Overhead Mic's for live setup

[kara]

After organizing and acting as sound engineer on a benefit concert this weekend, Azel and me realized that we are doing to much studio work and realy miss live performances.
So... we decided to create a new band and going back to live 

Actually 'band' is the wrong name, it will be a vocals group with musicians, meaning that there will be a lot of singers and a few musicians. Just consider it as a choir wit musical accompagnement.

Now my question 
I have to mic the singers in a decent way and what I don't want is having mic's in front of the singers; This looks horrible when taking pics of the live performance  Been there, done that.
So I was thinking of using stereo overhead mic's which we can place above the singers.
I was thinking of T-bone ST-1000 stereo overheads

Others in that categorie :
Behringer C2 stereo set : Cheap but I'm not sure of the quality of Behringer products
Rhode NT5 matched pair : Expensive and needs extra stereo bar adaptor

Perhaps somebody here has experience with those products or any tips ?

k

[elwoodblues1969]

Kara,

I've never looked into purchasing a Behringer microphone,so I don't know anything about them,but what I do know,is that I've read countless negative reviews on several of their products...monitors that cause radio interference,mixers & effects processors making terrible humming & static noises & so on...

Thus far,Samson products have proved to be reliable...not everything they make is of exceptional quality obviously,but overall-in comparison to Behringer,Samson not only has better quality,but they are also very reliable.......if you want to go cheap,that's the way to go.

Just thought I'd throw in my two cents.

-Thom

[kara]

Thanks for your reply Thom, I have the same feeling about Behringer
And besides I don't have to take the cheapest, I can spend some money on this.
On the other hand I don't want to spend too much money neither

k
 

[folderol]

Disclaimer: I know nothing about microphones.

However...

I remember a set-up that was used in a village hall for some time

This was a fairly typical low-cost building. Lightweight block walls and pitched wooden roof. The acoustics actually weren't bad considering there had been no special treatment. They had a sort of semi-portable stage at one end of the hall that looked like it was made out of oversized leggo bricks (without the knobbles).

The guy doing any recordings had one stereo mic placed about 2M in front of this stage, and fixed to one of the roof 'A' frame cross members. He said that any closer and ordinary speech became unintelligible due to lack of treble (presumably because a speaker will project forward especially if reading from notes), any further away picked up too much audience noise and the sound became 'boxy'. I've no idea what the actual mic was - give me a break I was only in my mid tee ns! ... hmmm, for some reason I can't enter that word all joined up

However he had another little trick, and that was a mic placed in a far corner which he added to the mix to vary the ambiance and audience, um, participation.

As a matter of interest, he recorded stereo on a Mk5 Brenell with a 15i.p.s. tape speed - he would joke that at that speed you could record on cardboard!

[Oren]

... I don't have to take the cheapest, I can spend some money on this.
On the other hand I don't want to spend too much money...

With careful placement, almost any live audio situation can be covered by a few Shure SM57 microphones. Experimentation will be necessary to get the best sound in each venue.

The strength of these microphones is that they are very reliable, versatile, tough, and perform predictably - gig after gig...

Oren.

[offthewall]

Hey,
just picked up on this thread.

Everything that I record is done with a pair of Behringer XM1800s mics.

That is .... all my acoustic instruments.  Whistle, guitars, bass, mandolin, bouzouki and vocals.

The first one I got was solely down to spec's and price. Being always on a very modest budget I got this one brand new for, in the region of, £25.
The second one was a flook. I saw a boom mic stand on a market stall ... asked how much ... the guy said : "you can have that for a pound .... but wait a minute, there's a mic somewhere here that goes with it" 
Hence the pair. 

I don't bother looking for anything else, now.
They do everything that I want.
Admittedly, all my stuff is recorded at home under the same conditions, and most stuff is 'close-mic'ed' ... but I'm extremely happy with the quality.
 
James

[folderol]

Next time I go shopping will you come along