Last couple of weeks, I have been working with an interesting blues/roots rock "band" that consists of two players, the singer guitarist and an upright bass who plays a kick drum at the same time.
The guitarist plays slide on either a semi-electric kay straight into a small tube combo amp, or a resonator or an acoustic through a pedal board/di setup.
One Saturday, I arrive at the venue to find out the bassist has gone on a trip with another band he plays in and the guitarist/singer is going to play solo. We set him up to play the kick and high hat with his feet while he plays guitar with his hands.
In order to create some width/depth to the mix I choose to double mic the guitar amp by mixing a dynamic mic with a LDC. Each mic was slightly panned away from each other and set at slightly different distances from the speaker. The mains in the room were 90 degree boxes stacked SL and SR and only about 16 feet from each other, so most of the room did have some sort of stereo coverage.
The double mic worked fantastic, and had a great tone. The band following use used the same amp at basically the same level through the channel with the dynamic mic on basically the same eq settings and had nowhere near the same impact/depth. The end result was a mix that had the same size as a five piece band but with much more clarity.
I am pretty sure I picked up the idea from a Dave Rat blog/article but I am never sure just what is floating around in the back of my brain. I don't work with drums or electric guitars a lot, but when I do it is neat to see how these "big stage" ideas still work in smaller venues, and it is really nice to see how they can set one "band" apart from the rest of the lineup in a 4 band bill.
The guitarist plays slide on either a semi-electric kay straight into a small tube combo amp, or a resonator or an acoustic through a pedal board/di setup.
One Saturday, I arrive at the venue to find out the bassist has gone on a trip with another band he plays in and the guitarist/singer is going to play solo. We set him up to play the kick and high hat with his feet while he plays guitar with his hands.
In order to create some width/depth to the mix I choose to double mic the guitar amp by mixing a dynamic mic with a LDC. Each mic was slightly panned away from each other and set at slightly different distances from the speaker. The mains in the room were 90 degree boxes stacked SL and SR and only about 16 feet from each other, so most of the room did have some sort of stereo coverage.
The double mic worked fantastic, and had a great tone. The band following use used the same amp at basically the same level through the channel with the dynamic mic on basically the same eq settings and had nowhere near the same impact/depth. The end result was a mix that had the same size as a five piece band but with much more clarity.
I am pretty sure I picked up the idea from a Dave Rat blog/article but I am never sure just what is floating around in the back of my brain. I don't work with drums or electric guitars a lot, but when I do it is neat to see how these "big stage" ideas still work in smaller venues, and it is really nice to see how they can set one "band" apart from the rest of the lineup in a 4 band bill.
