Room mic philosophy

[John Suitcase]

I usually use a single omni for a room mic, often a green bullet, just as some glue/reverb to add in. This approach works well enough, but lately I've been thinking about going in the total opposite direction, that is, starting from the room mics (I track the whole band in one room, typically), getting a good balance on them, so that the room mics are a good representation of the performance by themselves, then adding spot mics as needed, and bringing them in until the sound fills out the way I want it to.

So, my question is, how do you all approach room mics? Are they the meat of your sound, or the seasoning? Do you use your best mics and preamps, or just whatever's left after you close-mic?

This band that I'm recording is a blues/garage kind of thing, like Jon Spencer, for instance...

[Protools Guy]

I wish I had a big enough room to do what you're wanting to do.
I use my room mics as seasoning. (good word)
I use my best pres for the close stuff because of this.
Sounds like you've got a cool recording on the way.
All the best...

[vaka]

I can't speak for getting the meat of the sound on a whole band with room mics, but when it comes to drums, the room mics are definetely the meat of my sound. I do it Albini style.
I remember hearing the first Shellac album and thinking "****ing finally a record with drums that actually sounds like drums!" and I've never looked back since. Hearing this was way before I got into engineering btw.

[SamSites]

What is albini style? What types of room micing are there?

Sam

[John Suitcase]

Originally Posted by SamSites

What is albini style? What types of room micing are there?

Sam

I've never recorded with him, but I have seen a couple of his demos at TapeOpCon. Basically, he puts a pair of omni mics on the floor about 15 ft out at 45 degree angles from the front of the drum kit. These mics are facing away from the drums, to pick up the bounce from the far walls. He usually would delay these mics by 20 milliseconds, or so, to approximate the sound that the drummer hears, of the echo from the walls.

If you listen to Shellac, or early Jesus Lizard, or PJ Harvey's 'Rid of Me,' or about a thousand other indie rock recordings, you can hear the sound he's famous for.

[Audio Hombre]

albini also hates close mic'g cabs and prefers ribbons at a distance from what i recall reading years ago. something along the lines of "who ever listens to a guitar cab with their ear right up against it."

[The Listener]

Originally Posted by John Suitcase

I usually use a single omni for a room mic, often a green bullet, just as some glue/reverb to add in. This approach works well enough, but lately I've been thinking about going in the total opposite direction, that is, starting from the room mics (I track the whole band in one room, typically), getting a good balance on them, so that the room mics are a good representation of the performance by themselves, then adding spot mics as needed, and bringing them in until the sound fills out the way I want it to.

So, my question is, how do you all approach room mics? Are they the meat of your sound, or the seasoning? Do you use your best mics and preamps, or just whatever's left after you close-mic?

This band that I'm recording is a blues/garage kind of thing, like Jon Spencer, for instance...

Both ways could work - your way - single ambient omni - that you can trash and add as FX.. or high-end recorded (best mics, best preaps) ambience - that will be your main picture to which you only add spot mics when needed - that is mostly done in classical and similar acoustic music (various set-ups - from minimalist single coincident pair (MS or Blumlein stereo usually), to multiple arrays of decca trees, ortf, Strauss packets, etc.)
I imagine it could also work for some experiments in rock - if you have a good & big room - so you won't end up with garage style do-it yourself recording - like band recording their own practice or something...

I try not to record & mix a live jazz concert without at least some ambience mics around...

[vernier]

I just keep a mic on a boom up high for no matter what I'm recording ..doesn't much matter what mic, mostly a ribbon, sometimes LDC. Btw, if you don't have something fancy, you can throw a dynamic up in the room ..it'll work fine.

[vaka]

Delaying room mics as much as 20ms if they're already 15ft away from the ss would probably produce some slapping echo, especially evident when playing a ride cymbal (with the tip, not crashing on it) or closed hi-hat. I usually delay 'em around 10 ms (or as much as I can get away with without it being apparent that I've delayed them).
Funny thing is, if I hear that evident delay on records I don't mind it one bit, but for some reason I don't like doing it myself.

[John Suitcase]

Originally Posted by vaka

Delaying room mics as much as 20ms if they're already 15ft away from the ss would probably produce some slapping echo, especially evident when playing a ride cymbal (with the tip, not crashing on it) or closed hi-hat. I usually delay 'em around 10 ms (or as much as I can get away with without it being apparent that I've delayed them).
Funny thing is, if I hear that evident delay on records I don't mind it one bit, but for some reason I don't like doing it myself.

