The 10 Biggest Recording Mistakes

The 10 Biggest Recording Mistakes | Sound On Sound
4.10.2016 23:40
The 10 Biggest Recording Mistakes

By Mike Senior
The same pitfalls present themselves time and again in projectstudio recording. Learn to avoid them and your tracking
sessions will be transformed!
As a longtime contributor to SOSs Mix Rescue column, Ive tried to
demonstrate that, with careful editing and processing, its often possible to
snatch victory from the jaws of defeat when faced with poor recordings.
But long, tedious salvage jobs at the mix would be unnecessary if the
recordings were better in the first place. A few simple changes while
recording could have saved me many hours of postproduction purgatory.
I wouldnt expect a wellrecorded band production to take more than a day
or so to mix to a commercial level, but most projectstudio multitracks I
receive need three times that amount of work, and some Mix Rescue
http://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/10-biggest-recording-mistakes
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projects can take a solid week to disentangle. Whats most galling is that
the same basic tracking errors are to blame time and time again, so with
this in mind, Id like to help you cut hours (or perhaps days) off your
mixing schedule. Ill list the 10 most common recording traps I hear
projectstudio producers fall into, and explain some nononsense ways to
avoid them. To help you understand things better, Ive put together a
media page on the SOS web site (http://sosm.ag/feb16media) which
features dozens of audio demonstrations and provides links to a variety of
helpful online resources. Also, in case any of the technical terms I use
leaves you scratching your head, Ive included links to the capacious SOS
technical glossary and numerous supporting articles from our free online
archive. Now, lets consider those mistakes...
Top producers harp on about this all
the time in interviews, so it amazes
me how often I see projectstudio
operators fixate on their technology
and completely overlook the fact
that the instrument, the musician,
and the recording room are far more
important. This is especially baffling
amongst cashstrapped recordists,
as it costs nothing to tweak an
instruments settings, adjust the way
its played, or rearrange furniture to
change the rooms acoustics.
Dont waste the acoustic potential of the

furniture around you after all, it doesnt cost
you anything! In this session, for instance, you
can see that two guitar amps have been
separated from the drums using a sofa and a
mattress, while the kickdrum mic has also
been baffled against cymbal spill using a
couple of armchairs and a pile of blankets.
Quick Tips...
Work on the source: Listen acoustically to the instrument/ensemble
youre about to record and ask yourself if it already sounds the way you
want it to. If not, always try to address this at source not only before you
hit Record, but before you even get any mics involved. As producer Trina
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Shoemaker puts it: Its not about getting a great sound. Its about
capturing a great sound thats already there. Clearly, you may never reach
your perfect timbre that way, especially when working under typical
projectstudio restrictions, but the process of striving for the unattainable
ideal makes it much more likely that youll get a respectable tone through
the mics.
Consider the context: Soloing a source can help you home in on
technical problems, but a beautiful sound in isolation wont necessarily fit
within the context of a full arrangement. Dont make hardandfast
decisions about any instruments tone while your solo buttons are lit.
Ask the musician: Whenever your mic setup doesnt immediately strike
gold (and certainly before you start reaching for EQ), quickly record a
snippet, play it back for the musician, and ask them to help you improve
the sound. Theyll almost certainly come up with half a dozen great
suggestions straight away: an electric guitarist might flick a switch or use a
different pick; a keyboard player might rearrange his chord voicings or
tweak some arcane synth parameter; or a singer might increase their twang
or breathiness. No engineer can know how every instrument works, so why
not just ask the expert whos playing it? Besides, encouraging performers
to critique their own recorded sound is no bad thing in general, because
theyll often respond instinctively to it and adjust their playing to fit the
arrangement in effect doing some of the mixing work for you!
Help the vocalist: Encourage singers to sip roomtemperature water
between vocal takes. The time of day you record can make a huge
difference to the sound of any voice, and the tone will also change as the
singer warms up, hits their peak, and then gradually fatigues. With a little
planning, you can turn these things to your advantage.
Work the room: Dont forget to exploit the acoustic potential of your
surroundings. Is there another spot in the recording room that might
sound better, or another room entirely that you could decamp to? What if
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you removed the comfy chairs and rolled up the carpet to enhance an
acousticguitar sound, or hung up bed quilts to tackle some harsh spill
between two instruments? These things are free, for Heavens sake, and
often alter the sonics more profoundly than your mics ever could, so dont
squander them!
Check tuning often: Check the tuning before every take. (Pretty
please?!) Honestly, its only a minutes work and it can save countless
hours of soulcrushing corrective editing later on.
You dont have to Google very assiduously to
find dozens of miking diagrams for anything
youd care to record, but such templates
dont half wreak havoc in the project studio!
Indeed, the very worst recordings I hear
submitted to Mix Rescue always seem to
arise from people treating some prescribed
setup as gospel despite copious
contradictory evidence from their own ears!
One big problem is that few templates are
accompanied with unprocessed audio
As when mixing, dont expect to
examples, so theres no way of knowing
judge the suitability of an overdubs
timbre while youre listening to it in
whether the suggested mic technique will
solo. Its how it fits within the
actually suit your music. Furthermore, some context of your specific
arrangement that matters most.
templates seem also to have been inherited
from practices in large commercial studios (and indeed from the heyday of
analogue tape recording), and frequently crash and burn when youre
working in more domestic acoustics, typically in a smaller space and with a
limited amount of affordable gear. I cant tell you, too, how often I see on
stage miking setups being transferred unthinkingly into the studio, even
though these tend to heavily prioritise feedback minimisation over sound
quality!
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Irrespective of the suitability of any miking template, a basic truth of mic

