Recording - June 2010 - 29

A choice of patterns Many LDCs offer multiple polar patterns like omnidirectional (360° pickup), bidirectional (figure-8, front and back only), and unidirectional (pickup mostly from the front of the mic, with cardioid, super-, and hypercardioid variants). While cardioid is the most common choice (and the only pattern available on most budget-priced LDCs), the other patterns are also commonly employed. The various patterns differ in the amount and timbre of off-axis “room” tone they pick up in addition to the direct vocal sound wave. Obviously this can factor in significantly if any other voices or instruments are performing live in the room at the same time. But even if the vocal recording is an (isolated) overdub, the contribution of room tone due to different patterns can noticeably impact the overall tonality of the voice. Experimenting with pattern selection (along with physical positioning of the singer and mic in the room) at the beginning of the session is once again a good idea. One last note—during recording, most engineers prefer to capture the vocal mic signal without committing to eq or compression, but many do add just a tiny bit (especially compression) if they’re familiar with how vocals recorded with a certain mic tend to “sit” in a mix. In my work I never track with eq, preferring instead to choose the best mic available for the desired tonal balance, but I often

do employ a little compression (just a couple of dB of gain reduction) to control a more dynamic singer. However, I always advise an inexperienced engineer to avoid this if possible, lest they apply too much—at least until they’ve got their ears trained by experience to know how much will get the job done without limiting their options later on.

Placing mics together this way lets you try them all at once on a vocalist. It’s time to twang The acoustic guitar is one of the most common instruments to be recorded in smaller studios. Again, techniques appropriate for onstage situations won’t yield the best results in the studio. This applies particularly to

acoustic guitar pickups, whether magnetic (sound hole) or piezo (bridge). These solutions, while they may offer superior feedback rejection onstage, will never provide the kind of open, woody tone needed for a top-quality studio recording. For that, once again, the choice is typically a condenser mic, though a good ribbon mic will achieve excellent results as well. I often use an LDC here as well (all the models mentioned above work well, and we can also include mics like the Shure KSM44), but in this case, it’s more likely to be a small-diaphragm “pencil” condenser, like the Neumann KM84/184, the AKG C451 series, or the Sennheiser MKH 8000 series. The acoustic guitar has two primary sound components that must be captured in good balance: string vibrations and body resonance. Too much string sounds thin and dry (the main problem with bridge pickups); the body adds the warm, woody resonance that gives each instrument its individual character, but too much can result in boomy, indistinct tone. Most recordists start by placing the mic about a foot in front of the guitar, and adjusting its position and angle so it points somewhere between the 12th fret and the bridge. Too near the bridge might be too thin a tone, straight at the sound hole might be too boomy, but since this depends on the particular instrument (and, to some extent, the room), this adjustment must be made by ear, finding the spot/angle that yields the best balance.

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Recording - June 2010

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