[Nate Najar]

Ok so I have a multitrack recording from my trio date last week. Multi miked drums but i also requested an ortf pair out front. The ortf gives the most glorious and natural drum sound i have ever encountered. I love it. Bass player got a km86 down by the bridge and a km84 by the fingeboard. I brought a dpa 4061 and attached it, and it gave the most isolated sound but was distorting in places and i don't yet know why- i hope my mic is ok. So that one is useless. With my guitar, i was behind a few gobos with a spaced pair of schoeps mk41 on my box.

Here's the problem. The drum spill is washy and smeary in the bass mics and guitar mics. Now the guitar mics aren't too bad because the gobos helped a lot, but combine it with the drum sound and i lose that brilliant, crisp ortf drum sound. The drum spill is awful in the bass mics. Of course. You can still hear plenty of bass though. So i want to delay some mics to get it as clean as can be. I found the best way to do it i think is to hard pan one set of mics one way and one the other and use headphones to manually line them up with a sample delay.

So my question. I can line up the drums and guitar, but then the drums and bass are still all smeary. How do i line up all three? Delay the drums to the guitar (the guitar is furthest away) and then delay the bass to the now delayed drums? Thinking about it is hurting my brain.....

Thanks for your help as always!

N

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

Nate Najar wrote:

Ok so I have a multitrack recording from my trio date last week.
Multi miked drums but i also requested an ortf pair out front. The
ortf gives the most glorious and natural drum sound i have ever
encountered. I love it. Bass player got a km86 down by the bridge
and a km84 by the fingeboard. I brought a dpa 4061 and attached it,
and it gave the most isolated sound but was distorting in places and
i don't yet know why- i hope my mic is ok.

Perhaps it was rattling against the instrument?

So that one is useless.
With my guitar, i was behind a few gobos with a spaced pair of
schoeps mk41 on my box.

Here's the problem. The drum spill is washy and smeary in the bass
mics and guitar mics.

Hmmm .... first look at the frequency response curve for the proximity
effect and compensate. Hey presto nonni nonnio you have perhaps 8 more dB of
suppression of the room sound. Anyway, you will need the mono vst thingie, I
have mentioned previously, if not now then some other time. It is some USD
99, which imo is costly, but it is very useful because it gives you easy
control over bass range stereo separation.

Now the guitar mics aren't too bad because the
gobos helped a lot, but combine it with the drum sound and i lose
that brilliant, crisp ortf drum sound. The drum spill is awful in
the bass mics. Of course. You can still hear plenty of bass though.
So i want to delay some mics to get it as clean as can be. I found
the best way to do it i think is to hard pan one set of mics one way
and one the other and use headphones to manually line them up with a
sample delay.

You do not want it exact, you want the spot mic last and the main pair
first, ie. put the spot mic in the haas window ( 0 to 10 ms delay, try 7)
after the main pair and pan it the the same side of the stereo image.

So my question. I can line up the drums and guitar, but then the
drums and bass are still all smeary. How do i line up all three?
Delay the drums to the guitar (the guitar is furthest away) and then
delay the bass to the now delayed drums? Thinking about it is
hurting my brain.....

Reference everything to the main pair. Consider a high pass strategy, you
probably have too many sources supplying deep bass range, use the free extra
separation you get from the proximity boost.

Thanks for your help as always!

You may need to decide which microphone gets response below 100 Hz and high
pass filter the rest, the KM86 seems to be a good choice but it may also be
that only the ortf pair on the drums should be the bass range suppliers.
Just some ideas, I don't mind taking a pot shot on a mix if you will make a
couple of minutes of example tracks available to me, it is an interesting
problem because it is a kind of recording that I find very interesting to
get right.

N

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

Nate Najar wrote:
Ok so I have a multitrack recording from my trio date last week. Multi miked drums but i also requested an ortf pair out front. The ortf gives the most glorious and natural drum sound i have ever encountered. I love it. Bass player got a km86 down by the bridge and a km84 by the fingeboard. I brought a dpa 4061 and attached it, and it gave the most isolated sound but was distorting in places and i don't yet know why- i hope my mic is ok. So that one is useless. With my guitar, i was behind a few gobos with a spaced pair of schoeps mk41 on my box.

