Conference napalm::commusic_v1

    
    	In my studio, the only instruments making any acoustical sounds
    are the drums and the voices. These are seperated by a partition
    of plexiglass, so you can look thru and see the person drumming
    and vice versa. Electric guitars and basses are *silent* acoustically.
    (Not only does this help with the neighbors...it helps with the
    ears too. I'm so spoiled I almost *cant* practice at live volume
    levels)
    
    	I mix with headphones. All the musicians monitor with headphones.
    We *try* to get a consistant brand of 'phone for each player, but
    it just never works out. The best pair we have are these Beyer Dynamic
    jobs. Somehow, when I get a good sound and EQ with them, it sounds
    just as good thru my Polk HiFi spkrs "upstairs".
       
    	The "mix" is the same as the monitor - in stereo, no favorites.
    Sometimes, I cant hear my bass *above* the rest, but I find that the
    level is just fine on a later playback. Takes getting used to...
    
    	Ideally, each musician would have a personal mix in their monitor,
    at their personal loudness level. Such is as yet beyond my
    capabilities. Hmmmm, I could use the monitor circuit for these guys,
    or maybe split the stereo signal between the monitor channel and
    a mono version of the mix, etc etc et al.
    
    	In the studio is *in* the studio. Feedbacks are kinda tough for
    the guitarists to do without an amp going...believe it or not, I've
    seen 'em do it...yep, thru the headphones!!!
    
    	Joe Jas
    

    I've settled on one particular set of headphones and I
    mix/EQ/hack the sound to sound good through them.  They're not perfect
    but I know what they do sound like.  
    
    We rarely use monitors at "performance levels".  Sometimes we do
    everything via the headphones except shout at each other, and the
    monitors just provide background (at 60 dB or so).
    
    Once you get used to trusting your ears_and_headphones combo, it really
    works quite well.  It helps to have a ONE set of headphones that
    you've settled on as a standard (if only as a psychological crutch,
    if nothing else).
    	
    And yes, I did mix one show listening ONLY through the headphones!
    It worked nicely (reason for this foolish stunt:  the speakers near
    the board had some blown drivers and sounded terrible.  I cut them
    off and used the 'phones. )

    Re. .0  Dave, have you seen the gizmo's they use in music stores
    to demo mics. They use something (I think it is called a turtle)
    which will hold 4-6 mikes on a disk. One balanced mic cable connects
    to it. You press this unlock button and the disk spins so that you
    can AB test mics. I bet you could buy one if you want to be able
    to switch mics on the fly.
    
    Just a thought !!!
    
    Mark Jacques
    

    Pretty much like Joe Jas, I go direct.  After all, my studio is
    on the fourth floor of an apartment building.  Not a whole lot of
    live instruments are acceptable to the neighbors and management.
    
    About the only thing I ever need to mic is vocals.  I got myself
    one of those Tascam 4 headphone amps in a box that I drive off my
    monitor mix.  Since I just about never trade anything in, I enjoy
    the luxury of a separate 16 channel powered board for monitoring
    purposes, and I can mixdown through either of my boards.  I can
    send different mixes to the headphone distribution box and the room
    monitors.  So if I need to mic anything, I kill the room mix, everybody
    dons their phones, and off we go.
    
    Works pretty good for me.        
    
    len.
    

    re: .3
    
    Sounds like a new gift idea for Daddy's or EU's: "For the home studio
    enthusiast who has everything..." 
    
    	db

    
    re: .*
    
       My studio is in an office building...since nobody is around there
    after 5:00 we get it for the second shift. We don't have a control
    room either, and we do a fair amount of live miking (drums, guitar
    amp(s), vocal stuff). 
    
       Our "isolation" consists of baffles which I constructed out of
    wood, burlap and insulation. These structures may be moved about
    the room and by my measurements provide a best case -20db attenuation
    of ambient noise (which actually helps in most cases). I use those
    PZM mikes wrapped in DEC packing foam to mic drums now - I use less
    mikes and it sounds better.
    
       We monitor thru headphones, unless someone is recording a band,
    in which case we turn on the P.A. monitors. We make a lot of noise
    occasionally. 
    
       For less noisy applications like vocal track dubs and my keyboards,
    I just use headphones or play thru the monitors. I usually try to
    use headphones for vocal tracks but sometimes I wonder if it's worth
    it, I mean if I use a directional mike and put the monitored sound
    out the speakers, not the phones, I can't really tell the difference
    on the mix. The 707 always ends up through the monitors now.
    
       We also deadend the room acoustics with some judicious use of
    DEC part 99-18214-01 (which was being thrown out a lot here),
    description "logic module foam carton". Cut in half, it beats egg
    crates hands down. Too bad we don't scrap foam anymore.
    
    /pjh

    
    	From my experience, there are two approaches to recording a
    band. One is, to record them as a whole, the other is to isolate
    each instrument and mix on a console. I've had "success" with both
    approaches.
    
    	When using the "whole band" approach, it's important to consider
    the spatial arrangement of the players relative to the (2) microphones.
    Also, it's pretty much up to the musicians to keep relative volume
    levels in check and within reason. You're pretty much limited to
    "what you hear is what you get", still, excellent results can be
    obtained in soundstage appearance. An acoustically "dead" environment
    is best.
    
