Large Diaphragm Mics

[øøøøøøø]

I once saw a 5-piece bluegrass outfit play to one ribbon mic on the stage. They made a small circle around it and whoever was soloing or singing just walked inside the circle a step. It was live of course, but I was stunned, shocked, even astounded at how well I could hear *everything* that every instrument was doing. I mean, I was completely floored at the sound and sight, and how brilliantly it worked. One lousy mic on stage! Even the dang double bass sounded perfect in the mix!

This may be an obvious thing to say, but the phenomenon you’re describing here has absolutely zero to do with the microphone. Nothing at all, except that the microphone just happened to be positioned inside a group with good ensemble blend

[jorri]

I once saw a 5-piece bluegrass outfit play to one ribbon mic on the stage. They made a small circle around it and whoever was soloing or singing just walked inside the circle a step. It was live of course, but I was stunned, shocked, even astounded at how well I could hear *everything* that every instrument was doing. I mean, I was completely floored at the sound and sight, and how brilliantly it worked. One lousy mic on stage! Even the dang double bass sounded perfect in the mix!

This may be an obvious thing to say, but the phenomenon you’re describing here has absolutely zero to do with the microphone. Nothing at all, except that the microphone just happened to be positioned inside a group with good ensemble blend

now THAT is the secret of old timey recordings

[jorri]

I once saw a 5-piece bluegrass outfit play to one ribbon mic on the stage. They made a small circle around it and whoever was soloing or singing just walked inside the circle a step. It was live of course, but I was stunned, shocked, even astounded at how well I could hear *everything* that every instrument was doing. I mean, I was completely floored at the sound and sight, and how brilliantly it worked. One lousy mic on stage! Even the dang double bass sounded perfect in the mix!

This may be an obvious thing to say, but the phenomenon you’re describing here has absolutely zero to do with the microphone. Nothing at all, except that the microphone just happened to be positioned inside a group with good ensemble blend

now THAT is the secret of old timey recordings

as in the fact that like your previous post, not knowing what you are doing can be good. They just stuck a mic infront of things in the available way to get an accurate balanced recording as was possible. But had to learn to play as an ensemble without a single volume control, often not even one on an amplifier. Once that's done, whatever it is cuts through.

I'd also question whether they thought the recording was as good as the live thing back in the day, and would grab a super clean realistic setup if they had the tech. But i get the sound nostalgia of sounding a bit lofi, i personally love it, but still more kitsch than 'recreation' because back then the live unamplified sound was the focus? and get awed when i see a like acoustic ensemble of any kind. [side note]

Creativesoundlab on youtube does a bunch of this stuff, although its a modern update, its all about the ribbon mics, using ambient mics in shit rooms, vocal reamping and echo chambers, and there's a video of miccing a live bluegrass influenced band albeit with at least 6 mics.

[DeathJag]

I once saw a 5-piece bluegrass outfit play to one ribbon mic on the stage. They made a small circle around it and whoever was soloing or singing just walked inside the circle a step. It was live of course, but I was stunned, shocked, even astounded at how well I could hear *everything* that every instrument was doing. I mean, I was completely floored at the sound and sight, and how brilliantly it worked. One lousy mic on stage! Even the dang double bass sounded perfect in the mix!

This may be an obvious thing to say, but the phenomenon you’re describing here has absolutely zero to do with the microphone. Nothing at all, except that the microphone just happened to be positioned inside a group with good ensemble blend

Naw, it was a combo of the ribbon mic and the way they were positioned. I’m 100% positive that it would not have worked with say, a U87. Or any other non-figure 8 mic. I do lots and lots of professional recording in rooms and I know mics in rooms, and you’ll have to trust me on this.

It was also how they played, they were acoustic instruments and they all played them “in the pocket;” the overall sound was carefully considered and no one was a show off.

[andy_tchp]

[jorri]

Sure, the polar pattern and bass extension of ribbons will have some effect.
Then you start using maybe two u87 and eq. Fair enough. Fig 8 mics arent so rare. The placement of nulls at the side i expect is very useful. As well as the rear room sound. And whatever transient, frequency effects a ribbon has.
But can be compensated, if not replicated by use of additional mics that would be apt for an ensemble. A condenser would be placed elsewhere, different distances for different patterns, and sound quite different but there could be ways to make it sound as together, since the ensemble is already playing together, its bound to be hard to make it /not/ sound like them.

[Steadyriot.]

I was watching this video last night (I'm looking at getting a mic for home recording) and was astounded by the Siemens D12 at the end of the video. It sounded about as vintage as you can get; and that's without any real post-processing (according to the author). I guess a good vintage mic would get you there easily too.

What did you end up doing OP?