recording a 10 person roundtable.

[Spindrift]

I'm going to be doing a recording of 10 - 20 people sitting around a conference table. I'm having trouble deciding on which mic to use. I'd like to go with something that is inexpensive, good sound quality for broadcast and isn't susceptible to handling noise (though hopefully people will just leave them on the desk stands).

If it was just a couple of people, I would probably go with a 635a, but with this many people, will I risk too much phase issues due to the omni pattern? The SM58s are a little dull sounding. The Beta series is all super-card and I'm worried that people with no mic experience, sitting in a chair, will go too far off axis.

Any advice?

Thanks

[lapsteel]

Maybe boundary mics?

[firesine]

Omni sounds like the ticket to me... I'm not sure what kind of phase problems you're worried about, but it's multiple mics that cause phase problems, not multiple sources.

One 635 in the middle of the table, or possibly two spaced across, should provide good coverage and minimize phase issues.

[Spindrift]

Omni sounds like the ticket to me... I'm not sure what kind of phase problems you're worried about, but it's multiple mics that cause phase problems, not multiple sources.

One 635 in the middle of the table, or possibly two spaced across, should provide good coverage and minimize phase issues.

I had hoped to have a mic on each person. This is going to be mixed after the fact and I would like to have a mic close to each source. My concern with omni, is that if I have one on each person, would there not be an increase in bleed and therefor an increase in potential phase problems?

[jnTracks]

one of the rules for phase with close mics on multiple sources is the 3 to 1 rule.
as long as the mic is at least 3 times as far away from every other source as it is to it's source any phase variation will be insignificant.
the math works like this:
so if the mic is 1 foot from it's source it should be at least three feet from every other source. in this case the inverse square law shows that the sound wave from the source 3 feet away from the mic is one eighth as loud as the source that is one foot away (assuming the sources are the same spl to start with.) so 1/8th as loud translates to -18db picked up by the surrounding mics, compared to the close mic. when mixed this wave form won't be loud enough to cause significant phase artifacts.

i think you're right to not rely on them to speak into the mic properly and in that case you should choose omni
my first choice would be omni lapel mics, second choice is omni table mics.

that's what i think

[JGriffin]

ditto omni laapels or omni boundarys. 635s could also work. In a pinch 58s would work fine if you could keep everyone on-mic. For 20 people, use what you have! Are you able to record 20+ tracks at once on this gig?

Keep in mind if you're mixing after the fact you can favor the mic of whoever's speaking and duck out everyone else. Less phase to worry about when there's only one mic turned up in the mix.

[Spindrift]

ditto omni laapels or omni boundarys. 635s could also work. In a pinch 58s would work fine if you could keep everyone on-mic. For 20 people, use what you have! Are you able to record 20+ tracks at once on this gig?

Keep in mind if you're mixing after the fact you can favor the mic of whoever's speaking and duck out everyone else. Less phase to worry about when there's only one mic turned up in the mix.

Too tired today to think things through properly. Yes, I will be ducking or muting mics when they're not in use, which should keep things sounding fine and removes most of my concerns. I'm not going with lapels because I need to setup in advance and basically hit record when people arrive. Were you suggesting a boundary mic for each person, or a few in the middle of the table? I was avoiding the middle of the table thing because having the source that much further away will introduce a lot more room into the mix and I won't know what the room sounds like until I get there.

I do have enough inputs and AD. It's the rig I usually use for recording concerts.

Thanks again to everyone for their input.

[antilog]

Off the top o' my head - (2) ribbons in a Blumlein array, like a stereo ribbon mic, right in the middle of the table.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blumlein_Pair

[JGriffin]

ditto omni laapels or omni boundarys. 635s could also work. In a pinch 58s would work fine if you could keep everyone on-mic. For 20 people, use what you have! Are you able to record 20+ tracks at once on this gig?

Keep in mind if you're mixing after the fact you can favor the mic of whoever's speaking and duck out everyone else. Less phase to worry about when there's only one mic turned up in the mix.

Too tired today to think things through properly. Yes, I will be ducking or muting mics when they're not in use, which should keep things sounding fine and removes most of my concerns. I'm not going with lapels because I need to setup in advance and basically hit record when people arrive. Were you suggesting a boundary mic for each person, or a few in the middle of the table? I was avoiding the middle of the table thing because having the source that much further away will introduce a lot more room into the mix and I won't know what the room sounds like until I get there.

I do have enough inputs and AD. It's the rig I usually use for recording concerts.

Thanks again to everyone for their input.

Cool.

If you want to keep as much room out as possible, forget any of the stereo pairs or spaced omnis and put mics in front of each person. Especially if you're not simultaneously shooting video, to hell with it. Give everyone a 635 or 58...I'd almost prefer 58s so you get some rejection. A conference room will either be nasty echoey or have hideous amounts of HVAC rumble--or both!

The boundary mic suggestion, maybe one every 3 or 4 people, maybe as much as every 2, close to the edge of the table. But then you'll get all sorts of glasses and pens knocking the table and so forth. And it will be more roomy than a 58 2 feet away from somebody's mouth.

Don't go into this thinking like a music guy, making people who are sitting around a table having a conversation suddenly eat the mic like they're Henry Rollins when it's their turn to speak. Keep the mics at a good average distance from each speaker, far enough to not encroach on their space and close enough to pick them up well. Think "giving a speech at a podium" rather than "Bono" and you'll get the picture. That will help with "bad mic technique" issues and you won't get any p-pops.

[Dakota]

If it was just a couple of people, I would probably go with a 635a, but with this many people, will I risk too much phase issues due to the omni pattern? The SM58s are a little dull sounding. The Beta series is all super-card and I'm worried that people with no mic experience, sitting in a chair, will go too far off axis.

I had hoped to have a mic on each person. This is going to be mixed after the fact and I would like to have a mic close to each source. My concern with omni, is that if I have one on each person, would there not be an increase in bleed and therefor an increase in potential phase problems?

I would put one or two PZM/Boundary mics near the center of the table as a sort of master reference, and to have some consistent "room" sound on tap that can be blended in to smooth your cutting back and forth to the close mics.

2x PZM *plus* 20x individual dynamic mics.

I would not do beta 58's, for the reasons you already outlined: too much to go wrong with the supercardioid pattern, out of 20 people at least one will spazz out and make their close track un-salvageable.

Either standard 58's or 635's I'd be fine with if I were doing this. As you have mix control, phase w/ the 635's won't be an issue if you mute everything but the person currently speaking and the master PZM(s). The 58's are more dull, but that's what EQ is for, no biggie.

[Dakota]

people who are sitting around a table having a conversation suddenly eat the mic like they're Henry Rollins when it's their turn to speak.

Awesome, awesome image.

[stuntbutt]

(2) ribbons in a Blumlein array, like a stereo ribbon mic, right in the middle of the table.

If you do that, you are going to have someone speaking into an out of phase XY pair.

[Spindrift]

Thank you everyone for your help.

In the end, we went with a 635a on a table stand in front of each person. It worked quite well and the client was happy with how it sounded. The recording was an informal 2 hour round table discussion. The omni pattern certainly saved us on a number of occasions, as most people at the table paid no attention to where they were relative to the mic. That being said, this only worked because we were mixing after the fact and could mute mics when they weren't being used. With all 16 open while monitoring, there was a lot of room.

I'll be doing a few more of these, and next time, I'll be placing an are rug on the floor and using a heavy table cloth to cut down on chair and water glass noises.