Sound Recording - the WellMixed.com Blog

The blog has not been well-tended recently, but now it will be even less so, as the WellMixedStore.com takes over the NavBar link on the main website.

However, this means the beginning of a new era, where the microphones that you want to listen to are available at WellMixedStore.com

News about all thing related to home recording will be more constantly posted on a little microblogging platform that you may have heard about called Twitter. Be sure to Follow @WellMixed there.

How much of a difference is there between a mic that’s $99 and one that’s $1199?

This (sorta’ old) link lets your ears be the judge.

Brandon Drury at Recording Review, created this on-line experiment. He mashed up several combination of preamps, AD converters, and microphones, then recorded a short excerpt of hard rock with each combination.

(Will you like the SM-57 or Royer 121 better?)

You get to choose which recording you enjoy more. His emphasis was on cost. There are several unavoidable flaws in the methodology, but in short he tried to make every take sound as platinum as possible.

http://www.recordingreview.com/quiz/signal-chain-form.php

My friend, Sylvia Maria Gross, at our local NPR affiliate in Kansas City, forwarded this to me. It hits the highlights of how some of the Neumann U87 is assembled.

It is from the Discovery Science Channel’s How It’s Made television show.

For everyone who ever wished that their mic looked more like a pink whirl-pool or desert camouflage, Audix has announced five new camo-mic finishes for early 2009. The OM2 and i-5 microphones will both get the treatment.

The obvious question is: how many people have ever wished for this finish? (…aside from Dusty and Snow Job from G.I. Joe…..) And how will Audix now answer the demands of the paisley and plaid lobby? We can only hope that they get some design nerds on that ASAP….

The folks at Recording Hacks have just posted a list of microphone reviews found in issues of Tape Op magazine.

http://recordinghacks.com/reviews/tapeop/

The product reviews from Tape Op are usually fairly positive, and advertisements often appear beside them. This has let some readers to wonder whether the objectivity of the reviews is authentic.

The positivity has been justified in the past by DIY-hero/studio owner/editor Larry Crane as not wasting readers time with reviews of products that they will ultimately not buy anyway. So take what you want from them.

The list includes many affordable mics such as AKG C1000S, the MXL V67i, the Nady RSM-2, and others.

Via the Tape Log.

The process of recording is completely reliant the process of transduction. So what is that?

Merriam-Webster [on-line] says that “to Transduce” is:

to convert (as energy or a message) into another form <essentially sense organs transduce physical energy into a nervous signal>

There are many transduction that occur in the recording process. The modern recording signal chain often goes like this:

Mechanical movement (a moving guitar string)

to

Waves (pressure differences) in air

to

Mechanical movement (a moving microphone diaphragm)

to

Electrical signals in a wire (magnet, ribbon, or condenser to mic cable)

to

Numbers on your hard drive (A/D converter)

It’s amazing to think that all of these forms are essentially the same information, yet the media is completely different in each case!

Sound on Sound has a great article on reducing hi-hat bleed in your snare mic.

The slightly non-obvious answer: use a figure-8 condenser mic, if you dare to.

Check it out here.

One interesting thing about directional microphones is the “Proximity Effect.”

The proximity effect occurs when a sound source gets so close to a microphone that the normal frequency response curve (like from the SM-57) become inaccurate in the lower frequencies. Normally these curves are measured with the microphone in question set at about 4 feet away from the sound source.

The response remains true under normal recording conditions, until the directional mic is moved very close to the sound source. Extreme closeness creates a sharp rise in bass response.

Here is a bit of acoustic guitar recorded with an SM-57 about 12 inches from the neck:

Here is the same passage with the mic at only 4 inches:

When a vocalist “eats” the mic, he or she is attempting to take advantage of the proximity effect and add some bass to give the voice extra body.

Check out Shure’s technical discription of why Proximity Effect occurs here.

A couple posts ago, there was talk that placing 2 mics on an amplifier can produce exciting nü tones. Wait… what if we can only afford 1 mic, Mr Money Bags?!

Alright, time to hit the essentials last. Better late than never, though…

So pictured below is a diagram of a speaker from a guitar cabinet. Usually you only have one speaker … don’t try to mic an entire Marshal 4×12 cabinet with one SM57. It just don’t rock… Choose just one speaker (as pictured here).

Mostly what we want is a small, single speaker boutique amplifier… it sounds better than Direct Injection any day.

The cone of the speaker is exaggerated, but you get the idea. It produces the most high end, and therefore the tone is “crisp” near it. If you listen back to your recording, and it seems like the guitar tone is a little muddy try moving the mic nearer the cone, away from the speaker’s edge. The further off center the microphone is, the more mellow the sound will become.

Now how far away from the speaker should the mic be? I’d say about 4 inches.

Also, you will notice that I have placed my SM57 at an angle. I’ve found that this adds a touch of high end air to the sound.

The 57 handles guitar quite nicely. Electric guitar is almost always recorded with a dynamic, cardiod mic. What do those words mean? We haven’t had posts just yet on them… so here are the Wikipedia entries, because we know that you are going there any way!

Dynamic Microphones

Cardioid Polar Pattern

The first thing to consider when buying a new microphone is the polar pattern, also called a directional pattern. Microphone manufactures typically provide a polar diagram to show how sensitive the microphone is to a sound source in 360 degrees. Many mic boxes will have the diagram printed on the outside of the box. Next week, we’ll talk about the most popular pattern: cardioid. But first, let’s tackle the most basic:

Omnidirectional

Omni is a latin prefix that means “all.” Therefore, as one might deduce, an omnidirectional microphone captures all sound sources around it equally. (This would typically also go for sources above and below the mic - in case anyone in the band has a thing for flying … or laying down while playing.)

So if a guitarist is 3 feet in front of the mic, a bass amp is 3 feet to right, a singer is 3 feet behind, and a tamborine player is 3 feet to the left of the mic, one can achieve a great blend with only one mic. Keep in mind that there is no stereo in that situation, but…

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