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-- Recording Crowd noises at gigs..

Recording Crowd noises at gigs..

Hello there Dj Booth folks..

Quick question. I want to know how I'll best be able to record crowd reactions from a venue i play at. I record the set with Traktor already but would like to record the live reactions from the crowd every now and again.

I'm been thinking of using A Samson H4 or something similar? D'you think this will work?

Or have any of you had any success from using another device.

I'd prefer to keep the price at a reasonable level as i wont really be looking for a professional finish.

Thank you..

you could use the H4 with a mic and record the noise seperate from the music. Then you can overlay them somehow so that they become one track.

I think you'll need a recorder that can handle 3 tracks at once (2 for stereo and 1 for the crowd) if you want to be able to do it in one unit.

For my new years gig, I did a six microphone set up. I had a AKG 451 on each side of the stage mounted on the lighting truss. Both mic's pointing directly at the crowd. At the front of house mix position there were two more 451's pointing at the stage and the other two were in the corners. Each input ran direct to Pro Tools, plus the left and right feed from the DJ mixer. With this technique I was able to pick and choose during the mixdown. Of course this is an expensive way of doing it.

I recently recorded another show of mine using an old school Akai DR-4 four channel recorder. I ran all the inputs through a Mackie mixer then to the DR-4. I did the two mic thing both mic's onstage pointing at the crowd and the direct feed from the DJ mixer. It worked out really well and it saved me from bringing out the Pro Tools rack.

Sorry for the ramble. Best thing to do is find a multitrack device which could record in the fashion you want it to. Or if you have some type of software like Logic on your computer, that would be another way to it.

There's a lot of multitrack recorders like the Akai on eBay right now. Pretty cheap too. It's an older technology but will get the job done.

i've used two ways of doing this before...

one was: route the record out of the main mixer into another mixer, and adding some microphone feeds in there. you can route this back into traktor through an unused input on your soundcard, or you can use any other recording software.

the second one was: two microphone pre-amps built into the 5 1/4" bay of a computer system, routing their outputs as left and right directly into the cd-audio input of the soundcard (can't remember the make any more, sorry...). the signal of the main mixer goes into the line in of the same card. you can then mix the two sources with the soundcard's internal mixer and record that.

the latter solution was built as a "portable" solution... lol.

both solutions have one big disadvantage: you have to select your mixer levels before or during recording. there's no way of changing what was recorded afterwards.

Thanks for the replies lads.

Seems it's a little more complicated than i thought it might be.

I'm not really keen on bringing another large piece of kit (like a mixer) so think that method is out the window. Mulitple mics etc are also out as to be honest it's not THAT important but I am aware that this method would give the best results (especially in a larger venue i assume).

The multitrack recorder does mean i'd have to bring another (pretty large) piece of kit to my gig which again is something i'm trying to avoid.

The reason i was initially look at the Samson Zoom H4, was the fact that it does have 4 separate channels. It's compact and from what i've read the mics on it are pretty good (condensers). Just wasn't sure if it would work for what i was looking to apply it to. And i'm not that keen on spending the money to find out it isn't.

Here's a link with some info on it.

CLICK ME

I'm liking Katmaus' idea of layering over the crowd sounds during the mix down and picking and choosing when i want to introduce the crowd's reactions.. Just need to know if there's a nice portable way of doing that. (recording not the mixing down of course)

Thanks again for the input so far lads.

Grab a fistful of pills and an old rca tape recorder and record some kids giving each other blow ups. Then splice that shit in.

Instacash.

quote:

Originally posted by Ted Promo Grab a fistful of pills and an old rca tape recorder and record some kids giving each other blow ups. Then splice that shit in. Instacash.

I smell sample possibilities for the new ep.

We'll turn their moans and squelches into the most brooding bassline the tards have ever e'd.

Which at that point it won't even be a bassline. It'll be a broodline. A brutal broodline.

I'll get my coat.

