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Dan Gonzalez [Cakewalk]

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  1. Dan Gonzalez [Cakewalk]
    Entering the studio can be a stressful task if it is your first time. At Cakewalk, we’ve outlined a few things that every guitarist should know before walking into a tracking session. 1. Change your strings every 24 hours of play time Guitar strings can take a beating in the studio, especially if your plan is to record a whole album’s worth of material. To keep strings from become dull and bland make sure to switch them out every 24 hours of play time. If you do switch them before a session, make sure to properly break them in so that you are breaking them in while you record. 2. Improve pick attack and dexterity Sometimes one of the reasons why guitarists have a hard time getting the sound they want in the studio is because their pick attack is not as hard as it needs to be. A lot of the time in rock and heavy metal recordings much of the sound from the guitars is what drives the song. If that sound is not a particular tone and aggressiveness then the sound of the track will not sound correct for that style. A harsh palmed muted passage played by someone who isn’t quite versed in that style sticks out like a sore thumb. 3. Practice, practice, practice to a metronome This goes without saying. Make sure that you are practicing to a metronome and internalizing the clicking. Don’t tap your foot or make any loud gestures to count the beat to yourself. You must feel the metronome in your playing or else you will have a hard time staying quiet in a recording booth while tracking. 4. Practice playing full takes Recording full takes is definitely one of the hardest things to accomplish in the studio. In order to have this kind of workflow down you must practice the songs in their entirety or even practice recording the songs. Sometimes recording part by part is a quicker task, but only if each part is practiced to perfection. If you must record each section part by part then the music may be out of your comfort zone. Need a DAW to practice recording full takes? Try SONAR X3 for Free! 5. Practice with headphones if you are not used to playing with headphones on The studio may bring many levels of discomfort if you have never experienced it before. One of which could be playing with headphones. Practicing with an amp can be useful when rehearsing for live shows, but little details about your performance could go unnoticed with that type of setup. The studio is a place where you are put under a microscope and are expected to play your best. Using headphones is part of the monitoring setup in a lot of studios. Do yourself a solid and pick up a pair to understand how you sound “under the gun”. 6. Adjust pickups in case they are too far from your strings Electric guitars rely on the pickup systems to output a proper signal. Make sure your pickups haven’t sunk into the body of your guitar. The farther these are from string, the more the signal suffers in sound. The fix is easy for most pickups, simply take a screwdriver and adjust the screws that sit on the pickups. Count your turns so that each side of the pickup is the same distance. 7. Get a new guitar cable plus a backup Brand new guitar-specific guitar cables are very important. Different companies make different kinds of cables out of all different types of materials. Take the time to make a few purchases to see what the differences are in cables. Check online reviews, and maybe even find out what studios recommend for guitarists. Check the cables that you are using between guitar pedals and make sure that they are all undamaged. Don’t kink your cables and make sure you wrap them correctly. 8. Make sure intonation is correct, and if not then get it intonated This is by far the #1 culprit of bad recordings. An easy to understand what your intonation is like simply tune your guitar’s open strings and then play octave chords above the 12th fret of the guitar. If something sound severely wrong then your guitar needs to be intonated. Furthermore, if your arrangement has a bass involved, make sure the bass in intonated as well and by the same person. Different luthiers use different methods to intonate guitars and basses. You should have your guitars setup with the change of every season. The weather can affect the wood severely and cause intonation to go out. Getting your guitar setup will also help adjust things like your action and truss rod adjustments. 9. Clean your fretboard Use a flat-head screwdriver where the frets meet the wood. Make sure you do this gently, and make sure there’s no grime or residue in this area of the neck. Oftentimes even a little bit of grim can make the guitar sound out of tune when it’s perfectly intonated and tuned. in addition, you can easily google fretboard cleaner online and order some for a small amount of money. 10. Pedal Upkeep If you are using any pedals, make sure they are either hardwired with AC or have brand new batteries. Depending on how the pedal is built and wired, a dead battery can hinder the signal. They can create hums, ground loops, or just simply process in a way that chokes the sound. 11. Make sure all the electronics in the guitar are working If you have noticed that you have a loose pickup selector, noisy knob, or a unstable cable jack then make sure that you get that worked out. The last thing you need is for something to fall apart in between takes. Make sure you do not have any loose screws or bent hardware on your guitar either. Sometimes this kind of damage can produce more problems. 12. Ohm matching when using one or more speakers Matching impedance (which is measured in Ohms) needs to be done correctly. If do not match these correctly or know what you are doing then it could result in a blown speaker or blow head. Make sure to be particularly careful about this when working with more than one speaker or differing loads. 13. Buy a backup pair of tubes for your amp head Make sure you purchase new tubes for your head before entering the studio. Blowing a tube during a recording can lose you about 2 hours in the studio and even more if you are several hours away from the closest music store. Make sure to purchase the same kind of tubes you had before. Different types of tubes can alter the sound of your tone. 14. G-String constantly out of tune? If you’re guitar’s G string constantly falls out of tune then take a #2 pencil and gently roll a bit of lead in the nut-groove where the G string lies. This helps add a level of friction between where the string and the nut meet and keeps the string from sliding around during your performance. Wrap Up Don’t be afraid or intimidated by the studio if it’s your first time going in. Everyone makes mistakes their first time and the best thing you can do is practice your passages until you can play them cold. Read up on your favorite guitarists to see how they prepare for the studio, or talk to guys that you know record a lot.
