Recording - December 2015 - 43
sound great on winds. (I admit that I have
slightly modified my mics, which is a discussion for another day.)
I did use a variation on the "hit-'em-wherethey-ain't" peak-and-dip trick described
above. If you remember from a couple of
months ago, the frequency response of the
Microtech Gefell M930 mics I used on Will's
voice and banjo has a broad rise in the treble, centered around 10kHz; thanks to this
rise, the transient sounds from the banjo slightly obscured some of Will's consonants. I
could have turned his vocal mic up, of course
(while recording or in the final mix), but that
would have upset the overall balance.
Instead, I used a modified version of the
trick, even though this is the antithesis of a
dense instrumental mix. I inserted a dip centered around 9 or 10 kHz into the banjo
mic's channel, with a Q of about 5. I turned
that band down a couple of dB, but I didn't
insert a corresponding peak in the vocal
mic's channel. That was already there, part of
the mic's own response, and it didn't need further help from me. So I got the vocal peak for
free, since it's part of this mic's distinctive
sound, while using the EQ to pull the banjo
mic's response back at those frequencies. The
combination worked wonderfully; the banjo
ceased to interfere with the vocal consonants,
and Will's words stayed clear (with the distinctive treble sound imparted by the mic's
response intact).
Philosophy
I need to tell you one other thing about the
EQ I used: I did it live on the board while we
were tracking. I might have put the EQ in
later, during mixdown, but I'm old-school
enough to prefer making my decisions on EQ
early in the process, rather than putting them
off. This is a philosophical preference, and
somewhat generational. (When multitrack
recorders were analog, doing EQ during
tracking avoided the possibility of boosting
tape hiss during mixdown.)
But doing the EQ (and compression-see
last month) on the way in gives me tracks that
practically mix themselves later. Or not later:
doing the EQ as we recorded let me cut a
live-to-2-track mix to give the musicians, so
they might judge their performances, and
decide which takes they liked.
I'd chosen and placed the microphones,
set the preamp gains, dialed in a little EQ
and compression. It was time to record, and
the recording system I used was digital. But
before we get into digital recording, I'm
going to take a quick digression and cover
two small but interesting topics that I didn't
cover in our look at EQ and compression: filters and expanders/gates. That's where
we're going next month-stay tuned!
Paul J. Stamler (stamler@recordingmag
.com) is a recording engineer, musician, educator, and lover of bizarre old music recordings, living and working in St. Louis.
http://www.gikacoustics.com
http://www.ADAM-AUDIO.COM
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - December 2015
Contents
Recording - December 2015 - Intro
Recording - December 2015 - Cover1
Recording - December 2015 - Cover2
Recording - December 2015 - 1
Recording - December 2015 - 2
Recording - December 2015 - 3
Recording - December 2015 - 4
Recording - December 2015 - 5
Recording - December 2015 - Contents
Recording - December 2015 - 7
Recording - December 2015 - 8
Recording - December 2015 - 9
Recording - December 2015 - 10
Recording - December 2015 - 11
Recording - December 2015 - 12
Recording - December 2015 - 13
Recording - December 2015 - 14
Recording - December 2015 - 15
Recording - December 2015 - 16
Recording - December 2015 - 17
Recording - December 2015 - 18
Recording - December 2015 - 19
Recording - December 2015 - 20
Recording - December 2015 - 21
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Recording - December 2015 - 23
Recording - December 2015 - 24
Recording - December 2015 - 25
Recording - December 2015 - 26
Recording - December 2015 - 27
Recording - December 2015 - 28
Recording - December 2015 - 29
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Recording - December 2015 - 33
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Recording - December 2015 - 72
Recording - December 2015 - Cover3
Recording - December 2015 - Cover4
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