Recording - June 2010 - 46

What does miking have to do with electric keyboards? Find out in this month’s Keyboard Column!

RECORDING KEYBOARDS
By Devon Brent
Keeping everything ITB (In The Box) when it comes to DAW recording is certainly very convenient compared to recording OTB (Outside The Box). Even so, a pinch of OTB flavor can add a little pizzazz to those keyboard tracks. If you think you need to spend thousands of dollars to get that extra bit of ‘something’, think again. Let’s dive in to see what extra we can do to improve those tracks. In the open air There is certainly something to be said for moving some air molecules about a room when making that “perfect” track. When it comes to electronic keyboard tracks, the flexibility is almost infinite. Whatever you do with the audio after it hits the outputs is up to you. Let’s take a look at a few suggestions...

OUTSIDE THE BOX
suggestion is to grab a favorite keyboard amp and record in your room, a stairwell, a big empty room in your basement, your hallway... in short, experimentation goes a long ways. Finally, who said the speakers have to be of stunning quality? Try miking up some cheap multimedia speakers to roll off the lows and highs, or overdriving them to add some grit, if that’s your thing. • Make it a thick one: Want to thicken up a take, but want to avoid the typical phase-cancellation problems that can occur when doubling the exact same prerecorded keyboard take? Try placing your mic in different parts of the room for each take; try playing with two different microphones that have different roll-offs and pickup patterns; try changing the axis of the microphone towards the speaker without even moving

Remember, just because an effects box is old doesn’t mean it’s bad.

• The clickety clack of the keyboard track... Ever listened to a guitar track played by a keyboardist on a keyboard? What’s missing? It’s the human element and interaction with the instrument; the string squeaks as fingers glide over the strings, the pick plucking the strings, and so much more. Why not add that ‘human’ element to an electronic keyboard track as well? You could use either use a contact mic attached to your keyboard, or try aiming a mic right at the keybed itself while you play. Keep the recording low in the mix to add that pinch of something extra. • What’s between your mic and speakers? While we struggle so hard to make the ‘cleanest’ signal path and the most ‘perfect’ take, sometimes a little ‘imperfection’ adds a bit of character. Try playing back your track through your main monitors and record the results right back into your DAW; be careful not to monitor the recorded track at the same time, unless you like the attack of the feedback beasty. Another
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RECORDING JUNE 2010

the mic stand; try recording the takes playing off two different sets of speakers or keyboard amps, or a combination of such; and in the end, try panning the two takes one hard left and one hard right. Anything that will change the time separation and the timbre between takes will go a long ways to making things bigger and more ‘realistic’. • On the edge: Keep in mind that distortion doesn’t always have to be done with some fancy pedal board or effects plug-in. Try subtly overdriving your own amp or push some speakers that you don’t care about and record the results; pure gritty heaven. OTB sans microphone Going outside the box doesn’t always mean you need to use a microphone; summing boxes, high end preamps, and hardware effects processors can take you to new and better places. Here are a few tricks to try, some very affordable and some less so.

Recording - June 2010

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