| The Home Recording Quality Syndrome |
| The first few home recordings
that are made initially sound very good to the new recording enthusiast. The very
fact that you installed recording equipment in your basement and used it to record
something makes the result sound very good to your ears. When you play it for family
and friends, they will join in the chorus of "sounds great." The fact that
you are producing recorded product at home will initially be impressive to them as well.
|
| Somewhat later it is likely that
reality will set in. If you continue to record in your basement setup, you will
begin to notice that your home recordings don't sound all that good compared to released
CDs you can buy in the record store. The quest will be How do I correct my poor
recording quality that I get at home? - the subject of this article. |
| You will discover the truth
eventually. Your home recordings don't sound as good as they could for several
reasons. You can't, for instance, just run out and buy a couple of mics to make the
problem disappear. We will present a step-by-step rundown on how to improve your
home recording quality. |
| Getting Rid Of The
"Basement Sound" |
| Micing Techniques for
Capturing What's Really There, Minus The Room: |
| Believe it or not - most
basements don't sound all that good. Perhaps the first objection you will have to
your home recording is that it sounds like it was made in a basement rather than at a
good-sounding concert hall. In a May, 2000 series of tips, we outlined several
techniques and approaches to recording. The second technique was to "get the
room out" of your recording. |
| By far, the most popular approach for
multitrack studio recording is to capture the sound of the instrument and to put it
"into a performance venue" in the mix. What I mean is although you record
it in the 12th street studio, or in your basement, you have the final product sound like
it was recorded at a large performance (like say at Carnage Hall). The idea is to
get predominantly direct sound off the instrument when it is recorded and to add
artificial reverberation later in the mixdown |
| Sound Pickups for
Capturing What's Really There: |
| The first kind of sound pickup is
a micing technique is called "Close Micing" where the microphone is placed
within a foot of the instrument making the sound. This type of technique captures
almost no room sound and makes it possible to get the closest to the furthest sound in the
final mix and to also put its sound into any performance setting in the mix with the use
of reverberation and equalization. |
| The second type of sound pickup
can be used with electric and electronic instruments. The technique is called the
"direct pickup" or the "direct injection" method. An
electric bass puts out an audio signal, not sound. You hear the bass line because
the bass player has an instrument amplifier. The direct pickup (done by using a
"direct injection box" routes the audio output of the bass directly to a
console input. This same kind of pickup can be used for synthesizers and for
guitars. You should have a word of caution regarding guitars; that is that
most guitarists get their sound from the instrument amplifier and from the speakers of
that amplifiers, so a direct signal from a guitar may not sound anything like the guitar
does. |
| The third type of sound pickup
used for this technique is the "near-distant" micing technique where the
microphone is placed 3 to 5 feet away from the instrument. Some instruments don't
really generate their sound until you get about 3 feet away. This is true for piano
that spreads sound out over a large area as well as for woodwind instruments which
generate sound from almost the entire length of the instrument's body (from the different
holes). Even most rock guitar amplifiers, which generate sound from multiple
speakers, don't have full sound until you are about 3 feet from the cabinet. |
| Acoustical
Adjustments for Near-Distant Micing: |
| When a microphone is placed 3-5
feet away from the instrument, you begin to pick up the room sound (the room
reverberation) of the recording setting. To help prevent this pickup, movable
isolation baffles can be used to cut down room reflections. |
|
FIGURE 1 - THREE SOUND PICKUPS -
TECHNIQUE 1 |
|
| Using Baffles For
Isolation: |
| To full utilize this tip, we have
to use baffles to help control,l the sound reflections in the basement, but most home
recordists don't know how to correctly use them. Its easy to set them up backwards.
|
Because of the reflective
nature of sound we can usually achieve the best sound isolation by placing the absorbent
baffle behind the very loud or very soft instrument. Directional mics are placed so that
they point into the baffle; this rejects any sound coming into the area because the back
of the mic doesn't pick up sound well. The sound absorbing baffles prevent reflections of
sounds from bouncing into the mic. The musician is placed between the mic and the baffle,
with the musician's sound projecting into the front of the mic. Figure 4-1 shows this
set-up.
Figure 4-1: Placing Sound-Absorbing Baffles For
Isolation
Figure 4-2 shows a common problem that
can happen when the baffles are placed between instruments to get isolation. Some of the
direct sound from the instrument amplifier is blocked, but some of its sound will bounce
off surfaces around the baffle directly into the front of the directional microphone.
Placing the baffles behind the instrument, as in Figure 4-1, will usually do a better job
than trying to use baffles to "block" the sound, as in Figure 4-2. Baffles
behind have the added benefit of not blocking the musician's view. In extreme cases,
baffles can be used on all sides of an instrument.