  2. Dan Gonzalez [Cakewalk]
    The goal of this article is to help you shop for an audio interface. These concepts can get very deep, but for now I will keep to some of the more basic points about the subject. Here are 9 questions you should ask yourself when comparing audio interface options. 1. How many instruments do I need to record at the same time? The first thing you should consider is the environment that you will be working in and how many instruments you need to record at once. Some people only need the ability to record 2 tracks at a time and others need a minimum of 8. This is the first and most crucial step to understanding your set-up. *Note* Hardware companies advertise their products as having x-amount of inputs and y-amount of outputs. For example, you may see this in the specifications for an audio interface: [Product Name] 10×6 Inputs/Outputs [Product Name] 16×8 Inputs/Outputs [Product Name] 8×4 Inputs/Outputs This does not mean that you can record 10, 16, or 8 inputs at once. It is a way of telling the end user how many connections are on the product itself. Hardware companies can up the number of inputs on a device if they include the following: Hi-Z inputs that override microphone inputs Line inputs that override microphone inputs Effects returns (No microphone pre-amp, just AD converters) Headphone Outputs You need to look for the term “Simultaneous Audio” in order to understand how many inputs a device can record at the same time. In reality, a device may actually have these types of specifications: 10×6 Inputs/Outputs (8 Simultaneous Inputs, 6 Simultaneous Outputs) 16×8 Inputs/Outputs (12 Simultaneous Inputs, 8 Simultaneous Outputs) 8×4 Inputs/Outputs (4 Simultaneous Inputs, 4 Simultaneous Outputs) Make sure to look out for this, it could really throw a wrench into your budget if you don’t. 2. What kind of connections do I need for the instruments I’m recording? For the most part there are 4 basic types of connections that you will need to look for when shopping for an audio interface: XLR and XLR/TRS Combo – If you are looking to record acoustic instruments then you will need to buy a microphone and an XLR cable to use the XLR plug on your audio interface. Audio interfaces that come with Combo XLR/TRS jacks are great because they take 2 types of connections in one. XLR Jack XLR/TRS Combo Jack *Note* Make sure to check if your microphone needs “Phantom Power” and if your audio interface supports this. Some interfaces label this as “+48v”. TRS – For use of instruments that do not need a preamp. Look for this type of connection in the event that you want to record non-acoustic instruments like keyboards and sound modules. Hi-Z – Used for Guitars, Basses and any other high impedance connections. TRS or Hi-Z Jack 3. What are outputs, and what do I use them for? Outputs are used mostly for listening to the audio coming out of your recording program. Examples of outputs are: Headphone jacks Main Outputs Sub Outputs Outs labelled 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, etc These connections are typically XLR or TRS connections. This is where you would connect things like Studio Monitors, or external effects processors. 4. What kind of connection does my computer need to connect to an audio interface? The most common types of connections needed are USB 2.0, Firewire 400, and Firewire 800. These all stream data at different speeds but in the end tend to get the job done pretty well. USB 2.0 Firewire 400 Firewire 800 When shopping for an interface check to make sure it has the same connection your computer. 5. Do I use any devices that require MIDI connections? Some examples of MIDI devices: Rack Mountable Synths Drum Machines Effect Units Guitar Amp Simulators General MIDI Sound Modules These types of hardware units require MIDI connectivity such as MIDI In, MIDI Out, and MIDI Thru. For the most part, MIDI In and MIDI Out are the two most used and common types of connections needed on an interface. *Note* A lot of MIDI Devices these days connect to a computer using USB, but older units tend not to have the USB connections. 