Hey everybody....in a few weeks my band is going to record a "live" demo for distribution to clubs who want a preview before booking us. We did a simple home studio recording a while back but it no longer does us any justice. Anyway the band will be fully miced up and we'll be routing each channel to a Mackie MDR 24 track HD recorder. We want this to sound like a live recording, and from experience we won't pick up much crowd/ambient sound from our stage mics, so we figured on a separate mic to record a channel of ambient sound. I'm guessing we'll want a condenser of some sort pointing from the stage toward the crowd. Any suggestions on microphones/placement? Thanks in advance.

Hang them wherever it sounds the best.

Similar to what you'll see at some clubs, I like to put up a couple mics in an X/Y stereo configuration at the front of the stage. If you want to be discreet about the up-front X/Y, you could always pick up something like a R0DE NT4 Stereo Condenser Microphone and hide it in a small plant or other decoration.

Dropping omni-directional condenser mics from the ceiling off-axis with your speakers between the front of the stage and the middle of the congregation works great for picking up the audience. However, this method risks feedback if your speakers are considerably loud -- especially during hymns and worship. If this method causes feedback, switch to a cardioid pattern or mute these mics during those times.

Taken from the presonus forum...

My other job is location recording and one of my favorite ways to add room/crowd ambience is to put a figure 8 mic at the edge of each side of the stage. You get a nice stereo fill from the stage, plus sound from the audience. If placed right, the PA and the monitors end up in the null spot.

Another favorite is an m/s pair at the mix position. I recorded Zilla (www.zillamusic.com) at the Fox Theater a few weeks ago and the m/s consisted of a Beyer M260 in the mid position and a new CAD ribbon in the side position. It sounded great! I use 414s for this a lot and the ribbons gave a very similar sense of space but much much smoother. These were borrowed mics, but I liked it to the point that I had to I go out and get one of the CADs for myself. I did a rough mix during the multitracking and they liked it so much that it's available for download already!

If you are unfamiliar with m/s stereo mic'ing, check out http://members.tripod.com/~offbeat2/ms/sndms.html

It's a great technique and allows you to make stereo decisions during the mix.

Edwin