My Morning Jacket use sE mics and filters

Ryan Pickett, FOH and Live Performance Archive Recording Engineer for the band My Morning Jacket, is currently using sE Electronics Voodoo VR1 passive ribbon microphones and sE Instrument Reflexion Filter 2s (IRF2) on the band’s summer AmericanaramA Festival of Music tour with Bob Dylan and other guest artists. Pickett, who has been working with the band for eleven years, has also been relying on sE Mics and Reflexion Filters mixing and recording the band’s front man Jim James on his first solo project.

Pickett reports that when touring with My Morning Jacket he uses a pair of VR1 ribbon mics as a Blumlein pair – at a 90-degree angle with the capsules coincident – as drum overheads. He has also used VR1s on the guitar amps used by James and Carl Broemel. The VR1 microphone, a passive version of sE’s VR2 active ribbon mic, achieves a 20Hz – 20kHz frequency response through the use of a new mechanical device designed by Siwei Zou, sE Electronics’ founder.

“I chose the VR1 mic for its size and price point,” reported Pickett. “I love the added air at the top end of the VR1; it delivers more high-end than traditional ribbons. The drum sounds have become very open and natural, and cymbals no longer hurt. I also find myself using less EQ on the overhead channel strip. And the VR1s are also low profile enough to allow me to get the right proximity without blocking the audience or drummer’s sight lines.

“The sE Microphones are very robust. That’s what really sets them apart from other ribbons. I’ve had other ribbon mics that were too delicate to take on the road, but I’ve had no problems with the VR1s. I really like the idea of being able to use studio mics in the live realm without having to worry about ribbon failure.”

Pickett is also using several sE IRF2 Instrument Reflexion Filters on tour in order to control bleed between instruments on-stage, customising the hardware on the filter screens so that they can be used with z-bars on the backline cabinets. “The IRF2s reduce spillover for the recording as well as for front of house and monitors,” he said. “I put them on the guitar amps. The keyboardist plays a lot of Fender Rhodes [piano] through a Fender Twin, so I put one on his amp, as there’s also a wedge blowing back into it. There’s another on the bass amp, because it’s usually pretty close to the drummer’s ride cymbal.”

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