Nice forum here. I am a fiddler in Arizona and play in a Trad Irish band here. We have 6 players and all of us sing as well. That means there are mic stands all over the place. Our uilleann piper is currently using 2 mics, 1 for the chanter and 1 for drones. My question is, can anyone make suggestions as to what would be a good mic set up for the pipes?
I would prefer something small that can be attached to the pipes or clipped on.
is also of interest for anyone that may be needing to step on to a stage and play their “squeallers” for a bit.
(Not many pipers own their own mics!)
KM58 is fairly standard and likely to be what you would be faced with. So in advance you could direct whoever is doing the sound to look at this link and set you up just like the instructions for John McSherry!!
If its good enough for Mr McSherry…
Boyd
ps last night I was faced with a single mic and a dodgy stand which slowly sank the mic as the tuneset progressed, I had to follow it downward with my low whistle and for the pipes it kept wanting to sag down onto my right hand, so I was playing the chanter in increasingly more horizontal positions to get away from it.
It wasn’t just the stand that had a screw loose by the end of it all
i would want somthing fairley sturdey on the chanter, maby a dynamic… SM58 perhaps
drons and regs deserve somthing a lot warmer C1000 perhaps.
Honestly for a studio i would be tempted just to put some low baffels round the piper and stick somthing expensive in there… maby a sterio pair of somthing expensive! - then EQ the things later only if absolutly necissary.
an important caviet is that though i studied music production, i realised fairley quickley that i was awful at it, and focused on composition
You can’t go too wrong with an SM58 – relatively cheap, and generically useful – if you don’t use it for this application you can find something else to do with it. In a studio I’d use condensers though.
About a year ago I got a Korg D16XD multitrack digital recorder (16 tracks simultaneous). Dynamic mics are good for live–the ATM63HE is better than the Shure SM58–but I’m really impressed with the AT4033 SE large diaphram condensor mic and the Octova MC 012 in studio for instruments. I’d recommend the AT4033 for bass and baritone drones and Octova for chanter and tenor drone. These mics, unlike the pro tube and ribbon mics are affordable. The Neumanns, like the KM184 are best if you can afford one.
I’ve been pretty happy with the relatively inexpensive studio condensers I’ve gotten from MXL. The 603s does a good job with any instrument I’ve tried to record with it. I’m sure there are better microphones available, but for recording on a budget it’s pretty decent.
Simon, the 4-to-1 isn’t a rule for mics per se. It a rule to help keep the bleeding to a minimum between two different musicians. The cardioid pattern needs that much room out front and to the sides. With the upipes you can separate them well enough since the bleeding is not an important issue. During mixdown, you can apply the appropriate eq and bring the highs up and lows down through the inst. mic and visa versa with the other.
I don’t have a set of UPs right now, but I ran an older recording though the KORG and was surprised how easy it was to control the tone of each of the three drones, separately, simply with the highs, mids, and lows.
BTW, good microphones make a huge difference, and when applying different effects to make the instrument sound as natural as possible, it’s nice to have the higher quality mics. Dynamic mics were very limited during mixdown, so that’s why I bought the better ones. I bought a tube mic for $1,000 too but can’t tell much difference between it and the AT4033. Like a friend of mine said, who has worked in pro studios a lot…the AT4033 “kicks ass!”
I think you’re confusing some concepts here. The 3 to 1 rule states that two mics picking up close-by sources need to 3 times father apart than they are from the source. This is to minimize phase problems created by the time delay between mics. The 3 to 1 rule can actually work against you if you are worried about bleeding between players, because it forces you have to have more separation between the microphones. If you don’t get this right, you need to do a lot of EQ work. I would recommend an XY (coincident) stereo pair if you want a natural sound.
Simon, sorry to confuse. I thought you were actually refering to the 4-to-1 rule mentioned at the bottom of the link I posted above. Yes the 3-to-1 rule would do as you say. With cardioid mics, most of the phasing problems can be avoided by pointing the mics at different angles and mounting them at different levels. With a set of B pipes mic placement shouldn’t be a problem if one mic is on the chanter, the other on the drones–opposite sides. Some short D sets might get a little touchy I suppose.
Probably, but then you’re not going to get a natural sound from the chanter. I guess I’m not a fan of close micing then using a lot of EQ to create what you think the instrument sounded like.
EQ and effect is something that is first created in the environment of the room. This is where you want it to happen to avoid too much tinkering by the recording system. Every room has a sweet spot. In my house, it happends to be between the carpet and the hardwood which is also where the walls divide 4 ways and open up into two different rooms. The next two ways EQ and effects are created is in the type of mic and its proximity to the source. You can get too much bass by being to close to a lot of instruments, or voices. Natural is dependent on where you are and what you want it to sound like. If you record in a carpeted small room with blankets on the walls, even a good mic and good proximity won’t get you the sound you probably want. So you resort to post EQ and effects to bring it back.
If the two mics are placed appropriately (3:1–depending on the mic pattern), the distance to the source is more a matter of the type of mic used, and gain settings.
When I first recorded with dynamic mics, the different effects on the recorder (there’s some really neat ones nowadays) wouldn’t work they way they should. Digital recording is all about headroom on the signals (to avoid distortion) as opposed to the old analog systems.
again, my points really only apply to the studio environment.
tbh, i would mike with the chanter as the centre of attention - ‘wall of sound’ in the drones and regs; - drones sit beneath the melody by a comfortable interval so eq-ing up the base would let you ‘boost’ the drone in the specturm.
regs can be back in the mix afik. - there unlikley to need to be the centre of attention.
While im all for close-miking in a rock band where you can afford full seperation - the pipes are such a tambirly diverse instrument, and their tunes are usually so reliant on the artists being able to 'feed back of each other; that they deserve to be tampered with as little as possible…
I would be intrested in hearing the results of miking up a chanter as though it were an oboe.
One of the challenges with miking the chanter out front would seem to be the back D being quieter than the front notes. If the acoustics are good in the room, and one mic is used in the right place, and at a certain distance, that might be the way to go.
Can the KMS 105 be used for miking an uilleann pipes chanter (irish bagpipes with a relatively low signal comparable to a violin)? The micro needs to be positioned about 10 cam away from the sound source in order to pick up all notes coming in at different angles. What about feedback rejection under circumstances like that?
KMS 105 should have no problems with the pipes. KM 185 would be an alternative, unless the “wind” factor coming from the pipes is of importance in the chosen mic position. (Neumann)
After having used the KMS 105 during about 20 gigs, I can state, that the uilleann pipes chanter sounds absolutely superb with only very little feedback problems and at the same time very little equalizing effort: almost linear treble, some reduction in midrange, preferably around 1000 - 1200 Hz and boost the bass a little, that’s it. This has been confirmed by a significant number of live sound engineers. The “wind” factor you mentioned is non-existent with the pipes anyway. I consider the mic as highly recommendable for this purpose!
RTE, the Irish broadcaster (who are of course used to doing this all the time) use the AKG C414 (ULS I think) on the uilleann pipes. I can’t say that they don’t use anything else. I’ve noticed on a few occasions that they have used what looks like a TLM-127 in situations where they previously used the U87, so it would be interesting to see if they switch to a new mic for pipes as well.
I’d imagine you’re pretty lucky to have found a microphone that you’re happy with for the pipes, as I can imagine many mics having difficulties on such an instrument.
