The ambient mic in the dead room (where the bass cabinet and guitar cabinets were) was placed across the room from and roughly in between the two guitar cabinets. Here's some ascii art to clarify.

BC = BassCabinet, GC1 = GuitarCabinet1, GC2 = GuitarCabinet2, M = Microphone

The way that I typically use an ambient mic, you're not going to be getting many spacial cues from it when it's used with the close mics. Unless you are going for a certain effect or if only one guitar is playing at a time, I'd generally have this panned somewhere in the middle. You can figure it out pretty easily if, for example, let's say that you have GC1 mostly panned to the left, GC2 panned mostly to the right and you have a good balance between the two, you solo up those with the ambient mic, move the pan of the ambient mic around the center point until you feel like you have a good balance, bring in the bass to see if it gets weird, and, if it doesn't, then you're done.

An ambient mic like this for your guitars can really add some realism to the sound of electric guitar amps, that's why you'll see it used quite often. It probably comes from realising that the sound of the guitar amps was better whenever some bleed from the talkback/scratch vocal mic was in the monitoring mix.

russ

Gaetano,

I believe (and correct me if I'm wrong, guys) that it's another 414 under the floor tom.

Russ,
Thanks much for the info on the ambient mic. I'm waiting in anticipation of Intern's article on the mix sessions. I'm quite curious about pan positions, especially in regard to stereo recording of amplifiers. By the way, what did you learn regarding the use of the Sony mics? I have my own opinions of them , but I'm curious as to what you found. Thanks again.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

PS-Spell check caught "I'm" and "mic," and "mics." Does the spell check have something against contractions and abbreviated studio terms?

This is a great thread, thanks a lot Intern_8033 and Russ for the details.

everyone's input has been dead-on with intern 8033's description of this recording session...however, i believe that the forum has been too generous in overlooking a glaring mistake that this intern has made right off the bat. "Velocity" is not an awesome band name. in fact i would say that velocity is a horrible band name. next time i would like to see an alias with a little more character like "sad panda priapism" or "anal jihad."
that being said, i would very much like there to be a next time because this is an excellent use of interns/forums.

-eric

Silver Sparkle.

Even Rumsfeld must have good taste sometimes.

The jumpsuits are very nice! Are they supplied buy the studio? Is it a colour co-ordination thing? Who does the laundry? Do you use colour-safe detergent? Do you have a preference of fabric softeners? Are they allowed to leave the studio? Has anyone stolen one? Do you iron them? Are you wearing anything underneath them? Meow meow! OK, seriously, it looks very nice, and thanks for the pics. Now I only need to save up for a year and buy a Coles...

Hi seb

You're not wrong and it's next to impossible to get the ambient completely in phase but that (to me at least)is part of the point. People tend to forget that phase isn't always you're enemy and can actually be used creatively. For instance, if you're double tracking a rhythm part try panning close mics hard left and right and the ambients to the opposite 3 and 9 oclocks to their close mic counterparts. As you bring the ambients up you'll hear the comb filtering effect wash the guitars in to the track a bit more in a way that I at least really like.

Glad to see steve does the 20ms ambient mike trick too. Been doing that for a while to clear up phase relationship and give the impression of a larger room. Also good to see the two close mics on bass pointing at the same place, another favourite of mine. The ducking on the batter side of the bass drum was a great idea that never occured to me. Are they're any other applications for ducking mics from others on a kit you've found work well?

Anyway, already taken far too much of your time up but thanks loads for the insights anyway intern.

Any way we could get the images and links restored in this thread?