Live Off the Floor in a Small Room

[joninc]

Many years ago an engineer stuck a KM88 in a piece of foam in the feet of the bridge of my upright bass. Sounded great. I have no idea what pattern he was using, I was Isolated so it could have been omni but don't know. Sounded great. I've never seen one since.

lots of jazz guys like a SDC here (if bleed isn't an issue).

[vernier]

Looks neat. Looking forward to hearing some . . I like the mic selection used.

[digitaldrummer]

I hope this is seen as a contribution and not a hijack.

I also have a small, single room studio. Mine is 19' x 25' with 15' vaulted ceilings. The other night I recorded a 3-piece funky, blues-rock trio (live off the floor as this thread suggests) and I think it turned out very nice. Sorry I won't be able to share it (at least not yet). I've done this before too, but just didn't always take pictures. This thread reminded me to take a few...

First the room layout:

Studio Layout

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[digitaldrummer]

Next, the drums (always most important in the room, even though I was not playing on this session. LOL)

The attachment drums.jpg is no longer available

Then the bass position (which was through a DI):

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then the vocal "booth":

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[digitaldrummer]

here's what the gobo around the guitar amp looked like:

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guitaramp2.jpg (214.72 KiB) Viewed 3179 times

[digitaldrummer]

and more detail of the pseudo vocal booth:

vocalbooth1.jpg

vocalbooth2.jpg

[digitaldrummer]

recording chain....

Vocals - Shure SM7B into Universal Audio LA-610. I chose this mic because it has pretty good rejection, but there was still a lot of bleed and I knew there would be. It's mostly drums though so that will end up being part of the overall drum sound.

Guitar amp - Nsonic NS1 (this is a chinese ribbon similar to the Nady RSM-3 and essentially a R-121 clone). Also had a Slate ML-2 (yes. the SDC modeling mic). I panned these hard L/R and it sounds pretty good.

Bass - Radial JDI into an A-Designs EM-Gold. Fantastic electric bass sound (but great player too).

Drums - Telefunken M82 inside kick, SM57 on snare, AKG 414b-uls overheads, AKG 451B's on ride and hihat, 421's on toms. You see some others in the pictures but they were not used.

Room - I had a pair of AT4033's going into Bart HRK MP568C (with Brit and Ge console "colour" modules)

Embrace the bleed!

[drumsound]

Cool set up. I dig the orange walls at your place.

Are the bass and guitar players brothers? Their faces look really similar.

[digitaldrummer]

Cool set up. I dig the orange walls at your place.

Are the bass and guitar players brothers? Their faces look really similar.

I don't think it's quite as orange as the pictures make it look - officially the color is "mexican chile" -slightly more red. And yeah, I think brothers from another mother... and the drummer too.

[vvv]

I am not a active fan, nor V's - what a lovely 'ray.

Great room, too!


And the Swiffer let's us know ya keeps it clean.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

That’s a great looking spot!
Feel free to hijack this thread. I’m interested in seeing how other folks with similar rooms handle live sessions.

Is the live vocal from your session the keeper? Mine also had a fair bit of bleed but nothing unmanageable and it adds nice ambience to the drums. No room mics needed.

[digitaldrummer]

yeah, the room mics may not get used if we do keep the vocal - I'm waiting for the singer to tell me if he's happy with it (got all the words, notes, etc.). I can definitely work with it as is. the guitar tracks have almost zero bleed - I'm kind of amazed honestly. even the Fig8 ribbon was protected by the gobo so that worked out well.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

I've never really had issues with bleed in the amp mic. It's often the other way around with too much amp in the drums. Even then, guitar amps are so directional that you can aim them away from the drums and be fine.

[markjazzbassist]

I am not a active fan, nor V's - what a lovely 'ray.

Great room, too!


And the Swiffer let's us know ya keeps it clean.

not a stingray, it's a G&L bass.

[vvv]

No wonder I love it! I have an 80's F-100 guitar about matches it.

Shoulda known by the switches; reckon I was fooled by that it's a V, the pups and the uber-fashionable headstock accessory.