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Old 06-03-2019, 12:20 PM
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Default Figure 8 Vs hypercardiod?

Looking for some mic tech advice
Conventional wisdom suggests using figure 8 for recording vocals and guitar at the same time. By pointing the null of one mic towards the source you will get a good amount of off axis rejection. I did get decent results using this technique. But I was wondering ......

What about hypercordiod or supercardiod patterns. Since you are not getting a signal from the back of the mic would you not get more overall rejection. Assume it’s a decent sounding room and I have loads of absorption panels both on the wall and for portable placement

I am currently in transit now but when I get home I will experiment more.
The 2 mics I have are an AKG 414b and a Neumann M149, so I have the patterns to play with.
The pre is a great river and the converter is an apogee Rosetta 200

Are there mics I could use for voice and/or guitar that I can get even better off axis rejection from. Perhaps a dynamic mic such as the Shure M7.
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Old 06-03-2019, 06:20 PM
Fran Guidry Fran Guidry is offline
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,,,
What about hypercordiod or supercardiod patterns. Since you are not getting a signal from the back of the mic would you not get more overall rejection.
But in fact you do get response from the rear, just not directly behind the mic. If you find a good polar plot you'll see "lobes" of sensitivity at an angle to the rear of the mics.

The issue is that the figure 8 has the strongest null of any mic pattern.

Quote:
I am currently in transit now but when I get home I will experiment more.
The 2 mics I have are an AKG 414b and a Neumann M149, so I have the patterns to play with.
With those mics you're in a great position to experiment and find which approach works best for you.

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Are there mics I could use for voice and/or guitar that I can get even better off axis rejection from. Perhaps a dynamic mic such as the Shure M7.
Dynamics don't have any better off-axis rejection, they simply have lower sensitivity. Once you've added gain to match the level of a condenser the off-axis level will be the same as the condenser.

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Old 06-03-2019, 07:34 PM
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I have been very impressed with using figure 8s to record this way. In fact I just purchased another ribbon mic today for this very purpose.
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Old 06-04-2019, 08:01 AM
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As always it totally depends on exactly what you are actually trying to achieve, and personal preference.

Ostensibly the reason to record the Guitar and Vocal at the same time with mics , is #1 to get more of the "live performance" feel and #2 with the mic sound on guitar (as opposed to plugged to the pickup sound)

So here are some general things to consider :

In that situation because you are going for that (combined at the same time performance feel )---- what bleed does occur may not really be such a big issue as to require jumping through significant extra hoops beyond figure 8 or cardiod
Look how many hit folk songs were recorded using one LDC in the 50's and 60's

Yes being able to process voice and guitar totally separately is nice, BUT how necessary is it really to get a good sound ?
If that is the ultimate desire then realistically recording separately is the ultimate solution.


Given that theoretically we who sing and play, tend choose guitars that suit, or complement our voice (so generally there is not some significant anomaly of incompatible frequencies going on)
Consider that in general things like EQ, Compression and or Reverb can certainly still be done separately and may not be compromised by what little of bleed is actually happening .
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Old 06-05-2019, 06:03 AM
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Originally Posted by KevWind View Post
As always it totally depends on exactly what you are actually trying to achieve, and personal preference.

Ostensibly the reason to record the Guitar and Vocal at the same time with mics , is #1 to get more of the "live performance" feel and #2 with the mic sound on guitar (as opposed to plugged to the pickup sound)

So here are some general things to consider :

In that situation because you are going for that (combined at the same time performance feel )---- what bleed does occur may not really be such a big issue as to require jumping through significant extra hoops beyond figure 8 or cardiod
Look how many hit folk songs were recorded using one LDC in the 50's and 60's

Yes being able to process voice and guitar totally separately is nice, BUT how necessary is it really to get a good sound ?
If that is the ultimate desire then realistically recording separately is the ultimate solution.


Given that theoretically we who sing and play, tend choose guitars that suit, or complement our voice (so generally there is not some significant anomaly of incompatible frequencies going on)
Consider that in general things like EQ, Compression and or Reverb can certainly still be done separately and may not be compromised by what little of bleed is actually happening .

So far I recorded a bunch of songs tracking the guitar and vocals separately and 2 songs with using the figure 8 set up, singing and playing at the same time.

Sonically the tracked songs do sound better but they do not have the synergy of the live performance. However, When played back with a hard pan the live performance sounds great. When played in mono you can hear a small amount of phase issue. I think it’s worth the small loss of fidelity considering its feel much better. And I will experiment with mic placement as well reversing the phase and/or EQ (good learning moments for me)

The other obsession is with the ability to tweek the pitch of the vocals when tracked separately. I have good pitch but not always perfect. But once again, I prefer the feel and vibe of the live takes and can live with a few slightly off pitch notes, as long as the emotional content is on. Ifs it’s really noticeable I will just do another take.

As a side note, I tried using melodyne In polyphonic mode on the vocals (both guitar and voice are recorded in one stereo track. and ........) I’ll leave it as it is
I guess the technology is not there yet.
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Old 06-05-2019, 07:10 AM
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The phase should be miniscule unless you've got really big distances involved, i.e., how far the guitar mic is from your mouth vs. the vocal mic, are in inches, so I'd be more inclined to think any comb-filtering you are hearing is more likely due to room reflections. Check your treatment, or be careful with FX on the individual tracks. (Yeah, I don't think you'll get satisfactory results trying to Melodyne the vocal track when tracking both together, unless you've really got the ribbons perfect, perhaps, and then maybe standing up to increase the distances.)