Figure 4-2: Incorrect Placement of Baffles
Placing sound absorbing baffles behind
the musician will allow good line-of-sight contact between musicians and this helps them
play together better. Placing sound absorbing material behind a loud instrument reduces
the sound projected into the room almost by half. If a loud instrument is in front of an
acoustically reflective surface (like a hard wall), the loud sound bounces off this
reflective surface into the room. Sound absorbent material prevents this additional
reflected sound from being made. Figure 4-3 shows loud drums next to a wall projecting
sound into a room. Figure 4-4 shows the same drums with sound absorbing baffles behind
them.
Figure 4-3: Drums Projecting Sound Figure
4-4: Drums With Sound Baffle |
| Inexpensive Baffles
For Home Recording |
| After you realize that you may
need baffles, you find that you don't have any. If you price the baffles (or the
components you need to build some) you can find them expensive and out of your
budget. Is there any inexpensive way to do the same thing? |
| The home
recordist is usually working with a limited amount of space. Often the live musician
performing is in the same room as the console and the musician is playing in the corner or
across the room. There's not a lot of room for big baffles, like there is in a
larger professional recording studio. |
| Big baffles can
be expensive, even when built with minimal costs, and for what? To take up most of
the limited space that a home recordist has - naturally. |
| So I decided to
design a home baffling system that the home recordist can actually use. The system I
designed will fit into any setup and cost a mere $3.00 (or $5.00 if you don't watch
costs). Probably everything you need can be picked up at your local dollar
store. |
| One takes a corner of the
room and hangs blankets 6 to 8 inches away from the wall. This "L" shaped
area has reduced leakage of other sounds in the room because the sound waves have to
travel through the blanket to the wall and back through the blanket to form a sound
reflection. The air space between the blanket and the wall helps make the blanket
effective. |
| So you get those hooks and
clothesline that will hold the blankets. You use things like clothespins to keep up
the blankets. (see figure 4-5, to the right) |
| Needless to say everyone
has blankets and you can't use your sleeping blanket while you're recording.
You would want to use the thickest ones or even have two layers of blankets [Two thin
blankets work better than one thick one, by the way]. |
| So your little corner
becomes your baffled-off area and things sound better there and have less leakage. |
|
|
FIGURE 4-5 |
|
|
| The Importance of the Pickup |
| It never ceases to amaze me how
some home recordists will pay thousands of dollars for digital workstations, consoles
and/or recorders while they use some cheap microphones purchased from the
"Shack." Somehow they expect that setup to yield a good recording! A
$100,000 console in the hands of the best engineer can't compensate for improperly picked
up sound - poor microphone selection and placement. As a long-time associate of mine
has said, the rule is: "You can't make chicken salad out of chicken
shit." (excuse the technical term "shit") |
| If you have a tight budget (and
who doesn't?) you may have to spend the majority of your money on microphones. After
you have an adequate microphone "locker" you can start investing in better
consoles, recorders, etc. |
| Going out to the
"Center" and purchasing the right microphones for home-recording bands will cost
you a minimum of $1600- $1800. If you are only going to do rap &
hip-hop, or if you use synthesizers & drum machines for all your music, you really
have to spend about $700 - $800. Only those doing "all electronic" music
forms like acid and rave can afford to have inadequate (or no) microphones. |
| So if this amount of money is
unavailable, what to do? Get as close as you can or be really smart and purchase a
subscription to Pro Audio Marketplace (See our tip for November, go here). Sensible
purchase of used microphones can greatly reduce the amount you have to spend at the
sacrifice of spending the time to find the bargains. |
| Getting the Pickup: |
| There are different types of
microphones. Each type picks up certain types of instruments the best. There
are condenser microphones (more expensive) and dynamic microphones. You will need
both, as described below. The first step is to get a microphone that will pick
up the intended sound source; for this purpose, there are two types of
microphones: |
Sound
Quality Mics are microphones where the diaphragm can
move quickly. This type of microphone is needed when you have a loud blast of high
frequencies (like cymbals) and where perfect sound quality is needed (vocals). |
| Examples of these microphones
include the ribbon mic, the small diameter condenser microphone (half-inch diameter
diaphragm) and the large diameter condenser microphone (1 inch or larger diameter
diaphragm) |
| Moxy Mics
are microphones where the diaphragm can move far. These type
of microphones are also the most rugged. This type of microphone is needed for loud
bass-frequency pickup and bass-frequency transients as found on low-frequency drums (such
as the kick and toms) as well as miced rock bass. |
| These microphone are all dynamic mics and
include large and small diameter microphones, as well as models of modern and older
designs). |
