Cable length in acoustic recording session

[Voideco]

Posting double. Damn mobile playing tricks.

[Voideco]

Thank you very much. I will try this out next week. The recording will be coming friday. I appreciate you taking the time to help me out. There is no band involved but we will record a couple of shamanistic instruments. The AT's record all instruments in the room. The sm57 is there for additional recording of the voice to thicken it somewhat. The m88 tg does the same for the didgeridoo and the shamanic drum so these two mics have to be in line with the AT's. The AT's are allright with eachother. Will try it out next week.

[mjslakeridge]

Thinking about it some more, in your situation since you are using room mics, perhaps the peaks won't perfectly align, since the sound will hit them at a slightly different point in time. I am not really an expert in phase cancellation, but as long as the peaks are not 180 degrees out of phase with each other, you should be alright. If the peaks were to perfectly align you probably would lose some of the room ambiance.

You can move the tracks back and forth in time relative to each other slightly to get the best sound, or leave them alone and rely on a reverb plugin to fill out the sound.

[EdwardWilliam]

Here's a classic article on the three-to-one rule of mic placement. There are many others, too. The principles will definitely have more impact on the results than cable length. http://www.recordingeq.com/articles/321eq.html


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[Voideco]

Originally Posted by mjslakeridge

Thinking about it some more, in your situation since you are using room mics, perhaps the peaks won't perfectly align, since the sound will hit them at a slightly different point in time. I am not really an expert in phase cancellation, but as long as the peaks are not 180 degrees out of phase with each other, you should be alright. If the peaks were to perfectly align you probably would lose some of the room ambiance.

You can move the tracks back and forth in time relative to each other slightly to get the best sound, or leave them alone and rely on a reverb plugin to fill out the sound.

The room is about 4x4 mtr. Thinking about that there may be a chance that phase cancellation from distance will be neglectable. What I was more concerned about is the angle that the sm57 and the m88 have towards the AT's. But I'm starting to think that the angle is only an issue for the AT's, not for the other two.
I can place the AT's some closer to the other mics, that will help.

[Voideco]

Originally Posted by EdwardWilliam

Here's a classic article on the three-to-one rule of mic placement. There are many others, too. The principles will definitely have more impact on the results than cable length. http://www.recordingeq.com/articles/321eq.html


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That'll be a good reading for sunday ( and the days to come). I'm not worried about cable length anymore; you guys cleared that out. But this info is welcome because I know near to nothing about mike placement. Thanks Edward :)

[cwsand]

Originally Posted by EdwardWilliam

Here's a classic article on the three-to-one rule of mic placement. There are many others, too. The principles will definitely have more impact on the results than cable length. http://www.recordingeq.com/articles/321eq.html/

Good article - and keep in mind the 3-1 rule applies to 2 mics recording 2 different sources:

"Two microphones, intended to pick up two sound sources must be placed apart at least three times the distance that either microphone is from it’s intended sound source."

A lot of the time I see people referring to this rule when using 2 mics on the same source - which is just a spaced pair.

[cwsand]

Originally Posted by Voideco

maybe the software from my interface provides phase switches.

Those are technically polarity inverters. Phase/Polarity are not the same thing as phase is an issue of time. Anyway, the great thing about Pro Tools is that you can zoom into the waveform and see exactly what's going on and either time-align tracks or invert the polarity if needed. Of course, use your ears more than anything else!

Tech Tip: Polarity vs. Phase

[Voideco]

Excellent!! Now I don't have to invent the wheel again. Thank you all!

So the Audiotechnika's I have setup correctly, that's hereby confirmed (or at least not revoked). The other two mics need to be very close to their intended sound source as the room is very small. Best have their input gain not too high. And, last but not least; they need to be a bit apart from the AT's and eachother. The situation is not very complicated.

I made a graphic and tried to upload to make it more visible but Libre Office Draw won't let me save the file as a .jpg. No compatible file format available That's really a drag.

[Voideco]

Got the picture compatible. Only I wanted to have it shown in this post but no luck.

Note that the blue bar in the left is my recording desk. The 'vertical' walls are about 4,5 meters so the room is almost square. My conclusion is that there is little need to be affraid of phase cancellation, correct me if I'm wrong please. If any phase shifting occurs just drag the tracks minitiously to correct.