Here's the problem. The drum spill is washy and smeary in the bass mics and guitar mics. Now the guitar mics aren't too bad because the gobos helped a lot, but combine it with the drum sound and i lose that brilliant, crisp ortf drum sound. The drum spill is awful in the bass mics. Of course. You can still hear plenty of bass though. So i want to delay some mics to get it as clean as can be. I found the best way to do it i think is to hard pan one set of mics one way and one the other and use headphones to manually line them up with a sample delay.

So my question. I can line up the drums and guitar, but then the drums and bass are still all smeary. How do i line up all three? Delay the drums to the guitar (the guitar is furthest away) and then delay the bass to the now delayed drums? Thinking about it is hurting my brain.....

Thanks for your help as always!

N

I will pick something to be the center of focus and make
sure that's "in focus" throughout. Usually, it's the snare
drum. I'll line all tracks up on a snare hit that's "visible" to all
elements.

Sounds like the ORTF is the "backbone" of the mix. Line the other
elements up with that. Hopefully, there's an isolated snare hit
to line them up on . Don't be afraid to make the guitar and bass
mono elements. If a track just adds mud, mute it.

Did you capture a pickup track to the acoustic bass? Those will
prove invaluable in my experience. Ditto the acoustic guitar,
if it has a pickup. The pickup tracks may not be very high
in level; they're just there for support.

--
Les Cargill

[Arny Krueger[_4_]]

"Nate Najar" wrote in message
...
Ok so I have a multitrack recording from my trio date last week. Multi
miked drums but i also requested an ortf pair out front. The ortf gives
the most glorious and natural drum sound i have ever
encountered. I love it. Bass player got a km86 down by the bridge and a
km84 by the fingeboard. I brought a dpa 4061 and attached it, and it gave
the most isolated sound but was distorting in places and i don't yet
know why- i hope my mic is ok. So that one is useless. With my guitar, i
was behind a few gobos with a spaced pair of schoeps mk41 on my box.

That is a good argument for multi-micing and one channel per mic and one
mic per channel. If your channels are somewhat redundant, you get even more
options.

One good trick is to mic critical instuments twice, put each mic into its
own channel, and set the mic preamp gains say 20 dB apart. If one clips, use
the other. If one is lost in the noise, use the other.

Here's the problem. The drum spill is washy and smeary in the bass mics
and guitar mics.

You already know the answer - the best solutions are less spill and a less
reverberent room.

Now the guitar mics aren't too bad because the gobos helped a lot, but
combine it with the drum sound and i lose that brilliant, crisp ortf drum
sound.

The drum spill is awful in the bass mics. Of course. You can still hear
plenty of bass though.

One form of heavy handed processing that can address that is putting the
drum tracks through a noise gate that only passes the peaks and cuts out the
reverb.

So i want to delay some mics to get it as clean as can be. I found the
best way to do it i think is to hard pan one set of mics one way and one
the other and use headphones to manually line them up with a sample delay.

You got a reason wny you aren't doing that visually in you DAW mixdown
software?

So my question. I can line up the drums and guitar, but then the drums
and bass are still all smeary. How do i line up all three?


Delay the drums to the guitar (the guitar is furthest away) and then delay
the bass to the now delayed drums? Thinking about it is hurting my
brain.....

Why think so hard when you can see what will or will not work with
multitrack editing/mixing software?

[Nate Najar]

The guitar I played (charlie byrd's 1974 ramirez 1a) had no pickup, but it wasnt a big deal. God i wish we had pulled a bass di track. I thought the trcking engineer had run it until halfwaybthrough the session i realized he hadnt, and i didnt speakup thinking i'd live. But i wish i had it now!

