Recording - October 2013 - 38

Twenty Questions

On Mics
and Miking:
A Chat With Shure’s John Born
Interview by Mike Metlay
For this issue on tracking and mixing, we thought it might be fun to collect some
questions and answers on mic techniques, ranging from basic to more advanced,
as a worthwhile grab-bag of handy information. To help us out in this, we were
lucky enough to get a chance to talk to John Born, Associate Product Manager
for Wired Products with the Global Product Management Group at Shure.
John fielded questions covering a variety of mic-centric topics that recording musicians might be curious about, and we’d like to thank him for providing these answers, some with illustrative photographs, for our readers’ enjoyment and enlightenment.—MM

Basics For Beginners
1. Are there any hard and fast rules about when and where to use a dynamic mic vs. a condenser vs. a ribbon? What are each mic type’s strengths?
John Born: There aren’t necessarily hard and fast rules; it comes down to
the instrument you’re miking and the kind of tone you’re trying to get.
Dynamics tend to have a great midrange presence that makes them ideal for
amps, vocals, drums and percussion; condensers tend to have a lot more
detail than dynamics do, so they’ll be better for acoustic instruments with a
wide frequency range—piano, acoustic guitar, or overheads. Ribbons are
nice and warm, useful for taking the edge off of things like very splatty horns
or edgy guitar amplifiers... a ribbon will really mellow things out.
2. What is proximity effect? When and how can I use it to my advantage,
and when should I avoid it?
Proximity effect is the buildup of bass frequencies as you get closer to a directional microphone; omni mics don’t have this effect, but it’s a natural and unavoidable part of directional mics. You can avoid it to some extent by engaging a lowcut filter or by getting slightly farther away from the mic; an omni avoids it entirely but then brings in other issues related to bleed. It can be used to your advantage when a source needs to be warmed up; a singer with a thin voice can get
closer in on the mic, or you can beef up a guitar amp by moving the mic closer.
3. I’m getting some nasty pops when I track vocals, on ‘b’ and ‘p’ sounds.
Where do they come from, and how can I get rid of them? Is the problem
with my mic, or is it something I can fix without changing mics?
Those are called plosives; they come from a burst of air when a person
speaks. On a ‘b’ and ‘p’ the burst fires outward, on a ‘t’ sound it’s directed
downward. You can avoid them by repositioning your mic off-axis, but the
simplest solution is a pop filter.

Q&A 5: The 3-to-1 Rule.
to be three times farther apart from one another than
the distance from either one to the source. If you’re
miking a choir or a small ensemble and your mics
are four feet from the frontmost singers or players,
then they need to be 12 feet apart.
You do this to avoid phase interference that comes
from the same source sound entering the two microphones at slightly different times, resulting in phase
cancellation that can make the source sound hollow or
thin. It’s a guideline, not a hard and fast rule; your ears
should be the final judge. But it’s a good place to start.
6. What should I be listening for when I set up
drum overheads?
Before you even go there, make sure you have
fresh drumheads and properly tuned drums! No
matter how good your mics are, they can’t fix a
poorly tuned and worn drumhead. Then consider
phase alignment of the two mics with respect to the
drums; respect the 3-to-1 Rule if you’re spacing
them apart. You can do a lot with eq after the fact,
but you can’t entirely save a kit that was recorded
with phase issues. There’s also the option of setting
up “underheads” for a different sound, depending
on the musical genre.

Q&A 6: Mic placement for drum overheads.

4. What do I do when I’m trying to record a vocalist who doesn’t feel
right unless he or she is holding the mic, as in a live performance?
I go by the rule of “Make the artist as comfortable as possible”; if you can get
a better take and a better performance out of him or her with a handheld mic,
then consider a premium quality handheld condenser mic. There are a number
of great ones; naturally I have to mention the Shure KSM9, which has switchable
patterns and reduced proximity effect, as well as a good shockmount to reduce
handling noise. You do want to be careful that the singer doesn’t move the mic
around too much, or you may need to engage a compressor to even things out.

7. Some engineers are careful to always put up
a mic just to listen to the room. When and why
is this a good idea?
A room mic can be a useful tool when you’re
doing ensemble recording or capturing a live
band, so you can hear the sound of the ensemble
in its natural setting. You can use it as an effect
mic, but if you have a good ensemble in a good
room, then you can simply use room mics for part
of your recording rather than close mics.

5. What’s the 3-to-1 Rule?
The 3-to-1 Rule applies when you’re miking the same source with two microphones. Unless you’re using a stereo array that’s designed to have the two mics
very close together (we’ll talk about that in a minute), the two microphones need

8. I have seen some engineers putting two mics
on an acoustic guitar in different places, such
as the 12th fret and the bridge. Is this a stereo
miking arrangement? Why do it?

RECORDING October 2013

Recording - October 2013

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