    	Isolation is the name of the game when using the "mix" approach.
    It took me a couple of years to figure out that the drums *have*
    to be in a space of their own. Within this space, I have 5 microphones
    covering the drumset; kick, snare, toms and 2 general L-R stereo
    for the spatial information. These are judiciously panned and EQ'd,
    so that the frequency and phase information carried by any one is not
    cancelled by one of the others. The result is an excellent soundstage
    for the drums. The bass input, as well as inputs for the guitars
    are direct. It took me a couple of years to figure out that the
    acoustic output of live amplification would *always* find it's way
    into the drums mix. Each guitarist gets his own speaker in the
    stereo soundstage, while the bass is dead center. Our vocalist uses
    a Rockman chorus, which has a stereo output with the "wide" function,
    which gives a beautiful "double track" sound. My vocal mike is dead
    center, so that when we sing together, the soundstage is filled.
    Reverb effects for vocal and guitar are currently centered, although
    with board mods and another DDL, I could have slightly different
    delay times for each channel, furthering the spatial illusion.
    Microphones for the vocals are in a different space than where the
    drums are set, to isolate these channels. Care is taken when setting
    the drummer's vocal mike gain and panning so as not to corrupt the
    stereo image of the drumset.
    
    	The whole is compressed with a DBX 118, background noise is
    stripped out with an autocorrelator and then the sound is equalized
    with a stereo 10 band graphic before being shipped to the tape decks.
    The sheer number of controllable factors approaches 100 and it's
    damn easy to lose a particular sound, as certain functions have
    a greater impact than others; they're highly sensitive. I have been
    marking control positions lately, so this doesnt happen.
    
    	Joe Jas       

    I had this same problem (recording live in same room as the tape
    deck, mixer and monitor speakers), especially with drums.
    
    My studio is in a finished basement which has a few rooms.  So I
    used an old 12 channel snake from my gigging days and ran it from
    the board through the wall and into the laundry room.  I then
    convert the snake returns into headphone jacks for talent to
    monitor when recordsing.  This is were I record everything that
    uses microphones.  The 'control room' is not perfectly isolated
    from the 'recording booth' but it works *lots* better than
    recording in the same room.
    
    I'm now going to see if I can convert one of the mic sends on
    the snake into a midi line so I can record hybrid drummers using
    live cymbals and midi data from drum pads.
    
    Dave

>    of ambient noise (which actually helps in most cases). I use those
>    PZM mikes wrapped in DEC packing foam to mic drums now - I use less
>    mikes and it sounds better.

Can you elaborate on this setup?  How many PZMs and where are they placed?

Thanks,

Todd.

    
    sure.
    
       First a small academic discussion of PZMs and their ability to
    deal with drum kits:
    
       PZMs are supposed to be good for about 120 db without switching
    to a higher voltage battery. It actually turns out that they're
    only good for about 110 db before you need to go with the higher
    voltages. And that ain't worth it (>$10 worth /battery in the
    higher-voltage case)
    
       But they sound pretty neat, being condensers and all. So basically
    what we decided to do was first to attenuate (not too worried about
    the high-frequency muffling, cymbals are too damn splashy anyway
    and the muffling isn't particularly bad) by wrapping the PZM in
    about 1/2"-3/4" foam and placing it strategically in front and above
    the drum kit, about 2' away from where the rack toms would want
    to be. Since the "drum booth" in our case is actually a bunch of
    stand-up baffles and a wall with foam all over it, it just ends
    up on the wall. Normally just one is enough for your basic four-track
    live recording attempt. For more elaborate recording (four track,
    this means up to three tracks with a bounce), place two PZMs on
    either side at about 60 degree angles from the front (adapt according
    to the kit) and a directional condenser on a low stand for the
    snare/hihat.
    
       About 90% of the live drum miking that gets done in my studio
    is when there are other people playing too. Drummers, to my experience,
    tend to play about 110-115 db when in a small room on a large set
    playing rock. So it's noisy enough in the drum corner to get away
    with a single PZM most of the time (unless you have enough tracks
    to do a stereo mix... I don't, usually)
    
       Sure, it's kinda unorthodox... but since PZMs are such hot mikes
    anyway, you find that an open PZM picks up all sorts of nasty noises
    from cymbals, other people, etc. And besides, they're relatively
    cheap. I have two, and they work quite nicely.
    
       If you're going to try this method yourself (i.e. you don't have
    7 mikes to place all over the drum kit, and you haven't got 7 channels
    to devote to a drum mix), try to get ahold of some 3/4" packing
    foam, and isolate your drummer from as much other noise as possible.
    You can get a very nice mono mix from this method, it's clean and
    (for me anyway) distortion free. And cheap.
    
    /paul
    
    

Thanks for the info Paul.

>    this means up to three tracks with a bounce), place two PZMs on
>    either side at about 60 degree angles from the front (adapt according
>    to the kit) and a directional condenser on a low stand for the
>    snare/hihat.
    
Interesting.  No mic on the bass drum.  Does the PZM really pick up the
lows of the bass drum?  I currently have one SM57, and if I were to add
a PZM (I'm seriously thinking about it), I think I'd stick the SM57 in 
the bass drum rather than use it to mic the snare/hihat.

Has anyone used a 8" (or larger) woofer speaker as a bass drum mic?
I wonder what it would sound like...

Todd.

    
    CdH
    

    
    re: lack of bass drum miking
    
    
       No, we don't bother miking the bass drum. It's loud enough. It's
    a 24" rock drum anyway, the damn thing shakes the walls. Before
    we put up the 99-class stuff on the walls, I was constantly hearing
    it coming from *behind* me instead of in front of me. Drove me nutz,
    it was just late enough to throw my timing.
    
       Don't even think of using speakers as mikes if you want decent
    sound. Condenser mikes are ever so much clearer, even with foam
    over them.
    
    /pjh