff!

[Remoteness]

Steve, great thread idea my man! Awesome dude, keep them coming!

I really dig that RVG quote, especially when I see threads like "What magic device should I buy, borrow or steal to make me talented" posted all over the various audio forums. People, do we not have the confidence in ourselves to believe that we can do our own R&D? This is crazy stuff...

Steve, this really amazes me too. I cannot believe how many times I've had discussions with engineers that have more of a problem with which version mic they ended up with when the mic in question is positioned in a way that will never yield a quality result. Then, they complain about how terrible it sounds instead of going out there and moving it one way or another. IMO, in most cases there's a bigger difference when you move a mic (even) a 1/4 inch in the proper direction than the difference between the two different versions of that particular model microphone. Hey, if the mic sounds like crap go out there and move the damn thing instead of blaming the version type you have on hand. Like Fletcher has said many times before -- YMMV.

The same goes with every other device out there. When someone asks you which mic, compressor, limiter, mic pre, et cetera, etc., to use... Just say, "Hey, lets try the one in front of us and if that doesn't work we'll try the one over there. Man, that unit didn't work well on this track but, I believe it may sound awesome on this other track, lets try it." Now we're forming our own opinion on stuff -- What a novel idea.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm also a big gear hound and I too have strong preferences but, I'm always looking to try new things when applicable. And I also like to try what other folks are into or have suggested. If I learn something new today I'm always ahead of the game tomorrow.

I believe it is better to have every device and not need it than to need a device and not have it...
Folks, do we have to use everything we got in the control room whether we need it or not? I love to use up all my patch cords and end up borrowing more from one of my other systems but, it's a building process. And I want to do it one step at a time. Listen, I'm not talking about the seasoned professional that knows what they want. I'm talking about the "Think I know it all" engineers or mixers out there. I've met engineers that want everything patched before they hear anything but, may ask you to decide what to use and then never have time to adjust anything that was patched. They also expect you to fine tune the stuff so it sounds good. I say to myself, "Self that's what the bypass switch is for my friend." If you want it patched and you don't have enough time to make it right, unless there's an understanding between us, don't expect me to get your sound -- just bypass the unit until you have the time to adjust it...

Hey, I'm sure there are some of us that don't mind being the ghost engineer from time to time. It really helps when you dig the engineer.

Well, I smell the coffee; I got to wake up now -- In the end, it's got to sound good. Making it the best it can be should be paramount. That's what we're there for... Right?

Nahh, let's just throw a BBE on it and call it a day.

[Waylon]

HEY DUDE... SHHHHHHH!!!!!


<don't let the cat out fo the bag on the BBE!!!>

lol


I am replying more to bump this thread back up, great posts all!

[Remoteness]

You know what? This thread needs some bumpage.

[cppi]

Ditto and Amen to Ted and Steve! What did we (some of us) do 20 years and longer ago? We listened ..... then we moved the mic around and kept listening ...... if it still didn't sound right we changed the mic and or pre combo ...... and kept listening till we got what we wanted, and that was it ... no eq ... no compression ... no plugins!

[Jim vanBergen]

Dude. It's the catering that makes my mixes sound tight.

It has NOTHING to do with the mic, its placement, the preamp & signal path.

The reality: some of our best work is done in weird or bad circumstances with less than ideal gear, where we are forced to listen to get a good capture of a sonic imprint. If we take that approach when using the best possible equipment, our recordings should follow in quality!

GREAT thread!!!

[RedEar]

I know I have not been on in a while... To much work is a good thing... but this one brings me back. Ears are the best tool in recording. I have been using them all summer...
(its nice to have threads like this somewhere on gearslutz.

[freestyle tromb]

walter sear likes to point out the fact that on some of his really old consoles, instead of "EQ" the knobs are marked "corrective" devices.

like, for when you make a mistake in which microphone you picked or where it was placed.

[boojum]

Yup; excellent thread. I have to agree that placement is paramount. A great mic in the wrong spot is NG. I have lots of evidence on my HD to support this opinion. I bought very good mics (Schoeps and DPA; card and omni) and now I can blame only myself for a bad take. I was trying the ORTF with omni flankers, but that only works when the room is good. In a bad room/wrong spot the flankers only make it worse.

So I am back to mostly ORTF and moving the setup a little one way and then the other to get it right, some of the time. I am often disappointed at this, but have been doing it for less than a year. I have gotten some good recordings and am getting more now than before. But it is always practice, practice, practice. Or, the Jesuit motto of learning: "Repititio, repititio, repititio."

Keep those informative and reinforcing threads going!

Cheers