Tiny Desk-esque live recording

Get that song on tape! Errr... disk?
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marqueemoon
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Tiny Desk-esque live recording

Post by marqueemoon » Thu Feb 23, 2023 9:58 am

One of my bands (two guitars/bass/drums) is going to be shooting some live video footage of us playing. We're going to be submitting to the Tiny Desk contest (one song) and we're hoping to get 4-5 songs total we can use for general promo purposes. The plan is to do this quasi-Tiny Desk style (as low a volume as we can muster on electric instruments/acoustic drums). We've had a few practices and gotten our list down to the 5 songs we feel work best this way.

I've volunteered to do the audio since I have some gear and experience in this area. My interface has 4 inputs. What I have in mind is just a stereo mic in the room, direct bass (to provide some low end to supplement the room sound), and a mic on the lead singer (we'll be performing without a PA). We are quiet enough that I think backing vocals will come through enough in the room mics, and having bass and lead vocals will help me balance those elements as needed against the stereo pair. The bass really carries this band, so I think being able to fill out the low end with subtle use of an amp sim will really help everything feel good. The drummer is playing with hot rods, so there is already a bit more kick vs. snare in the sound of his kit.

To me it makes the most sense to keep this simple. I will only be able to monitor on headphones between takes, and we have very limited time. I also have to perform.

I do have my trusty Mackie 1202VLZ and *could* close mic things, but it feels like a slippery slope to me. If I did do that I would probably do guitar amps, kick, and a mono overhead and blend that with the stereo room mic on two tracks (just enough of the close mics to give a little definition), then have direct bass and a mic on the lead vocal. There are some videos from the Tiny Desk crew on how they mic things, but a lot of their approach is about hiding the mics which I see no particular need to do. What would likely suffer the most is backing vocals. If I had a mic on my vocal and added it to the two track submix it would be completely dry though, which might sound weird. Depending on how the room sounds I'll likely add a touch of reverb in the mix just to sweeten things a little and help the lead vocal pop, but it's going to need to feel like the viewer is in the room watching the band, so it will be subtle.

There's also the matter of the vocal mic. The singer being a videographer does have a shotgun mic. I told him I'm open to trying it, but since we are going PA-less and it's a pattern he's unfamiliar with, his vocal isn't going to be usable in the mix if it drops off steeply if he isn't perfectly on-mic and he will have no way to know. I'd prefer to go cardioid. We're not obligated to stick with the Tiny Desk aesthetic, and I think that will give a better result. Plosives are a concern. A pop filter probably won't fly in the looks department. I feel like my RE-20 is ok in that area as long as you aren't *right* up on it, but maybe a 58 with an added foam windscreen in the safe bet here?

While I feel like I've outgrown it in many ways I'll be using Garageband for this. I generally don't like to try to do anything heroic with plugins when a "live" sound is the goal anyway, but the stock plugins aren't great. I will likely print compression more as a "take saver" thing, and leave a lot of headroom.

Thoughts on all of this? Any tips if you've done something similar?

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Re: Tiny Desk-esque live recording

Post by øøøøøøø » Thu Feb 23, 2023 11:01 am

I've performed on an actual Tiny Desk Concert at the NPR studio, and watching how they did it was pretty fascinating with a few surprises. To my recollection almost every single microphone I saw was a shotgun mic--even the vocal.

This was probably done to keep the mics as much out of the visible shot as possible.

Your approach sounds sensible enough to me, except I would definitely stick a mic in the vicinity of the kick drum. This isn't necessarily about level, but about timbre. If you decide you want a little more punch and authority from the kick, that would be very hard to get without a mic up close capturing the low end (and taking advantage of proximity effect). This isn't so much about balance/level but about timbre.

If the band has a great acoustic ensemble blend in the room (sans-PA) then a minimal setup will yield a very good result. If the balance is more typically reliant on a PA and good FOH engineer, the result from a minimal setup may not be as satisfying.

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Re: Tiny Desk-esque live recording

Post by marqueemoon » Thu Feb 23, 2023 11:49 am

øøøøøøø wrote:
Thu Feb 23, 2023 11:01 am
If the band has a great acoustic ensemble blend in the room (sans-PA) then a minimal setup will yield a very good result. If the balance is more typically reliant on a PA and good FOH engineer, the result from a minimal setup may not be as satisfying.
Thanks. We are *really* trying for getting a good balance in the room. I think it would be smart to have a close micing plan in case room acoustics are unflattering, etc…

Finding a place level-wise where everyone is comfortable (or least uncomfortable really) is tough! A few songs have been cut because they just don’t have the right feel at low volume. It’s been very eye opening for me to realize how much I rely on volume and my amp compressing. I am probably going to cheat and use my attenuator so I can play a little sloppier.