technique is that its not fundamentally about where you put the mics in
the first instance. What really matters is how you adjust those initial
guesses in response to what you hear through your monitors.
Quick Tips...
Always tweak your mics: Id estimate that 90 percent of the initial mic
choices and placements on typical projectstudio sessions would benefit
from some adjustment, so changing and/or moving each mic before
recording should be the rule, not the exception whether you start from a
miking template or not. Avoiding EQ while recording can help with
discipline here. I also prefer to remove all chairs from in front of the
recording workstation while Im setting up for recording, simply because
its a lot harder to motivate myself to keep moving mics around if Im
having to get up out of a comfy seat every time.
Make comparisons: Always make a point of listening acoustically to any
sound youre recording. This is something that celebrated engineers stress
repeatedly. Dont just sit down there in the control room, says Bruce
Swedien, for instance. Go see what it sounds like in the studio. One of the
best weapons against templatedriven complacency is the discipline of
comparing your monitored signal with acoustic reality. It can be a bit
depressing at times, but theres nothing else thatll hone your recording
chops as effectively.
Fix it before the mix: One of the biggest danger signs when people are
using templates is the excuse: well, it does still need to be mixed. Yes, the
purpose of mixing is to make a recording sound its best, but if your rough
tracking balance isnt getting the musicians excited, then you
unquestionably need to work harder with the mics. Its a massive waste of
time trying to fix things in the mix, because you have many more options
to manipulate timbres while recording. As Trevor Horn once put it: The
mix is the worst time to do anything.
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Use your ears: But if miking templates arent much use, how else can you
make sensible initial miking choices for your sessions? Well, the best way
is simply to use your ears! If youre wondering what kind of mic to use, for
instance, its childs play to find microphone shootouts on the Internet
for example, here at SOS weve done our own carefully controlled
comparisons of ribbon mics (http://sosm.ag/ribbonmics) and vocal mics
(http://sosm.ag/voxmics). Pure microphone placement demonstrations
(ie. multiple instances of the same mic on a single performance) are rather
less common, so to put that right, Ive recently begun building up a Library
of Microphone Positions
(www.cambridge-mt.com/rs-lmp.htm.
This already features demonstration
files for stalwarts such as electric and
acoustic guitars, grand and upright
pianos, kick, snare, cymbals, upright
bass and saxophone.
The demise of so many large
professional facilities means that few
young engineers now benefit from the
traditional teaboy to tapeop studio
The free Library Of Mic Positions at
apprenticeship, and hence seldom have www.cambridge-mt.com/rs-lmp.htm
features hundreds of carefully multimiked
firsthand opportunities to watch
audio examples to help you find the best
seasoned veterans at work. Although
miking technique for your project,
whatever sound you have in mind.
theres a lot you can learn nowadays
without all that sharpening of pencils and emptying of ashtrays, one thing
thats difficult to convey is just how critical professionals are in the studio,
particularly when it comes to the time and effort they take to develop and
edit performances.
Topquality lead vocals are probably the clearest indicator of a
professionalgrade production in this respect, but Id say nine out of 10
projectstudio mixes fail to deliver that quality level, simply because
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theres been skimping at the tracking and editing stages.