I'll be impressed if you can get good results from a single mic. Of course it's entirely possible if it's in the right place and you spend long enough post-processing.

The BBC have entire outside broadcast kits they deploy for recording live gigs with highly trained engineers (and occasionally some not so highly trained...!) Of course that's to try and get it right first time so they don't have to spend days in the studio tidying it up later, so theoretically someone with a bit of common sense but less experience, a few mics and long enough playing about afterwards should be able to get some pretty good results.

It's not going to hurt to try it with one mic, so I say go for it and see what you can come up with. Judging the levels so that the music from the front of house rig doesn't distort the whole spectrum could be one of the biggest challenges... would be nice to spend some time during the day having a play about if you've got that luxury!

Also might be worth bearing in mind that your mics need to be far enough away from the crowd that one person standing near your mic talking loudly isn't the only thing you pick up. This could be very hard to achieve in a small club and the last thing you want is your live demo to end up with some twat moaning about the music or how tired he is. That's another advocate for a multi-mic approach I guess.

Would be very interested to hear how you get on, good luck.

On my New Years gig, the best recorded crowd noise came from the mic's that were mounted on the lighting truss onstage. The two which were at the front of house mix did ok but picked a lot of the pa. Plus someone forgot to tell us that a bar was getting set up in front of the mix. So during mixdown, you heard bottles breaking, ice getting chopped up, and so on. The other two mics did ok as well. Since these two were away from the dancefloor, I was able to capture more ambient crowd noise.

At first i wasn't sure what the Samson H4 was, until I saw the picture. It's simply called the Zoom H4 in the states so that's what threw me off. I bought one for my girlfriend for her to use on auditions. Works great. If I'm not mistaken, I believe the H4 comes with software which can be used for editing the material the H4 recorded. Actually any software will work with H4.

Multiple micing is the best I think. It's a technique I've used for years mixing live sound. The stage seems to be the best place for the mics. On occasion I will also add mics in the crowd but hang them in a down position off of the lighting truss or something like that.

Hmmm...

Maybe i should get two mics, 2 long XLR's plug them into the Xone 92's mic channels and every now and again turn the mics on to record any reactions that might occur throughout the set and later on post process them. Or just plug em straight into something like the Zoom H4 and us that device to record rather than routing it through the mixer (which obviously if Traktor is recording it) i wouldn't be able to edit each separate channel independently.

I'm not quite sure what direction i'll go in. Might get the Zoom H2 as i'm not sure i need 4 tracks..

I'm still a bit confused. If i decide to go for anything i'll let you know.

Cheers for the heads up and advice though. As always it's appreciated.

quote:

Originally posted by n3lly Hmmm... Maybe i should get two mics, 2 long XLR's plug them into the Xone 92's mic channels and every now and again turn the mics on to record any reactions that might occur throughout the set and later on post process them. Or just plug em straight into something like the Zoom H4 and us that device to record rather than routing it through the mixer (which obviously if Traktor is recording it) i wouldn't be able to edit each separate channel independently. I'm not quite sure what direction i'll go in. Might get the Zoom H2 as i'm not sure i need 4 tracks.. I'm still a bit confused. If i decide to go for anything i'll let you know. Cheers for the heads up and advice though. As always it's appreciated.

I think until you've done it a few times you'd want to record the whole thing in multitrack.

The Xone 92's got 2 aux outputs, so if you've got a soundcard with enough inputs and the right bit of software you could record 2 mics and your mixer output all as separate tracks on a laptop.

Or you could make use of the extra 2 inputs on the H4, so you could either hook up a separate mic setup elsewhere to one input and feed your mixer into the other, or you could use it for 2 extra mics and record your mixer output separately (possibly with a couple more mics as above) - then line the two recorders up back at base.