6. What Sample Rate am I mostly recording at or working with? a. Term you should know Sample Rate – A sample rate is a measurement of samples taken from an audio signal over time. Humans can only hear up to 20kHz. To properly represent an analog signal in a digital domain the sample rate must be at a minimum of double the range of the human hearing. This is why 44.1kHz is the standard sample rate for any hardware interface. Some audio interfaces support Sample Rates up to 96kHz or even 192kHz. These sample rates produce higher resolution audio. b. Should my audio interface support high sample rates? The following examples outline a couple scenarios where having a piece of hardware that is flexible across many sample rates is important: Scenario 1 If you are mixing your band’s record that was recorded at a high-end studio then they may have tracked your entire band at 96kHz and given you just the project files. If your audio interface does not support 96kHz then you will not be able to open your project up without some headache or strange behavior. Owning an interface that supports up to 96kHz could be a great investment so that you can open up just about any project that is given to you. Scenario 2 When working as a freelance recording engineer you may be asked to record at a minimum of 192kHz for reasons of clarity and high fidelity. Some major touring Orchestras and Choirs do this as a standard. Obviously this is a pretty specific scenario, but if you are not equipped to deliver on that kind of work as a freelancer, then you may miss out on some opportunities. You may not encounter either of these scenarios but it’s important to be aware of this kind of stuff before you invest in expensive hardware. Recording and mixing at 44.1kHz is just fine, but if you are looking to spend some extra money on an interface that can record higher sample rates then go for it! 7. Am I going to need more inputs in the future? Expandable interfaces are usually a bit higher in price but could be useful in the future if you want to integrate it into a more serious setup. The types of connections that will allow you to sync multiple devices together are the following: ADAT – 8 Channels at 48kHz TOSLINK – 2 Channels D-Sub – Depends on manufacturer’s spec AES/EBU – 2 Channels SPIDF – 2 Channels When going down this route you should definitely consider clocking. This is the first thing most users will run into when daisy chaining multiple digital devices together. One piece of hardware should send clock to the other via one of the digital connections or (if available) a BNC connector. This keeps the two devices in sync with one another. Without a proper clocking method you will experience “jitter” – which is the sound two digital audio devices working together at different clock speeds. Some audio interface manufacturers allow their devices to be synced together when both are connected to a computer at once. The drivers on the computer manage the synchronization. Obviously this is a rather new and very specific occurrence, but it does exist. 8. Does my interface need to be portable or not take up that much room? The size and portability of an audio interface is definitely something to consider when first shopping for a device. Check out audio interfaces that are Bus Powered and do not require their own power supply. They could be especially useful when you are sitting in a place where only one power outlet is available (Airport Terminal, Tour Bus, Train). Interfaces that are bus powered are great for taking with you on the road because most of them are small and sometimes even fit in your back pocket. Larger audio interfaces that are portable typically will take up 1 or 2 spaces in a rack. These will ship with rack ears or have rack ears available for installation. Most of these audio interfaces are not bus powered and have their own power supply. In the event that you have a few of these then it’s important to purchase a Power Conditioner. Think of it like a power strip for your rack. It keeps voltages regular and will save your audio interfaces from getting fried by an insufficiently powered outlet. 9. Should I purchase a sound card or an audio interface? What is the difference? A soundcard is the system on your computer that handles all of your sound. An audio interface connects to your computer through USB or Firewire ports. One is internal and the other is external. Soundcards stream audio from the internet, games, applications, and anything else that requires basic audio playback. For the most part, stock sound cards are compatible with MME(32bit) Drivers. MME(32bit) Drivers are not the recommended driver mode for Digital Audio Workstations because their functionality is limited. Most Digital Audio Workstations require the use of an ASIO compatible device. When shopping for a brand new sound card make sure that you are purchasing it from a pro-audio company if your intentions are to record and mix within a DAW. Some high-fi companies produce sound cards that will say ASIO compatible. The best way to know if your sound card can be used with recording software is to read it’s manual or technical specifications. This is where it will list what recording programs are compatible with your device.
