https://www.instagram.com/p/BmD8GdjhBdO/?igshid=86905ql5c7ct
From Feist’s instagram. Looks like there’s an sm58 positioned in front of the pop filter with another condenser behind the pop filter, and then is that a third mic a couple of feet back? Never seen something like this... curious what the purpose is or if anyone is familiar with this technique.
Posted Oct 5, 2019, 2:01 AM UTC
She often does live vocal looping, though she usually uses a 57, but it is always aimed up at her like that next to her regular vocal mic. Then I would say room mic and guitar mic.
This is probably the most likely answer. A 58 going to some sort of processing she controls separately, a condenser (maybe a tlm103? Hard to tell, a million mics look like that) for the actual vocals, 77 for the guitar, then another one further back to capture the whole performance.
100% that, but btw thats def a u67
Ahh the david bowie thing. Mics at different distances in a really live room with gates on them so that if he sang quietly it would be close and intimate, bit if he belted, it would sound huge. They really did have cool ideas back then didnt they.
The 58 is most likely going to some guitar pedals of some kind. Joe Chiccarelli told me once about how on one of the Broken Social Scene Records he produced, all of her vocals were cut through a 57 into a pedalboard, and she would play the pedals as part of her vocal performance each take.
I’m sure that 67 is there to catch a nice clean vocal in case they want to ditch the effects later for a bridge or a down chorus, or perhaps the whole song if they go a different direction with it!
The RCA is just another mic in another place to catch both sources together for an additional flavor to combine if needed.
I’m thinking of, maybe, a FX mic (58) throws, vocoder, long reverbs, and whatnot. The condenser is her voice mic. The far away ribbon mic is a room mic to capture the performance of both her voice and guitar. And the 4th mic is getting only the guitar. My other option is she wasn’t able to decide between a 58 and a condenser. Maybe she wasn’t able to choose a “raw” &”live” 58 sound VS the “studio” feel of the condenser.
sm58: proximity effect. u67/87: main record mic. back mic: safety catch for belting, -6 to -10dB gain compared to other mics.
the sm58 can be blended in / automated in during soft passages where she gets close to the mic. the opposite for the safety mic farther away.
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The guitar mic
FWIW, it looks like a Sony C-37A.
makes sense! thanks
I’m pretty sure her vocals go through an amp. I read she hurt her vocal cords at some point early on and this is the way she does it now, an sm58 to an amp. If this was tracking I assume the other mic is for a dry signal.
Do you use only one microphone when you’re recording a Marshall half stack? Or do use two or three? Same thing.
She's talking to someone else controlling, so I'm assuming she's recording with an engineer. There may be going on specifically to try to capture something they had in mind, like using vocal condenser as a widener and the 58 as the main, etc.
Maybe she likes a 58 but the engineer said "let me also get it with a condenser". It's a good move, instead of making the talent uncomfortable by forcing an unknown mic, give her the 58 she trusts but also record with the condenser separately. Then you have a guitar mic and a room mic to have the option to blend in instead of using reverb. It's really not too fancy a setup, just the extra vocal mic makes it look a little crazy.
Although I think the most likely answer has already been stated, I often track an sm7 with an LDC with the capsules aligned for vocals, if the vocalist is going from singing to shouting then it can help keep things together. Also, if your LDC is a bit shit, then you can use the top end from there with the warmth of a dynamic.
I'm loving how many RCA's I'm seeing lately. I've done a similar setup like for tracks where a vocalist goes from quiet and intimate to loud and boisterous. I've run gates on the mics to open up the further ones when necessary.
This is only tangentially related, but check out the technique used on David Bowie's 'Heroes'. Just a fun thing to research if you haven't heard it before.
A plugin isn't good unless you pay $299 for it, and then a month later it goes on sale for $29
Absolute truth.
It's called insecurity.
There are a couple explanations I can think of.
Recording multiple mics at different distances can provide unique sounds and interesting combinations (while accounting for phase of course)
In VoiceOver, multiple mics are used in case the actor is too loud for the first mic they’ll still be clean in the further mic.
My 2c.
More than two mics will always give you phase issues, though, if they are not all the same distance from the source. Not worth the hassle, imo.Edit: The above comment is wrong for a single source.
But this is nearly trivial to fix with a modern board or DAW. Measure the distance from the mouth to each mic, divide by the speed of sound to get a time in milliseconds, and then delay each mic's signal but the furthest one.
Can always shift them
Not if there are more than two mics that are not the same distance from the source.
Why not?