Taming mic bleed

[Punky921]

Anyone got any tips on this?

I'm using an MXL condenser mic (to mic an amp) and a Superlux condenser mic (for vocals) as well as a Beta 57A for mic-ing an acoustic guitar.

Everything is bleeding into everything else, making it REALLY hard to get a clean recording.

The Beta 57A, which is normally GREAT at rejecting unwanted input, is suddenly weirdly loud when I use it with my ART Tube Preamp. I have the preamp turned way up though, because if I don't, the guitar isn't really loud enough.

And no, these guys want to play live because they refuse to layer tracks, playing one at a time, using a click, and they constantly take cues off of one another, so it's not like they keep a tight rein on themselves musically via measures, etc. So I probably HAVE to do this live.

This is my first time tracking a live band, so if anyone can help, I'd really appreciate it.

[pepezabala]

put the acoustic guitar player in a different room.

[mech2161]

Having the same problem. I just ordered an Audix OM7 to see how it does on vocals. You can go crazy with mic choices and spend lots of money or try to sepperate the out more.

[Punky921]

I'd love to put everyone in separate rooms but because they take cues off of one another, they can't really do that.

I might pick up a headphone mixer, and then it might be okay to slap them in different rooms. But this is in a tiny apartment and there isn't much room.

[mothergarage]

build some kind of mobile wall with a height of 1,50m so the guys can still see each other. maybe put some cushions on each side against reflections.

[crumhorn]

use the most directional mic on the quietest instrument and try to improvise some kind of baffling arrangement, eg put the amp behind the sofa (if you have one).

more expenaively perspex screens can be used to divide a space accousically whild still allowing visual communication. check out the shower section at the local diy superstore.

the mic blead might not be to much of a bad thing though. With carefull use of eq you can normally get a pretty good mix anyway with a more natural sounding stereo field.

[Opz]

If you can, try a bi-directional (figure 8 ) mic, it has better off-axis rejection. You may be able to point the (rejection) side more towards the offending sound source. Maybe someone you know has one you could try. Sometimes mics that have always worked just don't give you the desired recording. Just try some different mics.
Even though there's bleed, is it really bad or do you get some 'clean' bleed? Bleed is not by defenition unusefull or annoying. If it's 'clean' bleed you can still mix the track properly. Clean being it's there but it is still usable due to for instance no low rumble being present etc.

But to add something else, I think it's great if a band wants to record 'live' (if their skill is up to the job) without resorting to recording everything separate and doing it in separate rooms, maybe even in separate takes. Separate takes is all good when your doing overdubs or tracking the main vocal. If they feel their music benefits from being in the same room, go for it! Other rooms have different acoustics and trying to fix for example the balance between instruments during mixdown (which you could have avoided by recording them in the same room) is just a waste of time in my opinion. Try to get the best recording possible and you may not have that much to do during mixdown.

[Punky921]

The Superlux has a figure 8 setting that I will try. Thank you for that.

There is no low end hum or rumble or anything. Nothing is loud enough to cause that.

I can't build walls - this is my living room I'm talking about here, haha! It's also small. Like 12' X 12'.

[mothergarage]

I thought of something like this:

[H20nly]

i have the same studio space as you... my living room.

i record the tracks separately. there's only so much you (well, i) can do in that kind of space... assuming you don't have one hell of a living room. i like crumhorn's mention of the stereo field above, but that almost sounds like wishful thinking. maybe you'll get that lucky in the space you have.


i have one of these on my mic now:

http://www.seelectronics.com/reflexion-filter-pro

it helped a lot with my scenario. no guarantees, but that's the beauty of keeping the receipt. i researched it before i bought it and was happy with the results. they have them for other instruments too. maybe the idea itself is more useful than the actual product??

don't take my word for it though. below is a link to gearslutz with all the usual "PRO" speculation and... some actual testing/testimonial from peeps who tried one rather than just imagining what could happen from the comfort of their pedestal:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/bass-tra ... -used.html

any way you slice it... i think experimenting with different positions of the mics as well as players to find the sweet spots is going to yield the best results... after some A B checking of course.

[Punky921]

I was thinking of one of those things. Wasn't sure if I could justify it for the cost.

Mind if I post some WAVs of what I put together, with some basic compression and EQing? You guys can tell me what you think.

[crumhorn]

just had a random brainwave, you could try phase reversing some of the tracks to see if it's possible to get a degree of phase cancellation between the mic spill on different tracks. you could even try setting up a room mic with it's own track specifically for that purpose.

A classic old trick - often used to reduce feedback on stage - is to use two mics on each instrument, one pointing towards the instrument and one pointing away and also phase reversed. The idea is that any spill will come to both mics equally and cancel out but that the nearby source will be picked up by one mic much more than the other.

[Punky921]

Cool idea! How would I reverse the room mic track after I recorded it?

[crumhorn]

Cool idea! How would I reverse the room mic track after I recorded it?

Utility plugin has phase reversal buttons.

[Punky921]

Sweet. Thanks.