From the
YouTube community we’ve seen a growing number of drum microphone comparisons,
of both conventional pro-level and affordable microphones. These comparisons
are of great value to new buyers and even to more seasoned engineers. In this article
I will share my own current top three pic for dynamic snare-drum microphones. At
least one of the mics should be familiar to most readers, and they vary in
price from average to high as far as dynamic microphones go.
The three microphones have slightly
different profiles: one is the cleanest and clearest; another is the most
trusted both over and under the snare; and the final has a pleasant high-mid
punch for those snares that really should cut through the mix.
Sennhesiser MD 441
This is
perhaps my all-time favourite to capture the top of a snare-drum. The advantage of this microphone is how it positions the snare-sound in the larger mix. My
ears have always perceived it as more tidy and focused in the mid-range than
the trusted SM57, when recording a whole kit. The micrphone includes
a bass roll-off and a treble boost, but there have been different versions in
the past and at least one I know of without the roll-off. This is an excerpt of
what Sennheiser writes about the MD 441 on their web-page: ‘Dynamic super-cardioid microphone […].
Balanced sound. Precise and distortion-free reproduction even at highest sound
pressure levels.’ Those words are very much in line with my experience.
Home-studio owners might be
hard-pressed to cash out for one of these right off the bat, but since it has
been around for a while there will be a few in circulation in the second hand
market. It is also a well worth microphone to save up for in
the long run. Personally, I would rather start off with getting one of these
for use on snare-drum, and wait with getting a whole line-up of MD 421s for the
toms. The rational is simple: How many times per beat do you hear the snare vs.
how many times do you hear toms?
As much as
I have a soft spot for the MD441, I have never been disappointed with the sound
of an SM57. It is easily the most trusted and predictable snare microphone in
history and it is my personal top pick for a dynamic under the snare-drum. It is also my top pick for deep snare-drum
sounds as it produces a really nice punch in the low mids. In addition to being
a great snare-drum mic, it is one of the most versatile microphones you can own. Its most under-valued use may be on voice as the SM58 steals all the thunder
due to its grille. Custom-made wind-screens exist and pop-filters can be found
in most studios.The SM57
has been a top pick for drums for more than half a
century and I guess my grandchildren will one day inherit my own collection
and keep using them as nothing had changed. Which it hopefully won’t. I'm now in my 30's
with no children, so it's not exactly around the corner. That should put some
perspective on what I think about the future of this microphone.
Audix i5
This is the
only microphone on the list that I have not yet used, but I have heard it in a
number of comparison-reviews and come across it in articles from the industry-press. Sound on Sound did a great
review of this microphone. Their article also tells you about the diversity
of sound-sources this mic can be put to use on. It is intended to compete with
the SM57 and they are closely comparable in price, and certainly not too far
from each other in sound. Perhaps not surprising from Audix, the sound has slightly
more high-end snap than the SM57. It also appears to be a tad clearer and more
open sounding.
For high-pitch drum-sounds and piccolo-snares,
this is the microphone I find most interesting on offer right now. Think about
those haunting, piercing snappy snare-sounds in fast-paced funky grooves that
keeps playing inside your head and prevents you from sleeping at night. This is
what I would capture them with!
That this microphone is not in my own
collection yet is just a temporary deficit. It is irrevocably on the
purchasing-list!
A Pinch of Inspiration
Here’s one of my favourite YouTubers, Rick Russie,
making great sound with a mix of Shure and Audix close-microphones. He has
chosen one SM57 on the snare:
High
quality pictures are needed for anyone who is producing music or promoting an
artist. This blog-post shows you the pictures from a recent photo-shoot, and I’ll
share some reflections around the process. I initiated this shoot, and seen from
my angle it had three components: an artist, sourcing a high-end photographer, and
finding a visual expression that fitted the artist. The artist was Oda Kveinå Tonstad, and the photographer was Theodor Haltvik With (both might be
familiar to regular readers).
