Flamenco Guitar mic'ing

[fifthcircle]

Thought you may find this picture amusing... Worked a Flamenco show last night- amazing players and dancer. Our band was pretty good sized- 2 percussionists with drum kit, multiple cajons, multiple djembes, etc..., a traditional spanish flamenco singer, 3 guitars and occasionally a violinist.

We started the night with DPA compact cardiods on the guitars, then, well... the picture says it all.

--Ben

[mllrtms]

Ben this looks great! I love unconventional approaches, any chance of an unprocessed sample?

[fifthcircle]

No recording- I was mixing FOH for the show at a local venue.

I'm kicking myself for not bringing my Beyer 160s as that would have probably solved all issues. The hall has a great mic collection- DPA cardidods, Sennheiser wireless, Neumann mics, and a bunch of other more pedestrian stuff (4050's, SM81s, etc...)

The problem was this- between the percussion, vocalist and the dancing (for those that don't know about flamenco dancing, it makes tap seem quiet), the bleed with the DPAs was out of control. I just couldn't amplify the guitars enough to hear them over all the noise. We grabbed the 57s and 58 because that was about all we could do to dig out the guitars. Didn't sound fantastic, but at least we could hear the guitars.

I just thought it was funny to see a $2000 DPA mic sitting next to a 58 with a dented windscreen.

--Ben