How to get audio/video for bagpipes?

[comatoad]

I play in a bagpipe band and the lads have asked me if there’s any way we can get a live audio/video recording of the band either at an outdor performance, or during an indoorpractice. Needless to say, the pipes are rather shrill. Does anybody have any suggestions as to how to mic up about 4-7 pipers, a snare drum and bass drum?

[Anonymous]

simply walk into a studio

[comatoad]

Ah, lass. Unfortunately, they’re a bunch of tight-fisted Scottsmen and do not want to spend the money on studio time. They’d rather attempt it themselves first, to see what kind of sound/video quality they can get first, and then post it toour website.Trust me, most of the money goes to uniforms, pipes and travel (not to mention the ocassional wee dram of Scotch).

[Rob]

I would have multiple mics above the bagpipe players, like, one mic above 2 players, and then another mic above 2 other players, etc. Then point a shotgun downward toward the drummer. Have all the mics feed into a mixer and adjust the audio levels of each mic until you get results you are happy with.

In my opinion, I don’t think you should do it live. Just fake it. Shoot your video so it looks live if that’s the look you’re going for, but then go back a record each individual one at a time so you can fine-tune all the audio. Then just lay your fine-tuned audio under your video and you have the look of a live shoot with nice audio. Make sense?

[BruceMol]

Personally I think bagpipes indoors is a bit grating. Recording indoors would be really tricky if you aren’t in a studio so I would encourage you to find a quiet field and use multiple mics – and no marching! I’d mic one for the pipes high up and a ways back, and as Robert suggested, make it a shotgun type. Then mic the drum/snare from the frontand the big drums from the side. Ther’s nothing wrong with arranging the playersfor audio pickup rather than their usual perfomance formation either.

[Tom]

Hanging a shotgun above the cymbals, with another behind the drum stool may be benefical as well sense the Floor Tom and kick are very low tones that pop thru loud high pitched ambients that the cymbals and snare will shot out. Mic the bag pipes from in front with I say one or two directly in the center of everyone. I am used to that bleed thru diy type deal tho… so may be these aren’t the best suggestions

[Dan]

The best experience I have had with live field recording is with the Zoom H4 Handy mic which has stereo digital recording. It has a great built in compressor that may be able to cut the shrill.

[Author]

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