Just recorded a christmas song with Josie Tuck (and band) live with no overdubs and its great. I really like to record like this sometimes (dependant on band and song etc) I like a bit of bleed between mics.
I switched the ribbon in the picture above to be another pencil condenser (as seen below behind the beta 57a) on Bruce's banjo after hearing the first few takes and that the ribbon wasn't really sounding very good and that the banjo was lacking something. I think once I'm going to end up using the condenser on the banjo, although it didn't have as much body it sounded more open and natural which is what we're going for.
Ellens bells were more than loud enough to cut through everything and didn't need miking up. I also played jingle bells from my desk, again they didn't need miking because they were meant to be quiet in the mix and the roomy bleed in to the other mic's was more than enough!
Also because there was no click everyone opted for no headphones which was how some of my favourite teacups recordings got done, theres something nice about just capturing people playing naturally.
I also got them to record a very special refrain at the end (which you'll hear in due time)