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Re: Tiny Desk-esque live recording

Post by Embenny » Thu Feb 23, 2023 1:13 pm

I don't know what your music sounds like, or the room you'll be in, but a classic technique that's still used in bluegrass today is to use an omni mic on the vocals, and have the singers arranged circumferentially around it. You basically adjust your levels by having the lead vocalist closest to it and the other singers farther away. A similar concept would involve a figure-8 with the backup singers opposite the lead vocalist.

But the style of music and sound of the room would probably dictate the appropriateness of that method. Those bands typically have great mic technique, and know how to lean in or away to balance the different voices throughout the song.

The nice (or not nice) thing about an omni is that it also serves as a room mic to an extent, which may work to your favour if you're trying to pare down the total number of mics used.
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Re: Tiny Desk-esque live recording

Post by marqueemoon » Thu Feb 23, 2023 3:28 pm

Embenny wrote:
Thu Feb 23, 2023 1:13 pm
I don't know what your music sounds like, or the room you'll be in, but a classic technique that's still used in bluegrass today is to use an omni mic on the vocals, and have the singers arranged circumferentially around it. You basically adjust your levels by having the lead vocalist closest to it and the other singers farther away. A similar concept would involve a figure-8 with the backup singers opposite the lead vocalist.

But the style of music and sound of the room would probably dictate the appropriateness of that method. Those bands typically have great mic technique, and know how to lean in or away to balance the different voices throughout the song.

The nice (or not nice) thing about an omni is that it also serves as a room mic to an extent, which may work to your favour if you're trying to pare down the total number of mics used.
Our music is pretty straight ahead electric Americana/indie rock.

I love going super minimal, but I think this approach works best when the voice is one of the louder elements.

One of my bandmates sent me this as an example of a Tiny Desk concert by a band with rock instruments they thought sounded good. It does sound good, but what immediately stood out to me is how buried the lead vocal is. It seems that if they could have made it louder they would have. Probably too much other stuff bleeding in.

For our stuff nobody is going to be mad about seeing the singer with a 58. It’s a pattern he’s used to, and something I can work with in a mix. It will also have the practical effect of keeping the singer in “show mode” (facing the “audience”, head up, etc…).

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Re: Tiny Desk-esque live recording

Post by mcatano » Tue Feb 28, 2023 8:11 am

Were I you, and not knowing the music or the space at all, I would rent a tiny vocal PA and put any all vocals and the kick through it.

It'll save you a world of headache and time vs trying to get a perfect balance in the room.

Just a single powered speaker is probably more than enough, and I'd put it on the floor so the vocalists can also use it as a monitor.

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Re: Tiny Desk-esque live recording

Post by øøøøøøø » Tue Feb 28, 2023 8:31 am

…or everyone could just listen and balance themselves.

The #1 principle of ensemble blend, to me, is “make sure you can hear every note every other member of the band is producing.”

If everyone plays according to that principle, the band should sound great in the room

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Re: Tiny Desk-esque live recording

Post by marqueemoon » Tue Feb 28, 2023 11:31 am

øøøøøøø wrote:
Tue Feb 28, 2023 8:31 am
…or everyone could just listen and balance themselves.

The #1 principle of ensemble blend, to me, is “make sure you can hear every note every other member of the band is producing.”

If everyone plays according to that principle, the band should sound great in the room
Currently this is the plan.

A friend of mine whose ears I trust is going to help us with setting levels.

I’m going to bring a 5W amp and attenuator which I think will help a bit with feel. I’m also going to play a solidbody guitar, which will be quieter acoustically than my usual gigging guitar.

I did some experimental recording in our practice space with the other drummer I play with using my Superlux S502 ORTF mic, and based on this I’m confident that if we balance ourselves well in the room and play well we will get a good result.

Stereo mic in the room + direct bass and close miced lead vocal is still the plan.

This is happening tonight, so we’ll see…

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Re: Tiny Desk-esque live recording

Post by øøøøøøø » Tue Feb 28, 2023 11:56 am

Do you have some gobos, or even just some extra mic stands (and/or spring clips) and moving blankets?

If using a stereo mic in the room to capture, the room sound is (quite obviously) going to matter a lot

Anything you can do to tame things a bit will likely help. Low end is going to be the biggest challenge; since you're capturing bass direct, it'll help if whatever the bassist is monitoring is a shade quieter than you might prefer.