  3. Dan Gonzalez [Cakewalk]
    The recording of a snare drum is the focal point of every modern recording. It sits right in the center of the mix, below or above the vocals depending on the style of the music. In this article, I’ve outlined some mic placement techniques that will help focus in on getting specific snare sounds in your recordings. 1. Close Mic This is simple, easy, and very exposing. If you are looking to get that initial attack of your snare drum, use this type of placement. On its own it does not sound as appealing as one would first think, but once you add in the rest of your microphones you will begin to understand how the drumset takes shape. Close mic’ing a snare drum captures ghost notes, blast beats, and other low-volume hits. Adding this type of placement to your snare configurations and then automating it’s level in post or during the performance can help pick up snare hits that do not get through to the rest of the microphones on the drumset. 2. Close Mic with Moon Gel Applied This microphone placement is the same one used in number 1 above, but with Moongel applied. Applying Moongel to a snare drum reduces ringing overtones. Some snares ring a bit more than others depending on the type of head, drum-tuning and wood. This one in particular rang more than what was desired, so the application of moongel was necessary. Obviously the amount of ring in your snare is based on what you like stylistically. Coming from a heavy rock and metal background I tend to lean towards a more-attack and short-sustain type of snare sound. In my experience I have found that a snare with a long sustain can immensely impede drum editing, time alignment, and replacement; it can also get in the way of other frequencies when it comes time to mix. 3. Six inches from the snare – Let your snare breath When you move the snare microphone 6” from the head you introduce a level ambience to the sound of the snare. The amount of ring and attack sounds more like a natural snare drum. I think of it as allowing the snare to breath a bit more in the room so that more reflections from the surrounding areas make it into the microphone. Too close of a snare can almost “choke” the sound and make it sound unnatural and dull. This is especially useful when recording a drummer that is a hard hitter. The more you let the snare breath, the more dynamic its sound will become. 4. Side snare Obtaining the proper sound of a snare drum should be something that is tried and tried again. Moving microphones, trying different microphones, and referencing a track with desired sounds is the best way to start understanding the recording of a snare drum. Inexperienced users will start to reach for a plugin the second they get the tracks down in their DAW. Microphone placement is like anything else, practicing will only make you better. One (not so typical) technique that I like is setting up a microphone from the side. This allows for a combination of the top and bottom as well as some of ringing from the shell. You can increase the amount of top or bottom by simply raising or lowering the microphone. This, again, is a stylistic choice and introduces some new ways to personalize the sound of your snare. Bonus – A Warm Microphone Pre makes the difference The Warm WA12 microphone pre is by far one of the best preamps of it’s kind and price range. The feel, sound, and overall architecture of this pre amp makes for a great snare top choice just like the microphone pre amp that it’s modelled after – the API312. In fact this pre amp is so close to API’s design that it’s actually considered an absolute clone of the vintage ancestor. This was first noticeable when sending the hot snare top signal through it and understanding how it embraced the low frequencies with ease and didn’t break up in the high-end. It is by far the perfect option for home studios and pro studios alike. I used this for all of the snare top recordings in this article. 5. Bottom snare Typically this one is always paired with a top snare microphone. The common practice is to flip the two microphones out of phase due to their arrangement, but that’s really up to the engineer’s ear. Listen to your signal, then flip them out of phase and decipher which one sounds better. Sometimes this will even act as an EQ. Regardless, the bottom snare is there to pick up the crisp rattling of the snares against the resonant head. This bright sizzle from the bottom and the attack of a top snare can be used to balance the lows and highs of your initial snare signal when dialing in the right sound during mixing. 6. Overheads If you follow my other articles you will know that I typically work by getting the sound of the drums with the overheads first. Much of this is understanding the drums in the room, and how the snare sounds with the rest of the kit. For the most part, OH microphones are where a lot of the sound of your drums come from in the final mix, including the snare. Center your snare in the overhead microphones or dedicate a pair of overheads to your snare as secondary overheads. The point is to capture the sound of the snare in the room with the rest of the kit. After that, it’s a matter of dialing in the right balance and blending your top, side, bottom or other snare microphones in with the sound. 7. 1 Condenser – In front of the kit There really is no turning back once you start adding room microphones to your drum sounds. Having many different microphones in different places of your drum room can start to shape the sound of the set even more than you would expect. Placing a condenser microphone like the Mojave MA200 in front of your kit captures a narrow perspective of the drums in the room. The advantage here is that you are recording the kit in mono, so everything is reduced to the center of the stereo image. That center is where your snare occurs, so if you filter out the high and low end of this signal you essentially have a dedicated snare microphone 10 feet from the kit. Apply some compression and voila! 8. 1 Dynamic – In front of the kit The same principles apply here as they did in number 7 above, although this perspective changes significantly with a different type of microphone. In comparison to the Mojave, the SM7B is more aggressive in the mid range. If you are familiar with the SM57, the SM7B is close in sound and more accepting of the low end. You can use this to fatten up the center of your drumset, or simply throw a reverb on it to make for an even more ambient sound. Again, filtering and crushing this type of source can produce results that are unmatched to other recordings. 9. Stereo Room Microphones – Facing opposing walls Using wide room microphones is a great way to up the intensity and quality of your drum recordings. If you’re not in a big room, you can face the microphone capsules in the opposite direction of the drum set. Place them as close to any opposing wall as you can and set them to the “Cardiod Pattern”. Facing the microphones towards a reflective surface breaks the line-of-sight between the capsule of the microphone and the drum set.This means that your distant stereo room microphones will pick up reflections from the wall first. This slight variation of mic positioning creates a difference in the sound of your rooms.