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

Nate Najar wrote:
The guitar I played (charlie byrd's 1974 ramirez 1a) had no pickup, but it wasnt a big deal. God i wish we had pulled a bass di track. I thought the trcking engineer had run it until halfwaybthrough the session i realized he hadnt, and i didnt speakup thinking i'd live. But i wish i had it now!

Checklists good.

--
Les Cargill

[Peter Larsen[_3_]]

Nate Najar wrote:

The guitar I played (charlie byrd's 1974 ramirez 1a) had no pickup,
but it wasnt a big deal. God i wish we had pulled a bass di track.
I thought the trcking engineer had run it until halfwaybthrough the
session i realized he hadnt, and i didnt speakup thinking i'd live.
But i wish i had it now!

Not to worry, it will work out, my opinion remains that it is fixable.

Kind regards

Peter Larsen

[Les Cargill[_4_]]

Peter Larsen wrote:
Nate Najar wrote:

The guitar I played (charlie byrd's 1974 ramirez 1a) had no pickup,
but it wasnt a big deal. God i wish we had pulled a bass di track.
I thought the trcking engineer had run it until halfwaybthrough the
session i realized he hadnt, and i didnt speakup thinking i'd live.
But i wish i had it now!

Not to worry, it will work out, my opinion remains that it is fixable.

Kind regards

Peter Larsen



I agree - the thing to find is a place to stand. Decide "this is the
primary signal in the mix" and work from there.

--
Les Cargill

[Mike Clayton]

Nate Najar wrote:
The guitar I played (charlie byrd's 1974 ramirez 1a) had no pickup, but it wasnt a big deal.

I wondered how you got to sound a bit like Charlie Byrd Nate!

I don't suppose your drummer has access to Buddy Deppenschmidt's kit?

Mike

[Nate Najar]

Haha mike, i can do one better. My drummer is chuck redd..... Look him up.

This is the first time i have ever recorded with charlie's guitar. It is a great specimen of a ramirez- it's a cannon. I wish i owned it, but i might be tempted to put a pickup in it and play it on all my gigs!

[Frank Stearns]

Nate Najar writes:

Ok so I have a multitrack recording from my trio date last week. Multi mik=
ed drums but i also requested an ortf pair out front. The ortf gives the m=
ost glorious and natural drum sound i have ever encountered. I love it. B=


Here's the problem. The drum spill is washy and smeary in the bass mics an=
d guitar mics. Now the guitar mics aren't too bad because the gobos helped=
ortf drum sound. The drum spill is awful in the bass mics. Of course. Y=

snips

Nate -

You've gotten some good advice in your replies so far.

Here are some additional general thoughts. I encounter this all the time (in fact,
am just now taking a break from mixing a pop orchestra and choir session; 22
channels total and one of the cuts switched from a typical orchestral percussion
section to using a regular kit. Gawk! As you can imagine, the kit is in
*everything*, and not in a great way. And, given the highly unusual configuration of
the session in general (their idea, not mine), there is no overall stereo pair to
work from... It's a long story, don't ask. g)

The good news is that it's sounding pretty good, but it did take some finessing,
conceptually along the lines of what I'll mention here.

As far as time alignments where one "ideal" solution for one instrument might be a
compromise to another... don't get too worked up about mathematical precision in
those alignments. As long as you stay within Haas bounds (less than 40 mSec of delay
and we don't readily perceive separate echos), you have some room to play to find
"happy" delays for everything.

And, you can actually "steer" things with delay to get some enhancements in the
overall spaciousness -- and some you might like better than what was "natural" with
the ORTF, assuming clarity and depth is enhanced.

Standup bass in these situations is tough because that big resonating cavity is also
a "wonderful" microphone! You could try a very steep low-pass, sweeping it down and
getting a feel for the tradeoff between drum removal and loss of bass harmonics.

Here's an approach I might try. Start with the ORTF JUST BY ITSELF. What's missing?
What could benefit from a bit of presence? Probably your guitar, from what you
describe. Okay, add it in; bring in the guitar mic delays to correct the drum sound
that will wash into the mix from the guitar mics.