You might try doing that first tracking as just a scratch, then go back and do them separately, with the scratch in your monitors. You might be able to keep the feel that way, but then end up with independent tracks that are more malleable. It's what I do when I'm going to be adding more folks in. Sometimes the scratch stays, but a lot of time, it can be replaced by something better when the focus is just on the guitar or vocal.
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Old 06-05-2019, 07:22 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mbroady View Post
So far I recorded a bunch of songs tracking the guitar and vocals separately and 2 songs with using the figure 8 set up, singing and playing at the same time.

Sonically the tracked songs do sound better but they do not have the synergy of the live performance. However, When played back with a hard pan the live performance sounds great. When played in mono you can hear a small amount of phase issue. I think it’s worth the small loss of fidelity considering its feel much better. And I will experiment with mic placement as well reversing the phase and/or EQ (good learning moments for me)

The other obsession is with the ability to tweek the pitch of the vocals when tracked separately. I have good pitch but not always perfect. But once again, I prefer the feel and vibe of the live takes and can live with a few slightly off pitch notes, as long as the emotional content is on. Ifs it’s really noticeable I will just do another take.

As a side note, I tried using melodyne In polyphonic mode on the vocals (both guitar and voice are recorded in one stereo track. and ........) I’ll leave it as it is
I guess the technology is not there yet.
I'am not understanding the "hard pan"
Your using two mics <Yes ? One on guitar and one on vocal <Yes ? then aren't they panned in the center ? Or are you saying you are panning the guitar to one side and the vocal to the other ?
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Old 06-05-2019, 08:41 AM
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I'am not understanding the "hard pan"
Your using two mics <Yes ? One on guitar and one on vocal <Yes ? then aren't they panned in the center ? Or are you saying you are panning the guitar to one side and the vocal to the other ?
Yep, panning guitar to one side and vocal to the other. There is actually pretty good separation with just a little bleed . when I pan them all to the center it gets a little wolfy and the low end is bit accentuated. But it's not dramatic.

The vocal track , which I use the m149 on has less guitar then the guitar track has vocals on, which I'm using the 414 on. But all and all the figure 8 technique is working really well.
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Old 06-05-2019, 08:45 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by keith.rogers View Post
The phase should be miniscule unless you've got really big distances involved, i.e., how far the guitar mic is from your mouth vs. the vocal mic, are in inches, so I'd be more inclined to think any comb-filtering you are hearing is more likely due to room reflections. Check your treatment, or be careful with FX on the individual tracks. (Yeah, I don't think you'll get satisfactory results trying to Melodyne the vocal track when tracking both together, unless you've really got the ribbons perfect, perhaps, and then maybe standing up to increase the distances.)

You might try doing that first tracking as just a scratch, then go back and do them separately, with the scratch in your monitors. You might be able to keep the feel that way, but then end up with independent tracks that are more malleable. It's what I do when I'm going to be adding more folks in. Sometimes the scratch stays, but a lot of time, it can be replaced by something better when the focus is just on the guitar or vocal.

Thanks for the suggestions. Definitely food for thought. As I mentioned to key wind I get very little guitar on the vocal track but the guitar mic picks up a little more voice. But it is impressive how much separation you can get. I'll experiment more with the guitar mic as well as your other suggestions
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Old 06-05-2019, 08:47 AM
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The other obsession is with the ability to tweek the pitch of the vocals when tracked separately. I have good pitch but not always perfect. But once again, I prefer the feel and vibe of the live takes and can live with a few slightly off pitch notes, as long as the emotional content is on. Ifs it’s really noticeable I will just do another take.
Just get your speed up on your DAW to the point where cutting between takes isn't something you stress about.
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Old 06-05-2019, 09:06 AM
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Just get your speed up on your DAW to the point where cutting between takes isn't something you stress about.
Can you clarify. Are you talkin about punching in and punching out. If yes I don't have any noticeable latency to speak of, so I can punch in and out, but for live takes and no click track .......something to try. I have good timing so last night I was able to take two different tracks and comp them
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Old 06-05-2019, 09:25 AM
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Can you clarify. Are you talkin about punching in and punching out. If yes...
No. No punching. I mean you do a whole take (guitar and vocal at the same time), play back and hear some pitchy spots, then re-record those bits and chop them into the first take.

This, to me, is the right way to do it. But some people angst so much about the editing that they go to great lengths to avoid working this way. It all comes down to being comfortable with your editing chops on the DAW. So you owe it to yourself to get good at it.
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Old 06-05-2019, 11:17 AM
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No. No punching. I mean you do a whole take (guitar and vocal at the same time), play back and hear some pitchy spots, then re-record those bits and chop them into the first take.

This, to me, is the right way to do it. But some people angst so much about the editing that they go to great lengths to avoid working this way. It all comes down to being comfortable with your editing chops on the DAW. So you owe it to yourself to get good at it.
Hi BH

Most modern recording programs (at least the higher end ones) allow what you speak of. Back in the day (talking tape here) punch-in/out was a replacement for re-recording the entire track.

And early digital software had limits on the number of tracks we could record (a limitation of both the computers and the software)…so punch-in/out allowed us to alter the original track instead of pushing the total track/effects limits.

Modern computers and programs have improved, so just adding a track and re-recording the section while listening to the original, then pasting-it-over/blending-it-into the original track is easy these days.





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Old 06-05-2019, 11:22 AM
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Didn't mean to start a debate. Do it however you like.
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Old 06-05-2019, 11:53 AM
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Didn't mean to start a debate. Do it however you like.
Love a good healthy debate, and yes, thats what i mean by comping tracks. When there is no click track it takes a little finess to line it up, but when it works well you cant tell.
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