Band micing with limited gear

[Paul O]

I have a small-scale amateur concert coming up in a couple of weeks for which I'm doing both sound and lighting. It's in a venue seating about 150 and I wouldn't normally need to mic the band at all however in the planned venue they want to place the band in the hall quite a distance off to the left of the stage so I want to feed a little of the band sound to the house-right PA to even out the sound balance a bit. The hall is quite wide & shallow so this layout was chosen to make best use of the available space.

 

The band consists of drums, bass, keys and a 4-piece brass section so has plenty of volume however the setup & tinkering time will be very limited so I'd appreciate suggestions of how best to use the limited gear available to give a sensible band feed through the PA.

 

My selection of available mics is:

2x Red5 RVD30

4x AKG D190E

2x Shotguns (CPC branded)

1x Boundary mic (Beyerdynamic MPC 67)

plus various DI's

 

I'll DI the keyboard and either DI the bass or use an RVD30 on the bass cab.

 

I'm considering using the shotguns for the brass section and the boundary mic near the drums, possibly with the other RVD30 on the kick if it gets lost.

 

Is this going to be the best way of deploying my available gear or would you suggest other options?

[sam.spoons]

Probably best to keep it simple but I'd always prefer to mic everything in this context, you can turn them off.... However, the boundary mic and shotguns are probably not the easiest way to do this. For best results I'd try to get hold of a reasonable kick mic (Red5 do one) and a single condenser for a drum overhead. The keys need DI'ing (one mono DI is fine) and the horns will be good with 2-4 D190s. If you can't get any extra mics a D190/RDV30 by the drummers left leg or a shotgun behind his left shoulder (a reasonable distance back and pointing, as best you can to pick up the snare and kick) will do a passable job on the whole kit, DI the keys and 2xD190s on the horns and Robert is you relative.

[paulears]

The idea is just to give a bit extra because the band is masked a little?

 

If the band were centre stage, I'm guessing you wouldn't have even bothered miking them up? With your modest bunch of mics, for a little bit of assist, I'd use one as a drum overhead, and share out the others. with a smallish room, the band are going to be loud anyway, and if you're doing lights at the same time you don't want to be trying to mix something complex. You can mic everything up if you want to, but for a bit of assist and balance, you could just use the o/h if it's lighter music, or kick snare & o/h for something needing more oomph.

[laolu]

I often work in a 150 seats venue and do some very sparse micing on the bands because they are loud enough (rock bands). Recently I tried just one SM57 behind the drum. near the kick pedal. It also picked up plenty of snare, and the cymbals were loud enough anyway. A good compromise if time is short.

 

As you said, maybe point the shotguns at the horns and DI bass and keys. Yeah. Sounds OK for a start. No vocals?

[Paul O]

Yes the band will be plenty loud enough for the size of venue - I wouldn't normally consider micing them at all except that for this concert the singers will be on a stage set into the front wall of the hall and the band are in the hall on the extreme left side.

 

 

It's a shoestring budget job so I need to use the limited stock of mics available just to feed a little of the band sound to the house-right PA.

 

So following the suggestions above:

 

2x D190's for the horns

a shotgun on a tall stand behind the drummer, pointed at the kick and snare should pick up the entire kit

plus the DI's for the keys and bass

 

Should hopefully give me a 'set and forget' band mix.

[sam.spoons]

Yes the band will be plenty loud enough for the size of venue - I wouldn't normally consider micing them at all except that for this concert the singers will be on a stage set into the front wall of the hall and the band are in the hall on the extreme left side.

 

 

It's a shoestring budget job so I need to use the limited stock of mics available just to feed a little of the band sound to the house-right PA.

 

So following the suggestions above:

 

2x D190's for the horns

a shotgun on a tall stand behind the drummer, pointed at the kick and snare should pick up the entire kit

plus the DI's for the keys and bass

 

Should hopefully give me a 'set and forget' band mix.

 

I'd try the Red5 by the drummers left leg pointing at the kick before the shotgun (my suggestion I know) as it'll have a bit more isolation. and take up less room. I'f you're not happy with that try the shotgun. Otherwise as you say above. Good luck.

[S&L]

your red5 rvd30's will give you a better result on your brass than the D190, in my opinion but the D190 should work ok - I have also used D190 on snare and guitars live and that's fine too but see below. I would agree cymbals will generally carry themselves un-mic'ed - and toms usually manage in venues of 50 to 70 people without any help, so I wouldn't be too worried about those either.

In the bad ole days we used to throw a vocal mic inside a bass drum to link it to the PA - I did this with a cheap behringer vocal mic 3 or 4 years ago and got a result I could live with. usual practice used to be to lay it on the bedding or pillow that was inevitably stuffed inside the bass drum and point it at the beater. that was back when none of the musicians we knew had ever heard of drum mics much less had access to such things.

 

 

D190's tend to be dry and low in gain but if your speakers are out of sight of the mics and away from the band you should nothave an issue.

 

RVD30's work surprisingly well on almost anything. this weekend I had them on banjo, electric guitars, lead and backing vocals. I haven't used them on drums but I would be surprised if you couldn't get a passable result with one inside the bass drum and one on the snare - the snare will also pick up the rest of the kit that matters.

a couple of D190's on the brass, DI bass and keys and you are good to go.

[Paul O]

Many thanks for all the suggestions and comments. The show ran the last couple of nights and was very successful.

 

In the end I went with the D190's on the brass section, an RVD30 in the port of the kick drum and a one of the CPC shotguns as drum overhead on the snare/hihat side which worked out very well. The only issues I had were some of the performers not singing into the vocal mics (no change there then!)