Planning and process
1. The
pictures from this shoot was for general use rather than for a song or album.
This meant that we didn’t need to analyse any musical material to match with the
visual expression. The pictures were to be used for professional online-use,
and near-future music-releases should they come. The process was initiated with
me compiling pictures of artists and styles that I felt represented Oda as I
knew (and wanted to see) her. If I had produced a specific musical work (album,
iTunes-single, etc.) I would have held on to the central coordinating role
between artist and photographer (some music producers will want to give this process
away; you’ll know for yourself). Theodor compiled my pictures into a mood-board
while he and Oda both worked on their own compilations of images. Creatively
this is where I left the process. Oda felt some of my pictures represented her while
some were discarded. She came up with her own compilation of pictures that
added new influences to what we already had. Theodor received our input and stretched
some of them one step further, since he saw hidden potentials as a
professional.
2. Oda and
Theodor finalised the mood-boards and agreed on clothes, locations and a date. I
believe a contingency plan was hatched in the event that the weather should
turn unsuited for the outdoor-part of the shoot.
3. Photo-shoot.
I rocked up for the studio-shoot; firstly, to make sure the key elements I
wanted on film was captured, but mostly to create general mischief! :-)
Some
thoughts on the process
- Oda is an
accomplished dancer and some of the images are taken to capture this.
- Shots included
both profile pics and whole-figure for different use.
- If you’re
a management, studio or record-company working with an artist for the long-haul,
it is useful to have a portfolio of pictures from the duration of the
collaboration. Ideally, get the first pictures done as soon as you start
working with the artist (perhaps even in the studio, practice room or in
everyday settings).
A selection of headshots for profile-pictures
Behind the Scenes/ 'General Mischief'
Yours truly having some fun with Theodor’s Smartphone :-)
In the 1930’s Oda worked for Walt Disney Company
under another artist name. Some of her old
friends came to visit her at Theodor’s studio :-)
Oda and Theodor at Work
I
really liked the eye-contact between Oda and this dinosaur!
A good
friend of mine, Oda Kveinå Tonstad,
is just about to embark on Leeds
College of Music’s Music Production program. She has called me ‘mentor’ for
a few years — a title I didn’t request but am very happy to receive!
Before departure she wanted to run through some recording techniques for acoustic
guitar. We met at my project studio and had a limit of two hours before other
obligations kicked in. We ran through four different recording techniques and I’ll give you a brief summary
here. These are not meant to be ‘the four quintessential techniques for every
engineer,’ but rather a selection of techniques that I like. Other articles may
have slight variations over some of the techniques I’ll describe — this is where
you should let your personal preferences be the guide.
The microphones we used was a small collection of typical
project-studio microphones.
The Techniques
1. Stereo Pair/ Spaced Pair
The only small-membrane
pair I had available was a
pair of affordable omni-mics. Ideally, I’d like to use a pair of cardioid
microphones in, for instance, an X-Y configuration. There is little point in
trying to use a pair of omnis in X-Y so we did a spaced pair configuration (but
leaving out spacing-rules since we just wanted to build up
some ‘vocabulary’ of techniques). We used a stereo
bar, which roughly mimics the distance between someone’s ears. We placed
the microphones about half a meter away from the guitar, just above it, physically
pointing towards the guitar-body.
While the
X-Y, ORTF and similar techniques work by literally pointing the microphones in
different directions, omnis don’t ‘point,’ as it were. A spaced pair utilises
the distance between microphones —the sound hits the microphones at different points
in time and the combination of the two creates a stereo-image. In other words, the
sound is delayed between the channels in your mix if the sound hits the
microphones at different points in time. This also means that sound that hits
at the same time will be in the centre of your mix. While reflections from the
surrounding walls will arrive at different times. Sources placed at the side of the set-up will have more delay
between the channels (the stereo-image gets wider or tilts to one side). But with
sources placed at the side of the set-up you should look out for cancellations
of important frequencies. The X-Y technique or other techniques where the
membranes of the microphones are placed as close as possible does not have the
same problem with cancellations. That doesn’t make these techniques better in
themselves, but they might be better suited for certain applications.