With the H2 you have basically just got 1 microphone for all intense purposes - I really can't imagine you being able to put it anywhere in a club where you'd be able to take advantage of the stereo imaging.

quote:

Originally posted by Stu Cox I think until you've done it a few times you'd want to record the whole thing in multitrack. The Xone 92's got 2 aux outputs, so if you've got a soundcard with enough inputs and the right bit of software you could record 2 mics and your mixer output all as separate tracks on a laptop. Or you could make use of the extra 2 inputs on the H4, so you could either hook up a separate mic setup elsewhere to one input and feed your mixer into the other, or you could use it for 2 extra mics and record your mixer output separately (possibly with a couple more mics as above) - then line the two recorders up back at base. With the H2 you have basically just got 1 microphone for all intense purposes - I really can't imagine you being able to put it anywhere in a club where you'd be able to take advantage of the stereo imaging.

Yeah i see what you're getting at there. Might try use one of them as the recorder for external mics. Would have to look into mics now and which ones would get the job done the best.

oh by the way the H2 has 4 condensers on it. Here's an image of the mic orientation on the unit.




Here's a snippet from a review explaining the mic setup better than i ever will.

quote:

H2 Review Four Heads are Better than Two Unlike previous portable recorders I've reviewed, the H2 has four condenser mic capsules, arrayed as front and rear X-Y coincident pairs. The front pair is angled 90� apart and the rear pair is angled 120�. So why have two stereo pairs in a two-track recorder? For one thing, by selecting either the front or rear mics, you can tailor the pattern to the source, choosing the 120� pattern for a live band, say, and the narrow array for acoustic guitar. Or record stereo tracks using both the front and rear mics�great for interviews or jam sessions where everyone is seated in a circle. The output of all four mics is mixed down to stereo in this situation. That's too bad, because sending the front and rear mics to individual mono tracks would even better for interviews. However, that is not what is causing the blog-o-buzz. The H2's original specs called for three mics, set to record mid-side (MS) stereo. Zoom felt three mics didn't cut it, so the company came up with the current four-mic setup, which opens the door to recording in 360�. (See the Surround 101 sidebar.) Press a button and the H2 becomes a four-track recorder of sorts, capturing the front and rear mics to two stereo WAV files. Ah, but is it Surround with a capital "S?" And how do you play it back? Let me leave you in suspense for a moment as we dig in to the interface.

I know what you mean about it only having '1 mic' though. The distance between those mics makes the whole stereo image basically null and void. In a club setting anyway.
Would be interesting to hang it from the ceiling in the middle of the crowd though and see how it would fair. Again a lot of setup time would be required to get it just right.

quote:

Originally posted by n3lly I know what you mean about it only having '1 mic' though. The distance between those mics makes the whole stereo image basically null and void. In a club setting anyway. Would be interesting to hang it from the ceiling in the middle of the crowd though and see how it would fair. Again a lot of setup time would be required to get it just right.

Yeah my concern was that you'd have to have it quite a way away from the crowd (presumably upwards) to avoid picking up specific voices too loudly, by which point all of the channels have sort of merged into one.

Looks like a great bit of kit though. Tbh I'd say just get one and try it. If it doesn't work on its own, you've still got a portable multitrack recorder which will also serve as at least one of your mics. For me that would make it a tough decision between the H2 and the H4 though... more tracks or more condensers?

If it was a bit nearer to the crowd, the multidirectionality of the H2 might mean that while one condenser is picking up a fat bloke breaking wind, the others might pick up enough other noise to mask it.

I want one now

i got this for this kind of purposes:

http://www.dancetech.com/aa_dt_new/...MX602A_main.jpg

You can connect mics here and connect this to the line in of your mixer to record it , i haven't tryed yet though but it's one of the purposes of this kind of mixers i think.

quote:

Originally posted by Rodri Santos i got this for this kind of purposes: http://www.dancetech.com/aa_dt_new/...MX602A_main.jpg You can connect mics here and connect this to the line in of your mixer to record it , i haven't tryed yet though but it's one of the purposes of this kind of mixers i think.

that's exactly the one we used. it's in our club, two mics, panned left and right, and the mixer record out on a stereo channel.

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