RIBBON MIC ADVICE

[nestle]

I'm doing a band record live all in one room deal this weekend. I'm considering usuing a Royer 121 on one of the guitar amps but will I get alot of bleed from the figure 8 pattern? How should I handle that rejection from the other side, what do people do in that senario with a ribbon? do you just stick it in the cab and not worry about bleed?

[chetatkinsdiet]

you could have it so it's pointed towards nothing on the other side, or put up some sort of gobo on the backside of the mic.
later,
m

[aurelialuz]

i've had this problem with 4038s and i've stuck a cassette box behind the mic, sometimes a larger box or something else solid. other than that, yeah, just position so you don't get the bleed. the nice thing about figure 8s is that they have that great null off axis so you can experiment with rotating the mic around to use the null to your advantage.

OR...work with it. this weekend we used a 4038 on a guitar cab while tracking live and it really helped the drum sound cause you got this nice slapback from the other side of the room. pan the two, sounds great, lots of depth.

bleed is kool.

alex

[Al]

You can change the pattern of the RB series Reslo,cardioid and fig of 8, i know this info is no good to you just now if your intending using a Royer, but just as a point of reference regarding the possibiltys in your given situation.
I personally prefer to have half a dozen Reslos for my cash than a Royer, i dont think there that good and not worth the money to be honest with you.

Although there's nothing wrong with using a fig of 8 pattern, depending on what sound your looking for.

[Professor]

I'm with Alex on this one. Think of the figure 8 pattern in terms of what it rejects, not what it picks up and placement will become easier. A cardioid microphone only really rejects sound from a single point directly behind and on-axis and jumps up quite quickly at just a small angle off-axis. A figure 8 mic rejects the entire plane 90? off-axis all the way around the mic. Turn the guitar amp so it is perpendicular to any other instruments that worry you and drop the ribbon in front. Be careful placing the mic equidistant from a wall or something, but otherwise you'll be pretty safe.
If you have any trouble, put something absorbtive behind the mic like a blanket, gobo, etc. I have an 24" cube box filled with packing peanuts from a mail-order delivery and I cut a large circular hole on one side and glued cloth across it. I often set it up on a music stand with my RCA 74b ribbon (fig-8) right up against the cloth for recording saxophone. It deadens any sound coming from behind the mic and also absorbs a some (though hardly all) of the sax sound in the room. It looks a little funny, but it works. It also tames bass drums exceedingly well. Of course, it also looks like a big speaker and gets some humorous comments whenever it comes out.

-Jeremy