Recording Secrets For The Small Studio - Additional Resources

Recording Secrets For The Small Studio

Chapter 11: Peer‑array Ensemble Recording

Table of Contents

(This page is for the second edition of Recording Secrets For The Small Studio. To access the first edition’s archived resource page, click here.)

Audio Files

(To download all WAV examples at once: 68MB ZIP)

  • Some Perspective On Separation: When faced with the task of recording a band in one room, many small-studio recordists instinctively try to move the instruments as far as possible from each other and booth everyone off behind acoustic barriers. This is often quite unnecessary, as the following session demonstrates: a live full-band recording where the electric guitars were two feet either side of the drummer’s kick drum, and the bass was only six feet in front of the kit. Here are the overhead microphones, for instance Ex10.01: WAV/MP3play_arrow, which usually pick up the most spill, but they actually pick up remarkably little because the guitar amps are firing away from them towards absorptive surfaces beside and behind the guitarists. The full 12-mic drums submix fares little worse Ex10.02: WAV/MP3play_arrow. Similarly, the bass amp’s mic doesn’t pick up much spill at all on account of its close placement and the use of a supplementary DI feed Ex10.03: WAV/MP3play_arrow, and it was the same story with the guitars even though those didn’t use DIs – remember that close-mic placements are typically tolerated much more readily by electric instruments, especially (as in this case) if you multimic them to capture a more balanced picture of their frequency dispersion. Furthermore, because what spill remained followed extremely quickly behind the direct sound of each instrument, none of the instruments washed out once a complete rough mix of the whole peer-array had been put together Ex10.04: WAV/MP3play_arrow, despite minimal mix processing.

  • Clarifying The Terms ‘Focus’, ‘Backdrop’, ‘Meld’, and ‘Ghost’: In Chapter 10, the terms Focus, Backdrop, Meld, and Ghost are frequently used to explain the somewhat complicated mechanics of ensemble-recording mic technique. To help clarify what they mean, consider the following examples taken from this live ‘band in a room’ tracking session Ex10.05: WAV/MP3play_arrow. To take a simple example first, here’s the vocal peer array Ex10.07: WAV/MP3play_arrow, comprising just a single mic. The Focus of this peer array is the singer, whereas its Backdrop comprises strong spill from the drums and slightly less from the two electric guitars. (The bass player was playing through a DI and monitoring in the control room, which is why he’s completely absent from the live-room sound.) Now here’s a submix of the drums Ex10.06: WAV/MP3play_arrow, recorded using a ‘dominant array plus spots’ technique, within which each of the spot mics has its own Focus and Backdrop: in the case of the snare close-mic, for instance, its Focus would be the snare drum, while its Backdrop would be the spill from all the other drums and cymbals in the kit. However, within the contest of the full-band peer-array setup, the Focus of the drumkit peer array is the whole drumkit, while the Backdrop of that peer array comprises the spill from the electric guitars and, to a much lesser extent, the singer. Melding the vocal microphone with the drums typically involves much more than just mixing them together, because many live-room tweaks may also be required to get an acceptable combined Focus (drums and vocals) and Backdrop (guitars) sound. Now let’s say that the vocal-plus-drums Meld sounded like this Ex10.08: WAV/MP3play_arrow, and that I next wanted to mix in the low, chugging, rhythm guitar. Before even unmuting that guitar’s own peer array, I’d first listen carefully to what it sounded like in the Meld’s combined Backdrop – in other words, what I call the guitar’s Ghost – allowing me to design the sound of the guitar peer array itself to complement that. So, for instance, the rather boomy sound of the guitar’s Ghost might encourage me to choose a thinner-sounding microphone or mic position for its peer array.

  • The Power Of Duvets & Quilts: In the book, I often recommend using duvets and thick quilts as impromptu absorbers, based on my own real-world session experience. However, this recent ‘Choosing & Using Porous Absorbers’ article includes acoustic measurement data which corroborates how well they perform, even in side-by-side tests with pricier purpose-designed foam and mineral-wool absorbers. To demonstrate the effects of using duvets as absorbers, here are some audio examples I’ve done on my own sessions. The guitar spill on this overheads recording Ex10.10: WAV/MP3play_arrow, for instance, is considerably reduced by putting a thick duvet up behind/beside each guitarist to reduce the amount of guitar-amp sound bouncing towards the drum setup from nearby walls Ex10.11: WAV/MP3play_arrow. By the same token, some cymbal-spill harshness on one of the guitar peer arrays Ex10.12: WAV/MP3play_arrow is mitigated by using a duvet to shield one of its two close mics from ceiling reflections Ex10.13: WAV/MP3play_arrow.

Further Reading

  • Quilts & Duvets As Acoustic Absorbers: For some interesting technical data on how surprisingly effective quilts can be as acoustic absorbers, check out this Sound On Sound magazine article, where they pitted the humble duvet against a variety of off-the-shelf acoustic absorption panels: ‘Choosing & Using Porous Absorbers’.

  • The Dangers Of Sagging Phantom Power: If you’d like to know more about what you stand to lose if your phantom-power supply isn’t up the job of powering all your mics, and indeed how to test for it, check out this article from Joerg Wuttke of Schoeps: ‘The Feeble Phantom’.

  • Uninterruptible Power Supplies For Small Studios: Here are a few resources on the subject you may find useful if you’re planning to invest in a UPS for your recording work: ‘Average Joe’s Guide To UPS’ is a friendly introduction, whereas there’s a bit more nitty-gritty detail in this Recording magazine ‘AC Power Handling’ feature.