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Re: Tiny Desk-esque live recording

Post by marqueemoon » Tue Feb 28, 2023 4:31 pm

øøøøøøø wrote:
Tue Feb 28, 2023 11:56 am
Do you have some gobos, or even just some extra mic stands (and/or spring clips) and moving blankets?

If using a stereo mic in the room to capture, the room sound is (quite obviously) going to matter a lot

Anything you can do to tame things a bit will likely help. Low end is going to be the biggest challenge; since you're capturing bass direct, it'll help if whatever the bassist is monitoring is a shade quieter than you might prefer.
Yeah, the bass is gonna need to be a little quieter.

We will have a few extra boom stands that could be used to set flat and drape blankets over.

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Re: Tiny Desk-esque live recording

Post by øøøøøøø » Tue Feb 28, 2023 5:27 pm

I often find myself placing gobos around drums even if I don’t need isolation, just to tighten things up in the close mics a bit

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Re: Tiny Desk-esque live recording

Post by UlricvonCatalyst » Wed Mar 01, 2023 1:23 am

If you haven't watched it already, you might find this inspiring: Recording In A 1950s Style Recording Studio

Obviously the outboard gear helps, but a lot of it is about mic (and personnel) placement, as far as I recall.

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Re: Tiny Desk-esque live recording

Post by marqueemoon » Wed Mar 01, 2023 3:06 pm

^I will check that out. The shoot was last night, so what's done is done.

We ended up going minimalist. Our singer does videography for a living, so a lot of the focus (pun intended) was on the visual part. Given the time we had to work with it would not have been practical to start close micing things.

The good news is the room sounded really great. It was built out for shooting video and the ceiling and walls were well treated, but it was still live enough that the vocals were easy to follow unamplified.

Our singer had a shotgun mic, so we tried it on his vocal just to try it. As I suspected, it didn't work. It was way too crispy and picked up too much of everything else. I put my RE20 up instead and it seems to have done exactly the job I was hoping (giving a subtle heft and up frontness to the vocal). Beauty is in the eye of the beholder I guess, but if you need to have a mic in a shot you could do a lot worse than an RE20 in my opinion.

There were a few incidents of random digital-seeming clipping with the direct bass which was a little frustrating. I'm kind of wondering if it was the (class D) amp itself as I was taking an XLR out from that. In retrospect I wish I had just given him a passive DI. Oh well. The instances of clipping were infrequent enough that they may not even be present on the takes we ultimately pick, and it shouldn't be a huge chore to edit them out if needed.

The bass player is used to being up pretty high when we play at full volume, so having his level and low end in the room pared back was a challenge for him from a performance standpoint, but I think he did great.

I think we got some good stuff. Our music is pretty basic in some respects and complex in others. Simplicity is hard to do well, and we also push ourselves a lot, particularly me. A lot of what I play is improvised to a degree. Throw in the variable of extreme low volume, and mistakes are bound to happen, and they did, but nothing serious. I think we have some good takes to pick from, and showing our human-ness is a lot of the point here.

Guitar stuff:

Bringing a 5W amp and an attenuator was absolutely the right move for me. I rely heavily on my volume pedal and I'm used to a particular response from the amp when I use it. Having the amp cooking a bit more got me the "knee" I'm used to from the volume pedal back along with some of the note bloom I was missing.

I also felt that at this volume kicking on my Rat just sounded all wrong, so I didn't touch that. I just left my Archer on almost all the time and used a combo of digging in harder and rolling up on the volume pedal when I needed more volume and dirt. From a practical standpoint we were playing so quietly that every footswitch click will be audible to some degree, so I wanted to do as little of that as possible.

I played my Tele on the neck pickup 100% of the time.

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Re: Tiny Desk-esque live recording

Post by øøøøøøø » Wed Mar 01, 2023 3:11 pm

I have the expensive version of the iZotope RX suite, so if you need help with that bass situation let me know.

I'll be out of the country for about a week, but if your time frame is longer than that I'd be happy to help

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Re: Tiny Desk-esque live recording

Post by marqueemoon » Wed Mar 01, 2023 3:35 pm

øøøøøøø wrote:
Wed Mar 01, 2023 3:11 pm
I have the expensive version of the iZotope RX suite, so if you need help with that bass situation let me know.

I'll be out of the country for about a week, but if your time frame is longer than that I'd be happy to help
That is super kind of you.

We are submitting the best song to the TD contest on 3/15, so that could be tight.

We’re hoping another 2 or 3 will be usable for our own promo purposes. Not as much of a time crunch for that.

My brain is fried, and the idea of listening critically to this volume of material is daunting right now, but I will need to dive into it in the next day or so.

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