TOT Dolly Parton at Glastonbury

Crikey. I've never known such acoustic screens work totally - they just reduce the spill slightly. Other band members would still hear them ok.

Different in a recording studio where the drums might have their own totally sealed room, so others have to hear them via headphones.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)
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Trouble is you don't get the same drum sound if they're not hit hard. Not just a question of level. Same applies to many instruments - like say a trumpet.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

A noble tradition.

I believe Fairport Convention appeared "performing" a Bob Dylan song in Fre nch (you had to be there, I expect) and Ashley Hutchins played Double Bass with a Baguette. When they appeared on "The Old Grey Whistle Test" some yea rs later, their drummer at the time, Dave Mattacks, wore a "Miming" tee shi rt.

Similarly, when Robert Wyatt appeared for "I'm a Believer", I think Andy Su mmers (later of The Police) "played" acoustic guitar reversed so the string s pressed against his body, while Fred Frith mimed the viola duet.

Reply to
mark.bluemel

I do recall one band with a transparent bass drum skin, which had something like a large pillow in it. I assumed it was to modify the sound, not to kill it entirely.

I don't recall having consciously seen them before the Dolly Parton Glastonbury gig on TV. There they made it look like they were expecting somebody to shoot the drummer and had given him a bulletproof enclosure.

I have noticed that the percussion section in an orchestra tends to be well away from the rest of the instruments.

Reply to
Nightjar

There's not much live music on TV is there and even when therre is drums are not usually miced up.

Most would have headphones on too so the couldn't hear the racket they were making :)

Reply to
whisky-dave

In article , Nightjar > At one time a featured on stage band was part of many TV shows. Even

I suppose it's because I was involved in the rigging of countless TV band rigs that I'd seen such things many times before. It also interests me to see what types of mic are used on what these days. And sometimes shake my head. ;-)

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

And the famous occasion when John Peel appeared "playing" the mandolin with Rod Stewart.

JP couldn't play the mandolin.

Reply to
Huge

And the sound you want depends on the music. It's the whole that counts, not each instrument, including voices as instruments. Drowning out the other instruments isn't a good thing in any situation.

A better drummer may also have been able to get a good tone by playing differently. At one venue where I was involved, there were a number of drummers on rotation, and while they sounded different, all made a good effort at matching the moods of the pieces in the more or less fixed playlist. One was definitely a leader, and another was more of a follower, but the performances all came out well.

Reply to
John Williamson

More likely to see a fully miked kit where he's miming. ;-)

But if it is live, they will always be miked. Unless something like news where they only send a cameraman.

I can understand the singer wanting a mic even when miming. But it's taking the p**s when it's drums.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

True. However something like 'Joseph' is a rock musical and sort of needs a rock drummer.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Most drummers are like most singers. Bloody terrible

Reply to
stuart noble

Talking of orchestras, there are sometimes vertical transparent screens positioned in front of orchestral brass players; the intention is to protect the ears of the musicians sitting just in front of them.

In very large orchestral works, eg Berlioz Grande Messe de Morts, there's so much brass being played (and 10 timpani players and lots else) that noise levels inside the orchestra are very high. I've sung in such a performance, where some people in both the orchestra and choir wore earplugs.

Reply to
Jeremy Nicoll - news posts

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

Ah, but are not most drums figure of 8 noise generators pointing at the ceiling? Except the bass drum, which is likely to be more omni anyway.

In many situations, the engineer spends ages multi-miking the drums, by which time there is no time to worry about the subtleties of the remaining mix. Or the rest of the band and production staff have become so bored that they no longer care.

Reply to
Bill

Dunno what you're referring to, but a kit would normally be miked up before the musos or production team are around.

However, it's easy to agree with you. Often see a kit on TV with nearly a dozen mics round it when all that's played is the bass snare and hi-hat.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Beautiful Babs, but you can't remember her name?

Reply to
The Other Mike

Back in the late 70s I used to do a bit of freelance recording for the local bands, mostly live work in pubs and clubs[1]. My solution for 'miking up' the drum kit was to use an Aiwa stereo microphone set up a few feet in front of the kit, just behind the baseline of the main PA speakers. I'd mike up the guitar amps and intercept the vocals mike feeds (unbalanced mikes) through the stage box feeding via a 150 foot multicore cable (balanced lines) to my homebrewed 'mixing desk' (6 mike channels plus drumkit channel).

It was a very effective arrangement until I got a gig in a club (Eric's or Brady's, I forget when the name changed) in Mathew St, Liverpool, recording a live gig by a band called "The Check".

The problem here was that they were using Lo-Z balanced mikes so I had to tape my mikes alongside theirs. Unfortunately, the vocals suffered on account they were singing right on top of their own mikes and an inch or two off mine.

It was that experience that led me to modify the middle two mike channels (3 and 4) on the stage box to allow me to intercept balanced mikes. Unfortunately, I never subsequently got a chance to use this feature before I lost interest (real life had started to intrude).

I've still got the kit gathering dust in the attic. There's very little liklihood of it ever being used in these days of affordable digital sound mixer and recording kit.

Back then it was a case of using the Akai GX630DB open reel tape deck (4 track stereo at 7 1/2 ips with modern 10 inch reels of Maxel UDB tape - not regarded as even 'semiprofessional' even though it would knock spots off the performance of the older kit that _was_ regarded as such).

These days, if I were ever asked to set up a recording session, I'd replace the tape deck with a digital recorder (even a modern laptop with decent soundcard would be an improvement).

[1] The biggest problem with doing live work in such small venues is monitoring the mix feeding the line in on the tape deck. The deck's own headphone ouptut hadn't been designed for such environments so was useless. I built a 2 watt rms per channel headphone amplifier into the mixing desk so I could 'drown out' the soundfield leakage of the closed back headphones. I'd use earplugs to attenuate the extremely high SPLs that resulted to a less damaging level at my eardrums.

I could forego the earplugs when recording in a studio setup configuration at the group's practice locations where I could locate the mixing desk in another room which sometimes afforded enough isolation to even let me monitor the mix on speakers (the mixer had a talkback channel ( which could also be used to send playback to the 'studio room' but, afaicr, it was mono only).

Reply to
Johny B Good

No, Mary Corpe.

Reply to
Bob Eager

That was a Porridge reference :-)

Reply to
Nightjar

whooosh

Reply to
The Other Mike

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