Gang Vocals - How to? Which mic/s?

[mick thompson]

hey sneapians.

i want to do some gang vocal work on a track but im a little lost on what i should do.

ok say there are 8 beefy manly men in my recording room. 5 singing and 3 screaming

i want some of the lads to sing and some of the lads to scream their vocals.

should i hand each person an sm58 and tell them to do their own vocals into their own mic?

if yes should i do each person individually or should i go it as a group with the 58's?

if no and you recommend a condenser mic to record the gang all at the same time which mic would pick up the wide variety of vocal tones?

would it pick up singing vocals as well as screaming vocals?

or perhaps use the singing vocals into the condenser and the screams into a 85 while all being in the same room?

im not sure if its ever been asked before, i never seen the topic on the boards.

cheers chaps

 

[John_C]

1 mic in the room will give you a sound of a gang in a room. Not clean and tight sounding but heyy thats not what most people are after with gang vocals. A LDC will serve you well for this, neumann TLM103 or the like

 

[Joematthews]

2 Mics in the room, I use sdc's because thats what I have...

Get them to do 4 or 5 takes of gang vocals, it sounds shit without loads of takes in my opinion (thats 4 or 5 layers I mean)

Joe

 

[Sean in Silence]

I would record the singing and screaming group seperately
but just like the two previous posts said
use some kind of condenser mic
record 4 or 5 takes (layers)
put the mic in the opposite side of the room and have them all do their takes at the same time (singing and yelling groups seperate)

 

[Sinister Mephisto]

I agree with what everyone else said, but another key factor is the manlyness of the shouters. I often have to ask people to yell/scream whatever like they have 8 balls. For some reason a lot of people do relatively high pitched gang shouts and that sounds like shit even if you have 4 layers.

Also, compressing all the tracks as a stereo pair can really gel them together.

 

[lolzgreg]

Two LDC's spaced out across the groups of singers (however you find necessary, you could be cool about it and group it upon the range of their shouting (like a piano from low to high and left to right), or balance it.

You could also use a pair of Ribbons in a Blumlein pair, that would sound really 3-D.

-Greg

 

[mick thompson]

ahh cool - thanks for the tips lads, gona get cracking. i'd love to get a ribbon mic but i've always been freaked out by accidently burning out the ribbon. maybe when im a little richer ill pick one up. for now i have to go find a nice condenser off my mates.

Sinister Mephisto: what do you mean compressing the tracks as a stereo pair? how would i do that?