Vocals using 3 mics at once

Mystic Steamship Co. · Post by **Mystic Steamship Co.** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 10:18 pm

So... I was doing a shootout of some new mics I got on vocals. Neither of the mics is a vocal mic (Schoeps CM64 Tube, and Neumann KM84), and soloed they each sounded not all that amazing but when I flipped the phase on the Schoeps and sang into them together they sounded pretty cool. It was still lacking a bit of low end so I put up a shure SM57 up with the two mics, boosted 110 HZ on a vintech x73 eq and...wow! Sounded freaking great! I was really surprised that this didn't sound all phasey and cluttered. The vocal was clear, present and very loud in the mix without having any compression, and nothing was overloading. Crazy. Anybody else use more than one mic on vocals?

premiumdan · Post by **premiumdan** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 5:51 am

I've recorded vocals with a mid-side setup before.
Playback on speakers was okay, but the headphone-
mix was "standing in front of the singer" accurate.

Knocked down the low-EQ on the side-channels, also.

Cheers!

-Dan

DrummerMan · Post by **DrummerMan** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 9:03 am

I once recorded vocals in a bathroom with an LDC right up at the singer's mouth and an SDC about 3 feet back, still pointed at the singer's mouth to get more or the room ambience. I ended up using both in the mix, but it especially became useful to kind of switch which mic was the "main" vocal mic, depending on whether the singer was gracefully crooning or screaming at the top of his lungs.

Brett Siler · Post by **Brett Siler** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 9:07 am

I have done stuff with a cardio up close with and an omni as an ambient mic. I like it.

cgarges · Post by **cgarges** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 9:32 am

I do it a fair amount. A lot of times, it's a close mic and an ambient mic, but sometimes, it's two close mics. This was a fairly common technique in the 80s, where engineers would record using something like a U87 paired with an RE20. I've heard a lot of records from that period and records made by guys who came up during that period where the lead vocal is panned (one mic left, the other right) and compressed differently so that the vocal moves a bit from the center depending on performance dynamics. I've done this a bit, too. I've also recorded two completely different-sounding mics (perhaps one distorted or filtered) to achieve a weird effect with adjustable clarity from the cleaner of the two mics.

In fact, it's not quite the same as recording with two mics, but just yesterday, I mixed a tune where I made a mult of the vocal, brought the clean signal up on one fader and the mult (run through a Telefunken V72 at full-bore) back on another fader with the polarity set to cancel some stuff in the clean signal. The producer on the session wanted the vocal sound thinned-out, so by doing this, I could adjust the amount of the secondary signal and affect how much phase cancellation was happening. I think a similar technique was used to record a bunch of Peter Gabriel's So, using a broken U47 and a working one to achieve certain types of filtering based on cancellations.

Much of Nirvana's In Utero was recorded using two close mics and an ambient mic.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

Jay Reynolds · Post by **Jay Reynolds** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 9:57 am

cgarges wrote:but sometimes, it's two close mics. This was a fairly common technique in the 80s, where engineers would record using something like a U87 paired with an RE20.

I can't remember why (and there's probably no good excuse), but I was looking at MTV/VH1 (no sure which), and saw footage of a mic setup like this. The U87 was in front of the vocalist and the RE20 was at a 45 degree angle. I had though that they engineer was being lazy and hadn't taken down the RE after trying it out.

cgarges wrote:a Telefunken V72 at full-bore

firesine · Post by **firesine** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 9:59 am

I once put up three mics to capture vox on a project between and friend and I, just because we were rushed and I didn't have a lot of time to experiment and 'cus he was so damn nervous/drunk I knew we wouldn't get many takes.
I put a KSM32 and RE20 on top of each other for him to sing into, plus a km84 in the corner of the smallish room we were recording in. Ended up using all three mics in the mix, each treated differently. The room mic is a great verb send, adds a sense of realism to the digital verb I'm using.

I recently posted a mix of this very song in the "listen to my stuff" forum if you wanna take a listen. It's called "Mistake."

Edit: Here's the link. http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopic.php?t=59989 I'd like to hear what people think.

blackdiscoball · Post by **blackdiscoball** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 10:12 am

Hmm, Ive never tried this. Sounds like a got some experimenting to do!

trodden · Post by **trodden** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 9:16 pm

i mix a LDC and re-20 a lot. Both at the same distance. capsules as close as possible to reduce phase. I also like to throw another LDC a few feet back for ambience. and mix accordingly.

I just got a shure beta 58 though, and going to mess around with the singer holding the mic and going for it with just that mic. no stand, pop filter or any of that. I mostly record punk and metal, so, yeah, also have a LDC set up off to the side of the "pretty parts". "when you scream do it here, like onstage, when you're pretty, step on up the the fancy mic, with pop filter, etc."

would like to get an sm7 for the same technique i'm gonna use the beta 58 for.

Jeff White · Post by **Jeff White** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 9:39 pm

cgarges wrote: Much of Nirvana's In Utero was recorded using two close mics and an ambient mic.

Which I learned when multi-tracks were flying all around last Jan-Feb. None of those mics is impressive AT ALL solo'd... But the sum of their parts is just friggin' huge.

I've stacked my AT4047 and my AKG 414B/ULS together in the past. Now that I have an SM7b I'm definitely going to use it in conjunction with the 4047, the 414, my OktavaMod MK-012 + Redhead cap, or my friend's MicroTech Geffel UM70S. Good times.

Jeff

NeglectedFred · Post by **NeglectedFred** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 6:00 pm

I once recorded two singers facing eachother about 5 or 6 feet apart, each into a 414 with a chinese ribbon inbetween. I panned the 414's about half way spread.

At the time, I really questioned the image, but I was going through some old recordings a few weeks ago and ran accrossed it.

I was blown away. I like it when things sound better than I remembered. I don't remember what compressors were doing what, but I think I had the ribbon slammed into an 1176, probably all buttons. When the vocals would get loud there was this beautuful saturation.

Too bad the singers weren't exactly on..

Aquaman · Post by **Aquaman** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 9:35 pm

I'll often pair a nice condenser with a favorite dynamic for vocals. Lately it's been an AudioTechnica 4050 with an AKG D320B dynamic coming in at 45 degrees from above.

The mix is something like 100% condenser and 75% dynamic, and they're both sent through a linked bus compressor together.

The condenser's got the detail and depth, but the dynamic's got the rich ballsy thing that the condenser lacks. Seems to work well for certain singers.

trodden · Post by **trodden** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 9:41 pm

Aquaman wrote:
The condenser's got the detail and depth, but the dynamic's got the rich ballsy thing that the condenser lacks. Seems to work well for certain singers.

totally. It varies on the mix between the two, but its a fun "recipe" for sure.

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 11:47 am

Aquaman wrote:
The mix is something like 100% condenser and 75% dynamic, ....

firesine · Post by **firesine** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 2:57 pm

Half man, half bear, half pig.... Man Bear Pig!

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