Single Microphone Project

[tony_tomlinson]

All,

I have been wanting to try recording an entire band with a single mic for some time. I have worked on some demos with a single mic but never tried to actually pull it off. When I did try it, I used an AEA R84 because of the figure 8 pattern. Has anyone tried to record in this fashion, if so what was your set up and do you have any suggestions?

Thanks,

Tony

[losthighway]

As you're probably thinking, the placement of the players works like the faders on a multi-track mix.

I would try figure 8, or omni. Move people around. Toy with compression setting in mix, different ratios, attack/release times could bring out different elements.

I can get things like this to sound cool, but always lo-fi for me. It might just be revealing the limitations of the room, it seems to really put the room in the mix as an important player. So baffles/gobos could help shape that element.

[austin]

This article may be helpful/inspiring: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep04/a ... rfeldy.htm

So much depends on the room and the players, as you might expect.

[drumsound]

First off I'd need to know what the ensemble is...

I've only done quicky demos with one mic, but it would be interesting to do it for reals.

[tony_tomlinson]

Pretty basic ensemble. Drums, guitar, bass, vocal and maybe amplified and/or acoustic harmonica as appropriate.

We've done pretty minimalist recordings (much of our last record was made with 4 mics). I loved the last Mellencamp record produced by T-Bone Burnett. That record was basically a single 44 in Sun Studios. I think they may have had some filler mics as well.

At any rate, I interested in what people would do in terms of set-up and mic selection.