I know what you mean. I think that having the mics on the floor, facing away reduces the amount of cymbal and ride attack that gets picked up. But on Albini's recordings, there is a definite slappy-ness to toms, in particular.

I like to delay my room mic just enough to give the impression of a slightly larger space, since I'm sometimes working in smallish spaces.

I have a friend who has two PZM mics taped up on the opposite walls of his live room, this seems to give his recordings some nice space. I sometimes feel like my recordings are too 'in your face', like the band is playing about 1 foot from the listener, whereas his seem to emanate from a place back a bit further, if that makes sense...

I've heard of using a dummy head setup in the room, too, I think Tchad Blake has mentioned that...

[vaka]

And oh yeah, to get back to your question - I don't know how big the room you will track in is, but I'd probably go for an A/B pair (good mics & good pres) pretty widely spaced and as far away from the ss as possible without 'em being right up against a wall. If using cardiods I'd point 'em away from the ss. I'd also prefer to track everything seperatly - or atleast have the drums in a room of their own.

At mix I'd compress the room mics around 2:1 - 4:1, and then parallell compress/limit (total insane squash-age with the EMI TG12413 Limiter would do nicely) and blend in to taste.

My $0.02..

[vaka]

Originally Posted by John Suitcase

I know what you mean. I think that having the mics on the floor, facing away reduces the amount of cymbal and ride attack that gets picked up. But on Albini's recordings, there is a definite slappy-ness to toms, in particular.

I like to delay my room mic just enough to give the impression of a slightly larger space, since I'm sometimes working in smallish spaces.

I have a friend who has two PZM mics taped up on the opposite walls of his live room, this seems to give his recordings some nice space. I sometimes feel like my recordings are too 'in your face', like the band is playing about 1 foot from the listener, whereas his seem to emanate from a place back a bit further, if that makes sense...

I've heard of using a dummy head setup in the room, too, I think Tchad Blake has mentioned that...

Yeah, it definetely reduces it, but if you're not careful it'll still shine through. Using a mic with somewhat rolled off highs would probably help too. So avoid the C414.
I delay my room mics even if I record in a large room, just cause it sounds so damn good.

PZM's are a good idea too. For some reason I haven't tried it myself, but I've heard good results.

It's kinda funny, you and me seem to have the exact opposite problem, for me room ambience is like garlic - you can never have too much. My recordings are everything but in your face. Sometimes I try to go for a in your face-sound, but then I push up the room mics just to see how it sounds and 11 out of 10 times I go "Ahh, that's the stuff" and leave 'em in.

A dummy head sounds amazing if you're listening on headphones. It sounds great on monitors/speakers too, but their true purpose is to be used with headphones.
A poor mans version would be the Jecklin Scheiber (spelling?) technique using 2 condensers with a baffle inbetween them to imitate a head.

[John Suitcase]

Here's a first mix of the session I did, I think it came out cool. This was all recorded live, including vocals, in one pass. The band did 13 songs in about 7 hours, I spent another hour or so on mixing it:

http://suitcaserecordings.com/blizza...ousandMix1.mp3

The room mics added a surprising amount to this recording, it has a lot more space than most of my stuff.

I used two Oktava MK012 s for room mics, pointed up towards the ceiling corners, at the farthest end of the room from the drums. The room wasn't perfect, had carpet, 8 ft ceilings, about 15ft by 25 ft or so. Also, one of my overhead mics developed a buzz, so that track is muted.

[strat+ac30]

John,
I like the track! How'd you record the guitars? They sound much more "amp in room" than the typical close-miked fizziness. Of course the lower gain helps...but still a good sound!

Dave

[John Suitcase]

Thanks!

There's a guitar, playing a fender jaguar I think, through a Fender Champ amplifier, which I mic'd with a KEL HM1. I had to put the mic back a little bit, about 6 inches, and at a 45 degree angle, in order to cut the fizz. I turned the gain down a shade, too, to get it to sound the way I like. The bass guitarist was playing a Fender P bass, I think, through a Peavey 4 x10 amp, which I mic'd dead-on with an RE20 from about 6 inches. Both amps were facing the drummer, turned up pretty loud, so the drummer could hear. No headphones, of course.