John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Crew,

One of the uses for my new Korg D1600mkII will be that of location recording...recording bands at their gigs, recording artists at their location of choice, etc.

The machine I used to use for this task was my old Fostex VF-16; & when recording bands at clubs, for example...I always got great results on individual instruments & drums by using Shure SM-57's on each instrument amp & at points surrounding the traps. Great results.

But I could never seem to figure out the best mike for recording PA speakers.

Does anyone have any experience with this & good ideas on the topic?

What's the best mic to use for recording PA speakers?

(&...on method...one mic on the woofer & one mic on the cone?)

Thanks,

mark4man

surely a direct feed from the PA mixer would be a better way to go.

cheers
john

John...

Yeah...shoulda' thought of that...too much his w/ the mics on the columns.

Thanks, man...

mark4man

"too much his w/ the mics on the columns" - shouldn't be ANY difference from that standpoint; speakers don't GENERATE hiss, they only REPRODUCE whatever's at their input (sometimes even accurately )

If you're not also running an audience mic to mix back, micing the columns might make sense - the "big giant head" approach could work for that, but placing it where you'd get a decent stereo feed would be difficult in a lot of venues I've experienced. Also, I've found I dont WANT that much crowd noise in most cases, and the "head" used by itself would leave you no choice after the fact.

If you ARE micing speakers, using the flattest mics you have will give the closest sound to what was actually in the room - can be good or bad.

Probably the best combo of ease and results (IMO) would be John's comment about a direct board feed, combined with an audience mic (small condenser usually) placed overhead and aimed more toward the audience than the stage, recorded on its own separate track so you can "add to taste" later during mixdown.

If your clients are running dimmer packs on the lights, keep your mic cable a few feet away from any of their stuff -

HTH... Steve