EDUCATION TIME
All those who would be educated, lend me your eyes, and bare with me, there's nice pictures to look at here as well as informative words.
Rather than reproducing bullshit that you'll read in any magazine (e.g. "Oh I love the AKG 414 because etc bla bla), I will distill all knowledge which I have serendipitously discovered myself.
Recording Acoustic Instruments.
OK, when you play any acoustic instrument, certain frequencies or tones are emitted from different parts of the body of the instrument.
By way of demonstrating what I'm about to talk about, I've included an MP3 which you can listen to.
Click here - MP3 acoustic intruments
The 4 instruments recorded here are; Flute, Saxaphone, Clarinet, Violin.
One after another you hear the same take recorded with 3 Shure SM57s, from 3 different angles; close, side and overhead mic placement as follows;
Flute; (1) beside mouthpiece, (2) along length of flute (picking up more mid frequencies/mellow tones) (3) Overhead, distance of about 3 feet
Saxaphone; (1) in the bell (2) to the side of the bell (3) overhead, from 3 feet also
Clarinet; (1) in the bell (2) to the side of the bell (3) overhead, from 3 feet also
Violin; (1) beside where bow meets strings (2) Above thinner strings, 1 foot away, to pick up higher frequencies/tones (3) Overhead, from 3 feet.
This was a project I did as part of my Masters in Music Technology. I probably wouldn't get up to this shit left to my own devices. But it threw up a few interesting facts.
Generally speaking, the first closest mic placement gives most definition to the sound, the second (pointed at a position where the sound doesn't emit from i.e. beside the sax's bell as opposed to inside it) gives a more mellow sound, and the third gives a more balanced (i.e. all frequency bands) you can hear room reverberations.
All of this is important when considering what kind of sound you are looking for from the instrument. But aswell as mic choice, knowledge of each instrument and the frequency emission characteristics of each intrument is worth knowing about too.
Putting that into English, we have;
Flute sounds brighter up near the mouth piece, and mellower down towards the end, due to the frequencies emitted from the instrument at these points.
Or the violin emits higher frequencies above the higher (i.e. thinner) strings.
I used to have diagrams of what frequencies were emitted from where for each instrument, but alas they are lost to me.
Here's one for the flute and the sax drawn by me and mr mouse...
So you get the idea...
I also did a sonographic analysis of each of the recorded bits of each instrument, and along with the audio evidence, the visual evidence of presence of more higher frequencies in the sound was there for all to dig in the sonograms produced.
But for 'picture telling 1000s of words' effect, here's some crap pics of what I mean...
Again, rather craply drawn, but you get the idea.
Important (oscar winning) particular note; if you listen to the riff
played on the flute bit (I think it's from a piece by Telleman), there is the
bit at the end which has a descending thing, in groups of 4 which pitch wise
looks a bit like this...
What I'm referring to here as interim notes, are the notes which happen between
top 3 note thing... as notated above.
Anyway, the point I'm getting at is; On the close mic recording, some of these interim notes don't make it, level wise, as well as they do on the more distant mic placement recordings.
It is as if things are more democratic from a distance rather than at the coal face, i.e. levels of all notes are more equal...
Conclusion - Not always the best option to go for the close mic 'million bucks' sound if it means losing the volume on some of these interim notes.
Conclusions of this research;
Each acoustic instrument has frequency emission characteristics, emitting frequencies in different directions
Depending on what kind of sound you are looking for (e.g. 'Nights in white satin' mellow flute sound vs 'Voodoo People' prodigy raspy flute sound), what kind of vibe you are trying to achieve, knowledge of this shit is imperative.
Certain music will lend itself to certain mic placements than others, e.g. jazz music with lots of flute solos, with lots of missable interim notes.
Research is grand, but a bit boring.
Stereo Recording;
Bruce Swedien, the man who recorded most of Michael Jackson's stuff, and more particularly brought "Man in the mirror" into this world, says "above all, try to record in stereo as it adds an emotional depth to the music that you will not get with mono."
Not getting too subjective, but if the man who brought the "take it upstairs" all time award of winning recording of that Gospel choir kicking in in "Man in the mirror" says use stereo, then I'm there!
Well, at least I'll give it a go. Stereo recording = more or less, point 2 identical mics e.g. cardiod mics, at right angles to each other, with the sound source being recorded at the centre of this right angle. Works best for acoustic instruments.
Or else, you could be like Juan Garcia Esquivel (guy who invented Space Age Bachelor Pad music, as used in 'Four Rooms' the film, in the Room with Antonio Banderas in it)... Esquivel put one half of his orchestra in one room and the other half in another room, and recorded both rooms with one mic each, everyone playing at the same time.
Live, 1 take, 1 mic;
Back in the early days (i.e. 1930s) , the Ink Spots would gather around 1 mic, and play their tunes. Hoppy Ink Spot would lean nearer the mic when doing his legendary spoken word verse, the guitarist might lean a bit closer for his solo. Point being, they had their shit together before they ever went into the studio. Similarly, Sinatra refused to do overdubbed recording. He needed to be in the same room as the orchestra to produce the best vibe out of him. But who's to say the orchestra didn't give it that extra bit, by being in the same room as Frank.
Anyway, if there's a song which is l payed by a dude on guitar and sung by same guy, and if it feels better for him to do both live, then fucking let him do it all live, carefully placing the mic at a position whereby it will pick up his guitar and voice in the desired relative level intensity. It will give a different sound to using more than one mic. Perhaps I'm stating the obvious, but know that Hoppy and the Ink Spots and old blue eyes will give you the thumbs up!
Recording an aggresive vocalist, who gets a bit shy in the studio.
Here's a scenario. You've seen this band live. They give it loads. The singer lets it rip, screams his throat out no problemo. But he comes into the studio, and his voice is reduced to a half falsetto whimper.
SOLUTION; The dude needs to feel like he's onstage. Perfectly OK. How to create this feeling? If he's a vocalist (i.e. doesn't play guitar) he's probably used to roaring into a mic, which is in his hands. But a mic in the hand, can result in some unwanted hand associated bump sounds etc. So give him a non-plugged in mic, and put the recording mic over his mouth by a few inches. This way he can scream his lungs out into the hand held non-plugged in mic (or plug it in and see what it sounds like anyway), rather than having to worry about pop shields and damaging the good vocal mic and all that crap...
What you lose out (if at all) in a little bit of clarity, you'll make up for in a full on fucking vocal performance.
If giving him/her the mic isn't enough, then kick everyone in the studio out. If that doesn't work, buy them alcohol and get them out of their skins/minds. If that doesn't work do like the Korn producer did and whisper into poor little jonathan's ears all the times his mammy wouldn't let him go out or when she told him to cut his hair. Oooooh then Jonathan will let it rip. Wanker.
Just to be clear, I love Deftones, I hate Korn. And I feel sorry for muppets.
End of Education time
more to follow, as soon as I learn new shit...
mark o'connor, 2003