I ask because I do it frequently. I'll often use a dynamic or a ribbon in conjunction with a LD condenser for my singer's main vox, capsules right on top on each other. The singer sort of aims for the point where the two nearly touch. The mics usually go to different pres' and finally are recorded together one a mono track, or sent to the L+R of a stereo pair.

I like to get a mixture od dfifferent mic textures when recording all sorts of sources, and i was wondering why i never see anyone use the method. Then this week a client complained about what he thought was phase cancellations in the lead vocal. He's not really an expert or anything, but still, it got me thinking i might be playing with fire. I mean, the capsules aren't touching. There's maybe 2 inches of space when you take the external grills into acount. Is that enough space to cause comb filtering on a lead vocal?

Well as you know, the typcial answer for any recording question is "it depends." It would probably have a much greater affect if the singer was closer to the mics and oppose to farther away. I would say 2 inches is enough to make a difference with close source mic'ing.

I just did this on a project the other day. One mic picked up low mid and was alittle boxy and the other was super clear and airy. A 2:1 or 3:1 ratio in the mix sounded great.

phase doesn't have anything to do with capsules touching or having them a fixed distance from each other. when you have 2 mics picking up the same source, phase has to do with each mic in reference to the source, not the other mic.
this is particularly important to watch for on a vocal if you're micing it with 2 mics because there's so many different things going on in a vocal timbre, with usually a wide range of notes and dynamics, there's bound to be phase.

you'd probably be better off using them like a spaced pair (like 1 foot away) and just boosting the gain a little bit. you'll still need to listen for phase. i've always enjoyed vocals miced form a littler further away. it sounds more natural to me.

jeremy

Jeremy wrote:phase doesn't have anything to do with capsules touching or having them a fixed distance from each other. when you have 2 mics picking up the same source, phase has to do with each mic in reference to the source, not the other mic.

Right. Phase isn't caused by the distance between the mics exactly... but distance between the mics will usually mean a difference in distance from the source. There's still much of a correlation between the two.

I'd say 2 inches is about the worst kind of distance between the capsules.

I do this all the time by the way. I'll use a 57 and a tube mic or whatever but the capsules have to be as close as possible, 2 inches will create noticeable comb filtering effects.

bubbleboy wrote:I'd say 2 inches is about the worst kind of distance between the capsules.

I do this all the time by the way. I'll use a 57 and a tube mic or whatever but the capsules have to be as close as possible, 2 inches will create noticeable comb filtering effects.

the distance bewteen the capsules does not matter as long as both capsules are the same distance from the source.


I've used two (close) mics on vocals before. The most effective was taping a Shure SM98 to a D112 so the capsules were aligned. This was for a "Crust/Hardcore" vocalist. The SM98 went into my haptone JFET and was violently distorted at the preamp, and then again through the distressor. The D112 was moderately distorted as well. It sounded very violent and made the band happy. There was a lso a 3rd room mic. Actually, you can hear some crappy myspace samples here: Wasteland DC. "Age of Fear" is a doozey.

I used another 2 mic technique on a quiet female vocal. I used an Eartworks TC-30K with the diaphragm point up and her singing right above the diaphragm, with an Oktava ML-19 ribbon moc facing right at her mouth. The ribbon was lined up with the diaphragm of the TC-30K. I compressed the ribbon mic very slightly, and panned them hard left and right. As her voice increased in volume, the stereo image would shift very slightly from left to right as one mic signal got compressed and the other did not. It was a neat effect. You can hear it here: Faith Kleppinger: No Galore.mp3

best,
mike

MTAR wrote:I used another 2 mic technique on a quiet female vocal. I used an Eartworks TC-30K with the diaphragm point up and her singing right above the diaphragm, with an Oktava ML-19 ribbon moc facing right at her mouth. The ribbon was lined up with the diaphragm of the TC-30K. I compressed the ribbon mic very slightly, and panned them hard left and right. As her voice increased in volume, the stereo image would shift very slightly from left to right as one mic signal got compressed and the other did not. It was a neat effect. You can hear it here: Faith Kleppinger: No Galore.mp3

That was weird, but cool. I thought it sounded doubled at times when the compressor was pulling down. Great idea - similar to the Mid/Side technique where you control stereo width dynamically.

I like the sound of your (modded) ML-19 - is it that bright sounding naturally, or did you add quite a bit off additive HF?

Cheers,

Roddy

Rodabod wrote:

MTAR wrote:I used another 2 mic technique on a quiet female vocal. I used an Eartworks TC-30K with the diaphragm point up and her singing right above the diaphragm, with an Oktava ML-19 ribbon moc facing right at her mouth. The ribbon was lined up with the diaphragm of the TC-30K. I compressed the ribbon mic very slightly, and panned them hard left and right. As her voice increased in volume, the stereo image would shift very slightly from left to right as one mic signal got compressed and the other did not. It was a neat effect. You can hear it here: Faith Kleppinger: No Galore.mp3

That was weird, but cool. I thought it sounded doubled at times when the compressor was pulling down. Great idea - similar to the Mid/Side technique where you control stereo width dynamically.

I like the sound of your (modded) ML-19 - is it that bright sounding naturally, or did you add quite a bit off additive HF?

Cheers,

Roddy

hi rod.

this was recorded several years ago before I had them modded. There was probably a little additive high freq EQ. before the mod the ml-19s were a little honkier in the mids, around 2-4 K, whihc was mostly annoying. The sank mod smoothed the dirt out and i like them a lot more now.

mike

Another thing to be careful of when doing this with a spaced pair is if the singer is the type who moves around a lot this could cause all sorts of strange phasing issues, (just tell them to stand still i suppose)

MTAR wrote:I've used two (close) mics on vocals before. The most effective was taping a Shure SM98 to a D112 so the capsules were aligned. This was for a "Crust/Hardcore" vocalist. The SM98 went into my haptone JFET and was violently distorted at the preamp, and then again through the distressor. The D112 was moderately distorted as well. It sounded very violent and made the band happy. There was a lso a 3rd room mic. Actually, you can hear some crappy myspace samples here: Wasteland DC. "Age of Fear" is a doozey.

Just thought I'd tell you I really liked what you did with the vocal track in there. Great stuff.