This is technique
where a big-membrane condenser in pointed towards a guitar from a medium
distance. When I was sitting down with the guitar, the microphone was placed
about half a meter in front of me and a little higher than my head. The
distance allows the microphone to pick up the whole guitar, plus some of the
room, and not just the relatively isolated sound of the instrument. –not unlike
a person sitting in front of someone playing a guitar. The mix between the room
and the guitar can be adjusted by moving the mic closer or further from the
guitar, just like a pair of ears.
3. Mono — 12th fret
When we
were done recording the over-head, Oda insisted that we lowered the mic and put
it in front of the 12th fret. I had thought about dropping this technique
because of limited time, but it turned out to be a great thing that we kept it.
The mic was placed at about 30 cm. (or around a foot) away from the guitar. Perhaps
the most classic mics to use in this configuration are SM57s
and U47s
(although they are very different). Placing a mic in front of the sound-hole can
produce a lot of bass-rumble. Placing a mic pointing at the body/ soundboard of
the guitar can produce a pleasant sound but with very little ‘bite’. Placing a
mic in front of the 12th fret is a good way of capturing both the
attack of the strings and some of the sound of the body — with just one mic. This
is probably the most used recording technique for acoustic guitar in recording-history.
Graham from
the Recording Revolutionrecently
did a great video where he shows a variation of this technique:
4. Two microphones — 12th fret and
body
This is my
personal favourite. It involves two mics that capture two different parts of
the guitar. We changed the condenser mic on the 12th fret to an
SM57. This produces a sound with a bit more ‘bite’ and a bit less ‘body’. We then put the big-membrane
microphone pointing towards the soundboard behind the bridge. We put it just
off the corner of the guitar, pointing at an angle towards the soundboard
between the bridge and the edge of the instrument. I tend to use small-membrane
condensers (Oktava MK-012 and Neumann KM 184 are favourites). Small membrane mics have a
cleaner off-axis response, which is something to take into
account, especially when placing the mic at an angle. But a big-membrane or another
dynamic will also do. One aspect of making the microphones blend well is to
avoid phasing. To adjust the position if the condenser-mic, I usually put on a
pair of headphones and move the mic around until I find a sweet-spot where the
two microphones blend well. (Naturally, you have to hear both microphones in
the headphones when performing this manoeuvre. They should not be panned out,
but be dead-centre to reveal any phasing if you have stereo-listening.) We didn’t
have time for this today and we ended up needing to invert the phase of one
microphone in the mix. After applying the phase-reverse the guitar sounded heavier/
deeper and more focused. Using headphones during mic-placement is a couple of
minutes well spent for optimising and focusing your sound. In the mix, the
microphones are panned hard left and right, or to - 25%, + 75% according to
your preference.
If the
guitar has an internal mic or pic-up I usually add this as a separate line. It
often turns out redundant, but it adds an extra back-up or option for the mix.
In the mix it can be used for layering — panned out opposite another layer, or with
processing/ amp-simulation if desired. Though if it is intended from the beginning
to feature opposite another layer in a section of the song, I would usually record
this track separately to get true double-tracking.
The two
microphones used for this technique: one dynamic pointing at the 12th
fret, and one condenser pointing at an angle towards the soundboard behind the
bridge.
The Verdict
Assessing
the recordings. Oda was the Pro Tools-operator for today's session.
1. Spaced Pair
We found
the sound to be a bit boxy and bright, which partially reflects the affordable
home-studio microphones. We tried to soften, sweeten and focus the sound by
gentle use of eq., compression and reverb. –but fixing things in the mix have
their limitations. We both agreed that the clear, bright omnis would be a more
interesting option if used as room mics in a multiple-mic set-up. Oda felt some bass was lacking. This
cannot really be alleviated by moving the mics closer to the source (as it
usually can), since omnis have no proximity effect.
