Live Sound

[MarkPAman]

I set up two wide-diaphragm condensors to the left & right of the sound booth, to pick up the room ambience.

 

.....having the room mocs anywhere near FOH is going to pickup vast amounts of PA which is pointless if youre trying to capture the sound of the room itself....I may just sit on the fence on this one. But trust me, dont put the mics anywhere near FOH!

 

Well now you've confused me Simon ;)

[Simon MFR]

I set up two wide-diaphragm condensors to the left & right of the sound booth, to pick up the room ambience.

 

.....having the room mocs anywhere near FOH is going to pickup vast amounts of PA which is pointless if youre trying to capture the sound of the room itself....I may just sit on the fence on this one. But trust me, dont put the mics anywhere near FOH!

 

Well now you've confused me Simon ;)

 

 

Im still on the fence...

 

.....having the room mocs anywhere near FOH is going to pickup vast amounts of PA which is pointless if youre trying to capture the sound of the room itself....I may just sit on the fence on this one. But trust me, dont put the mics anywhere near FOH!

 

By this I meant placing the mics near the FOH PA (onstage). And if the OP intends on capturing the audience sound (from wherever you decide to place the mics) the configuration really wont matter. :P

[MarkPAman]

By this I meant placing the mics near the FOH PA (onstage). And if the OP intends on capturing the audience sound (from wherever you decide to place the mics) the configuration really wont matter. ;)

 

Ah, that makes it clearer.

 

I have found that mics pointing straight out over the top of the PA get a reasonable result. The thing to avoid is getting one person's or a small group's reaction to the gig, you need to get an overall sound of the room (see what Paulears said about the riffle mics). I must admit that this quite often ends up as a "last mic in the box" job, but if I have them I would use SM58s.

[paulears]

Actually, although I haven't tried it, the idea of the audience mics aiming towards the audience from behind and over the main stacks is interesting. It should work, and the stacks themselves stop the mics picking up direct PA sound - I'd like to try this one, seems worthwhile.

[jim b]

Actually, although I haven't tried it, the idea of the audience mics aiming towards the audience from behind and over the main stacks is interesting. It should work, and the stacks themselves stop the mics picking up direct PA sound - I'd like to try this one, seems worthwhile.

 

If the PA is stacked and you have a tame enough band then mics placed on top of the stacks has had good results for me. Some kind of small diaphragm condenser does the trick. If your stack is fairly tall and the mics not super directional this helps to eliminate the "one section of the crowd" problem to some degree with the obvious penalty of more PA spill into those channels. NB not recommended for punk gigs.

 

Jim

[Matt Riley]

Surely unless you're working a Christian worship type gig then the only audience feedback you put into the mixdown is when the lead singer is doing small talk with the crowd anyway and the applause at the end of a song? In that situation there's not much problem with the ambient mics picking up the mains (i.e. Frontman: 'Hi, how are you?' Audience 'woooo') although we all agree its not ideal?

 

Sorry about throwing that one about ambient mics at mix position into the ideas stew - ive never done it myself, but saw a very well respected engineer do this for a big gig alongside using ones at the front and was wondering about it really. As I mentioned, I have put them on the front lip of the stage in the past and its sounded ok. Other guys I know do the mics on stacks trick, that sounds fine as well, and I'll probably change over next time.

 

Soz for the OT bit earlier,

 

Matt

[The Boogie Man]

If you have a listen to the first 30 seconds of this clip, the crowd was done with mic's placed on the stage pointing out and higher up next to, and just under the flying foh. there was a lot of the pa in the mic's but it gave a great sound ( the "like you were there" feeling)

 

My Webpage

 

baz

[jamesperrett]

Ive never been to a gig where the audience sing/speak/use their voices in any real capacity (not enough to warrant recording anyway!)...

Simon - I think you've probably summed up the typical Portsmouth audience. :( I know this might be veering off topic a little but in my experience Portsmouth audiences are more restrained than those in other parts of the country - unless you're talking about those that frequent Fratton Park.

 

Some artists really feed off the audience and, if you're trying to capture the vibe of the event, you really need to hear the audience's response to the performance.

 

Cheers

 

James.

[phil dekked]

Just to add to whats been said...

 

At some big " rave " events I do they employ an outside company to record the events. This means hard disk recording of the dj`s , mc`s and the crowd . He uses two condensers on stands right by the front of stage left and right but at least 2m away from the p.a. He reckons this gives the best "crowd" sound as its the enthusiasts at the front who make most of the noise! and it can pick up some "interesting" conversations as well after the show has finished ..!

 

.p.