Micing a Djam?

SwingHard

Denver has really expanded it's Gypsy Jazz community in recent years, and now we find ourselves with a few challenges. With the amount of local breweries we have, there's certainly no shortage of venues willing to host us. However, the high ceilings, and almost warehouse like environment of the breweries are terrible for the sound. It all seems to go straight up, mostly mixing with ambient noise, or disappearing in the rafters all together.
We have the opportunity, with one brewery in particular, to run microphones through a mixer, and then on to the house speakers. I've personally never tried anything like this, and I'm curious to see if anyone has experience, or a suggested solution to our sound issues. I have some omnidirectional microphones that I'm considering... Does that even sound feasible?
Thank you for your time, and feel free to visit gypsyjazzdenver.com, or find us on Facebook!

Jim Kaznosky

You might be better off using pickups and amps for soloists and have players that are primarily playing rhythm play acoustic. That's what happened at one of the local jams in my neck.

morricone

I was at a jam where they did that for a while. There wasn't enough amps and not everyone had pickups. It was probably better from a listeners perspective but I found it unfulfilling (I wasn't amplified). The trouble is unamplified you can get lost in the background noise and sea of la pompe

Jim Kaznosky

I understand why it might not be fulfilling, hence me suggesting a solution which actually has worked for a jam that went of for years locally. The issue of it being too noisy because of background noise and loud rhythm players is completely understood. It is clearly something that needs to be worked out in advance.

Buco

Omni mics are fairly popular with bluegrass bands and acoustic players, duos etc...to mic the live performance. I was thinking about experimenting and trying to do the same with our band.
Gather players in the circle and put omni mic in the middle and feed to the PA. The problem is, it's going to pick up the crowd noise as well.
Then you could try a bi-directional or figure of eight. Or even a cardoid pattern. Best if somebody has a mic with all these selectable patterns so it's easy to change them during the jam and find the one that works the best.
One example is Audio Technica AT2050.

Here's a few articles talking about single micing but if you google the subject you'll find plenty more:
http://www.onemicstand.com/
http://blog.shure.com/how-to-mic-a-bluegrass-band/

ArjenKeijzer

What mostly works well is trying to get something above your head, like a partytent ( do you call it like that in English?) I mean the open tents you sit under in your garden. They are cheap and easy to transport. The sound then stays where you are playing, so at least each one can hear themselfs decently.