2. Mono Overhead
The
microphone captured the natural sound of the guitar nicely. Some of the room
bled into the recording (which you may or may not like). I have had good
success with this technique on bright and rattly guitars with tube-mics before.
However, on this particular recording we felt that the sense of the guitar’s physical
presence was not as strong as we had hoped for in the mix. So we muted it and
moved on to:
3. Mono — 12th fret
This was
one of our two favourites today! The sound was focused, large enough, bright
enough and very-very mix-friendly. Processing and placement in the mix would have
been the easiest to do of all the recordings. The result was a good testimony
to how much you can do with a simple home-studio microphone.
4. Two microphones — 12th fret and
body
This was
the other favourite. The stereo-image is good, but in some mixes it can
compromise a clear sense of the sound’s ‘location’ (this can be improved
somewhat by finding the sweet-spot when placing the second mic as described
above). Oda said that this was the technique she wanted the most to experiment further
with, while we both agreed technique number 3 was the safest option to get good
results quickly. An added bonus of this technique is that if the two channels are
panned out in stereo, it helps to clean up the phantom-centre for vocals or
other lead-sounds. But if you have a busy mix and you want the guitar to be exactly
in one location, technique number 3
will be the easiest to work with. Technique number 4, on the other hand, can also
be used as a mono-technique where the two microphones provide ‘bite’ and ‘body’,
to construct a more complete sound. This can be bounced to mono or mixed down
to a group-track on a mixer (that is, an aux-track in ProTools), and subsequently be
placed in the mix in one particular location.
–just like with technique 3.
* * *
To create
the most amount of diversity between the techniques, in this article we have convered:
·Two mono-techniques (respectively
close and distant)
·Two stereo-techniques (respectively
close and distant)
If you’re starting
out doing recording, my advice would be to get to know technique 3 first. The
video from The Recording Revolution will show you a way to expand on this technique.
If you’re used
to close-micing guitars in mono, you might want to try technique number 4, as this
will broaden your toolbox quite a bit.
Alternatively, you could also experiment with adding a
pair of room-mic or more closely paced overheads (or a single microphone for
that matter), to the mono-technique you are already familiar with. This can add
more depth and room to the sound, but this is also subject to having a nice
sounding room. With more than one microphone you should stay on the look-out
for phase problems. Also remember that room mics are a compliment to the close-sound
and can be brought up and down according to the need, just like with an artificial
reverb.
If you want some fresh thoughts on how to set up microphones
in a way that plans ahead to the mix, see another one of my blogposts: ‘Mixing
with Microphones’.
Have fun recording, and feel free to leave your own recording-experiences
or questions in the comments below!
Me pretending
to be a Greek Philosopher at the university campus later the same day. (Photo:
Oda)
This post
belongs to the main article ‘Focal Alpha 50, 65 & 80 — Review and Comparison.’ It is a quick over-view over alternative speakers I considered for
my last monitor acquisition. My requirements were:
1.Speakers
must give a reasonable impression of bass-levels. Driver size should preferably
be in the region of 7 to 8 inches.
2.Mid
range clarity. Vocals should be crisp and clear and be easy to position in a
mix.
3.Open
and balanced sound that transfers easily to other systems.
-Quite
new product with promising price/quality ratio
-For
a brief stint I also considered Yamaha’s HS7 or HS8 as a temporary solution
(these don’t really fulfil the requirement of tidy mid-range clarity)
-JBL
and Yamaha were presented in a revealing shootout video on Youtube, find it here
-JBL
was clear winner to me in the video as expected, really keen to try them in real life -(Find
BBC Music Magazine’s review of the smaller LSR 305 through
another blogger here)