  4. Dan Gonzalez [Cakewalk]
    More information about "10 Microphone Placement Techniques for Acoustic Guitar"
    10 Microphone Placement Techniques for Acoustic Guitar by Dan Gonzalez Microphone placement is the foundation for any solid recording. Placement is usually dictated by musical genre but most engineers place microphones to capture a good overall balance of the instrument. This article proves to present some different placement techniques for a simple acoustic guitar recording. 1. Blumlein Configuration Blumlein requires the use of two Bi-Directional Microphones placed at a 90º angle. Bi-Directional microphones capture the signal in front of them and behind so the room ambience plays a significant factor in the sound. Most microphones have a setting that looks like a figure “8” and can be switched easily into this mode. As you can see by the above image it takes a bit of setup to get the capsules of the microphones as close to one another as possible without having them touch. The next step is getting the 90º angle to face the sound source. In this case the microphones were moderately close to the acoustic guitar player and the 90º angle was pointing at the highest fret of the guitar which was just past the sound hole. The outcome was a wide and clear signal that could accommodate most recordings for general acoustic guitar tracking. This worked well because the signal was within a small and somewhat quiet room. I found that the signal could be routed in stereo or mono and still work well in most mix situations. 2. One Large Diaphragm Condenser Close Mic This placement used a single Large Diaphragm Condenser facing the area between the soundhole and the top of the fretboard. The microphone was switched into the Cardioid polar pattern setting to reduce any room ambience from behind the microphone. Cardioid focus the microphone to only retain signals from mostly in front of the microphone. This setting is much more narrow in comparison to a stereo configuration and would be perfect for double-tracking purposes where the player would strum two different performances of the same chord progression and pan them hard left and hard right. By nature the microphone is very sensitive and picks up much of the low end of the acoustic giving it a thick and chunky sound. This caveat makes it the perfect candidate for Acoustic Guitar driven music where the acoustic guitar upholds much of the harmony for track. 3. Spaced Pair This configuration uses two Small Condenser Microphones set about 2.5ft away from one another. One is pointed towards the 8th fret of the acoustic guitar and the other is pointed directly at the12th fret just past where most of the strumming is happening. I set these closer to the player because the microphones retain fewer lower frequencies that the large diaphragm microphones. They also tend to register the high end of the frequency spectrum with more detail. A substantial part of the placement is how far the microphones are placed from the source. Placing the microphones any further from the source would have resulted in a thin sound and any closer would have choked the sound. I am a fan of this configuration because it captures the fret noise as well as the body of the guitar. You could use this for many applications especially if the acoustic guitarist has a lot of busy left handed hammer-ons and pull-offs. The microphone that points at the neck of the guitar is there to capture these small intricacies that are lost down by the sound hole. 4. Mid-Side This technique is used by some and hated by others. The Mid-Side microphone placement requires the use of two microphones and three signals. First one must set up the microphones in the configuration shown in the example. The Large Diaphragm Condenser is set to “Figure 8” or “Bi-Directional” (same thing) and placed so that the capsule of the microphone is perpendicular to the sound source. The Small Condenser Microphone is placed above it directly facing the sound source. The Small Condenser is the “Mid” and the Large Condenser is the “Side”. Special Routing Within your respective DAW you can duplicate the Large Condenser track or send the track to a separate bus. The end goal to have a duplication of the Large Condenser’s signal. Apply the “Phase” button to the duplicated signal and pan both Large Condenser tracks opposite of one another, hard left and hard right. Mix these two tracks in under the “Mid” signal and the resulting effect is a somewhat roomy and spacious sound. 5. One Small Diaphragm Condenser Close Mic When processing these tracks I was able to extract just the single Small Condenser microphone from the Mid-Side placement. If you review example two of this article you can hear how severely different the tone, body, and clarity of a LDC vs the SDC mono signals. The brightness of the Small Condenser microphone would be useful in a track with dense and complex instrumentation. 