KEY: |
Best |
Questionable |
Poor |
Very
Poor |
|
|
Sound Quality Mics |
Moxy Mics |
Large Dia Condenser, Like Shure KSM or Ribbon |
Modern Large Diameter Dynamic Like EV RE 27 |
Small Dia Condenser |
Large Diameter Dynamic Like EV RE 20 |
Modern Dynamic Like Shure Beta and EV N-Dyn |
Smaller Diameter Dynamic Mic Like Shure Beta 57 |
Older Better Quality Dynamic Like Senheizer 427 |
Any Ribbon Mic or Cheapie dynamic |
Older
Dynamic Mic |
Large
Diameter Condenser like Shure KSM or AKG 414 |
Cheapie
Dynamics |
Small
Diameter Condenser Mics |
|
|
| The Microphone
Locker: |
| If you're going to record bands,
you need a minimum of 6 microphones. Two dynamic mics ("Moxy Mics") will
pick hp the foot drum and the snare drum. Two condenser mics ("Sound Quality
Mics) will be used to pickup all the rest of the drums and cymbals. Two additional
dynamic microphones will be needed to pick up other instruments, such as guitars. In
addition you will want to have a minimum of two High to Low Impedance Transformers to take
electric or electronic instruments direct to the console ("direct injection"). |
| As you can afford it, you will
want to increase your microphone locker so that you can individually mic more of the drum
set by adding 3 dynamic microphones for the toms and a condenser microphone for the high
hat, as well as another condenser microphone for vocals and melody instruments. Thus
your locker will increase to about 11 or 12 microphones. |
| If you are going to limit
yourself to rap and hip hop productions, you need only two microphones (a condenser and
dynamic microphone). |
| Starting Suggestions: |
| As you get more microphones, the
variety of model numbers that can be used should increase. If you are starting out,
you will want to get the highest quality and flexibility for the budget. Two
microphones that would be a good starting point for the 5 microphone basic "starter
locker" would be two Shure KSM series large condenser microphones and four Shure Beta
57 microphones. |
| The KSM condenser microphones
challenge the solenoid of the best microphone available but at a rock-bottom price.
For a hundred dollars less per microphone you could come up with a condenser mic
but the difference in quality is dramatic - consider the KSM. You can but the
"standard" mics, the Shure 57's could be used but have half the quality of
the Beta 57 models, which cost about $50 more at the store. |
| Whatever models that you settle
on, you should try to buy in pairs (two of the same mode) because stereo micing should
have matched types. You will also experience that day that you are happy that you
have four identical models of dynamic microphones. |
| Placing The
Microphone |
| You can
read various microphone placement charts and formulas about how to place microphones to
pick up the sound projected from the instrument. Sometimes placement charts work
well, sometimes they don't work as well (usually because of the presence of other sounds
in the room), but what always works is to USE YOUR EAR. |
| Notice I said to use your ear
(singular) not use your ears (plural). The microphone is mono and your ears are
stereo. Put a finger in one of your ears and place the other ear where you would
place the microphone. Have the musician play and move your head around until you
have the "best" sound - put the microphone there. It is really that
simple. |
| One word of caution. Be
quick about it if the instrument is loud. If you stuff your head inside a foot drum
or two inches from a snare for any length of time you won't be hearing much very quickly.
If the instrument is loud and if you want to take the time, you can alternately
hook the mic up to the board and wear headphones as you move the mic around by hand.
Although this technique could work it just isn't as much "fun." |
| Microphone
Directionally: |
| When we talked about baffles, we
mentioned using directional microphones. The two most common pickup patterns are the
cardioid (as found on the Shure SM-57) and the hyper-cardioid (as found
on the Shure Beta-57). |
 |
 |
FIGURE 4-6 - CARDIOID PICKUP
PATTERN |
FIGURE 4-7 - HYPER-CARDIOID
PICKUP PATTERN |
|
| In general, the hyper-cardioid pickup pattern
does a better job of rejecting other sounds in the room. |
| Pointing Directional Microphones: |
| If you only have one instrument present and a good-sounding studio, you
don't have to worry much about pointing the mic. If you have other instruments
playing in the same room, especially drums, pointing the microphone becomes all
critical. The first rule of pointing a microphone is: |
| 1. Point
the front of the microphone at the instrument or other sound source. |
| 2.POINT THE REJECTION OF THE MIC AT WHAT YOU DON'T WANT
TO PICK UP. |
|
| The microphone you are using will most often have maximum rejection in
the back (this is called a cardioid pattern). You can point the front of the mic at
or up to 45 degrees away from the instrument and still get full (or almost full)
pickup. Thus pointing the front of the mic is not critical (hence the small
letters). If you are using a hypercardioid patterned microphone your rejection point
is 120 degrees from the front of the mic. |
| 95% of pointing a microphone is to reject unwanted sounds. If you
are off by 10 degrees, your "leakage" will increase 300%. |
| Preview of Part Two |
| Next issue we will
move to the control room to give you "getting started" advice for using consoles
and tape machines for recording and getting a mix. |