The delay you apply is way less than you might think because the drums into the ORTF
and the drum leakage into the guitar might turn out to be a similar net
distance; it's the difference in those distances you want to address with the delay.

And indeed, high pass the ORTF, gently. High pass the guitar, perhaps a little more
steeply, just so long as you don't break the tone or lose attacks. Possibly include
a very narrow notch for cymbal leaks into the guitar, provided the cure isn't worse
than the problem.

Add bass next. We've HPF'd the ORTF, so much of the bass will be from its mics.
Bring it in; dial its delay to again address the drum sound. Again, remember the
*net* distances involved. Don't calculate, step through the delay and see what
happens. If at 44.1 it might be a "sweet spot" that's only a few samples wide, so be
prepared to listen carefully.

So we still haven't added the drum mics. where are we now with the drum sound? Zero
in on what's missing. And since the drums are bouncing around into everything (lots
of time involved with those bounces and leaks) the drum close mics will take a lot
more delay -- but remember Haas. Again, listen. And maybe all you really need is a
bit of kit to firmly locate its stereo position. No problem. An extreme pan, with
just a little level, might put it right where you need it.

Now, if it's a specific drum element that's missing, you might also be able to pull
the kit mics back a bit but sweep a narrow EQ boost from the kit mics to bring in
what's missing.

A few things to try... Good luck with it.

Frank
Mobile Audio

--

[Scott Dorsey]

Nate Najar wrote:
So my question. I can line up the drums and guitar, but then the drums and=
bass are still all smeary. How do i line up all three? Delay the drums t=
o the guitar (the guitar is furthest away) and then delay the bass to the n=
ow delayed drums? Thinking about it is hurting my brain..... =20

Try it. Start with the guitar, bring in the drums, and adjust the delay.
When the delay is right, you will hear the drums snap into focus and
everything will be clearer. If you don't hear that snap, either there isn't
enough leakage to worry about, or the leakage is too blurry and made of
so many echoes that the delay technique won't work. If you don't hear it
come into focus, just don't use any delay at all. Then bring up the next
spots and do the same thing on those.

The nice thing about the digital world is that you can delay and you can
advance waveforms with impunity, so you don't have to start with any
particular track.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[hank alrich]

Nate Najar wrote:

Ok so I have a multitrack recording from my trio date last week. Multi
miked drums but i also requested an ortf pair out front. The ortf gives
the most glorious and natural drum sound i have ever encountered. I love
it. Bass player got a km86 down by the bridge and a km84 by the
fingeboard. I brought a dpa 4061 and attached it, and it gave the most
isolated sound but was distorting in places and i don't yet know why- i
hope my mic is ok. So that one is useless. With my guitar, i was behind
a few gobos with a spaced pair of schoeps mk41 on my box.

Here's the problem. The drum spill is washy and smeary in the bass mics
and guitar mics. Now the guitar mics aren't too bad because the gobos
helped a lot, but combine it with the drum sound and i lose that
brilliant, crisp ortf drum sound. The drum spill is awful in the bass
mics. Of course. You can still hear plenty of bass though. So i want to
delay some mics to get it as clean as can be. I found the best way to do
it i think is to hard pan one set of mics one way and one the other and
use headphones to manually line them up with a sample delay.

So my question. I can line up the drums and guitar, but then the drums
and bass are still all smeary. How do i line up all three? Delay the
drums to the guitar (the guitar is furthest away) and then delay the bass
to the now delayed drums? Thinking about it is hurting my brain.....

Thanks for your help as always!

N

If necessary I will insert delay plugs on each channel excepting the
stereo pair, and begin tweaking delay parameters while listening to the
whole mix, not to isolated pairs of instruments. I relax, I listen, and
I poke until the little bits of sand around the base of my castle take
their proper place.

I will add that this is an example of why I will invest considerable
time avoiding attempted isolation, that being the time it takes to
achieve constructive interference through placement of sources and
positioning of mics.

--
shut up and play your guitar * http://hankalrich.com/
http://www.youtube.com/walkinaymusic
http://www.sonicbids.com/HankandShaidri