6. Vertical Spaced Pair This is my favorite configuration out of all the ones listed in this article. In the above picture I have placed two SDC microphones in a vertical spaced pairing about seven inches apart. The bottom microphone’s capsule is pointed directly at the lower three strings of the acoustic and the top microphone is pointed at the top three strings. Angling them inward balances both the high and low end so that there aren’t very many holes in the fidelity of the signal. When panning these signals extreme left and right the stereo image is very interesting. Depending on strum direction you can almost feel the attack of the guitar pick on the high and low strings moving from left to right and right to left. This may not be every engineers ideal microphone placement but it does lend itself to some interesting mix options. I would experiment with this placement specifically on a singer/songwriter act that had only acoustic guitar and vocal. The quality of the recording is very intimate and would be fitting for that style. Most of those types of acts rely heavily on the acoustic guitar for a controlled low end, present midrange, clear shimmering high end, without taking away from the vocal. 7. XY The XY configuration is a stereo option for many different applications. For this you must have the two microphones placed at 90º angle with the capsules as close to one another as possible without having them touch. The angle is then pointed towards the sound source. For this placement I pointed the angle towards the sound hole of the guitar. The idea was to get a somewhat wide stereo image of the guitar but I feel that having the microphones where they were narrowed the signal out. Typically I use this configuration in a situation where there is not an ample amount of time to set up a wide stereo configuration. Phasing Issues? Stereo bar to the rescue! Capturing an accurate stereo recording can be derailed by phasing issues easier than you would think. If a stereo microphone configuration has one microphone slightly closer to the sound source than the other then the recorded waveforms will begin to cancel themselves out. To alleviate this many engineers will use a stereo bar like the one shown in examples 7 and 8. 8. Room This configuration is typically used in conjunction with some closer microphones. In listening to this example you can get an idea of how thin the signal can become the farther away it is. Also, general room ambience becomes far more noticeable when using a set of room microphones. Many engineers will always put up room microphones when the chance presents itself. Next time you have spare inputs try it out and you may or may not find it useful later in the mix. 9. Dual Dynamic Using two dynamic microphones on an acoustic leads to some interesting choices for panning later in the mix. This technique comes from placement used on guitar amps and bass amps. In those situations you can experiment with the tone of the speaker by angling one of the microphones off-axis so the microphone retains resonating frequencies that a flush microphone would not pick up. I feel that it is important to experiment with off-axis placements because after all we never have our ears flush against an instrument while we are listening to it. To some degree we are always listening in an off axis setting so why not try it out? One microphones capsule is facing directly at the sound source while the other is underneath it at an angle facing the exact same area. This variation of axis allows you pan these two microphones moderately left and right in the mix. It will feel a bit uneasy if they are panned too hard, but it does make for a wider signal than just straight mono. I’ve used this technique with great results when engineering for groups where the guitar is more of a rhythmic instrument and plays short percussive chords instead of heavily strummed open chords. If you are in a situation where the vocalists wants to play and sing then you could use this to reduce the amount of vocal in the microphones while capturing a great performance on the vocal with a more detailed condenser microphone. 10. Single Dynamic Using a single Dynamic microphone may or may not be your most commonly used DIY method for demoing out songs or making a quick and dirty recording. This example was included because I wanted to show the drastic differences between this commonly used technique and some others that take more than thirty seconds to set up. You can learn a lot about your own acoustic guitar by trying some of the techniques in this article. Some of these placements may work better on other guitars you own so sit down one day and spend a couple hours trying some different microphones techniques. That being said, this microphone technique is widely used in live situations because it can withstand high sound pressure levels and reduce potential feedback through on stage monitors and house speakers. It’s important to be weary of those types of situations especially in highly reflective rooms that are very small or have low ceilings.
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