Quick Tips...
Listen, appraise & act: Whenever you capture anything, make a point of
listening back to the recording with a critical frame of mind. For example,
are there any small errors that could do with patching over? Is the second
verse performed as musically as the first? Are there any moments where
the groove suddenly seems to hurry or drag? Get to know the keyboard
shortcut for adding marker points in
your DAW project, and use it to
highlight any questionable moments
as you listen through to the take, so
you dont forget anything. Acquaint
Familiarise yourself with your DAWs keyboard
shortcuts for creating and moving
yourself with your DAWs manual
marker/locator points in the timeline, so that
punchin facility as well (and its
its easy to flag up moments of concern while
associated cuemix switching
listening through to any take, without
interrupting the flow of playback.
functions), because its usually
quicker to patch over blemishes on the fly than by doing longer takes and
then editing separately.
Compare takes: For a lead vocal in any chart style Id recommend
recording a minimum of four takes, and then comping a master take from
the best bits of each. Many mainstream commercial productions go way
beyond that, though, assembling more than a dozen takes and devoting
hours to the comping process. Whatever the degree of depth you go into,
though, heres one timesaving suggestion: dont just keep recording new
takes without listening back to the older ones. Early takes will often be
outshone by later ones, in which case they can be recorded over to reduce
your editing workload. In addition, I find that comparing takes during the
tracking session itself introduces an element of selfcriticism and
competitiveness that frequently spurs vocalists to up their game.
Resist making do: Be wary of any situation in which you find yourself
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uttering the words thatll do or well fix that later. Another danger sign
is if you feel an insatiable urge to add extra overdubs, because that often
indicates that the existing parts arent yet compelling enough in their own
right. Broadly speaking, the better your performances, the easier it is to
leave your arrangement sparse. In a similar vein, try to resist sweetening
your tracking rough mix with masses of reverb or delay effects, since these
make secondrate moments in a performance tougher to spot.
One of the big drivers of the
projectstudio revolution has been
the flood of affordable mass
produced capacitor mics on the
market. The highfrequency clarity
and overall sensitivity of capacitor
designs will give crisp, clean
recordings with just about any
Putting largediaphragm capacitor mics
sound source, so its easy to see why directly over the drum kits cymbals was
theyre so popular. But many people common during the heyday of analogue tape,
but it tends to give an overly bright sound
over-use them (perhaps because
when recording on modern digital systems,
they assume that a capacitor is
which dont suffer the same inherent HF loss.
always the more pro choice?) and end up with rather onedimensional
sonics as a consequence.
Quick Tips...
Beware bright mics: Be careful of reusing mic setups developed during
the heyday of analogue tape, because high frequencies were often pre
emphasised at the tracking stage, using superbright capacitor mics as a
way of compensating for treble losses in the recording medium. If youre
going to record on a digital medium, comments producer Mick Glossop,
for instance, you cant expect to use the same mics youve used for
analogue. The recent renaissance of ribbon mics in pro circles is a
testament to this, because ribbons deliver a much smoother sound at
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source, but projectstudio owners still seem reluctant to follow suit,

despite the recent price crash in the ribbonmic market. Perhaps its
because theyre wary of the figureofeight polar patterns, which most
ribbons exhibit. Whatever the reason, I suspect this is why drum
overheads, acoustic guitar, strings, and horns so often sound painfully
tinny in homebrew mixes.
Try different mics before EQing: While recording, think like a mix
engineer. But rather than using EQ to shape the sound, use your choice of
mic, with the aim of contrasting different sounds so that they dont conflict
and obscure each other at mixdown. This is where dynamic designs really
come into their own for me, because youll typically get a much wider tonal
palette from spending a given mic budget on dynamic mics than on
condensers. Granted, most recordists usually have a Shure SM57 or SM58
and an AKG D112 or some such lying around, but there are plenty of other
stellar performers in the 250500 price range mics such as the
Beyerdynamic M88, Electro-Voice RE20 and RE320, Heil Sound PR30
and PR40, Sennheiser MD421 and MD441, and Shure SM7B, to name just
a handful.
Think of the transients: Another thing tapebased recorders have
trouble retaining is transient definition, and it wasnt uncommon to see
hand percussion recorded close up with a smalldiaphragm capacitor mic
to compensate for this. On digital systems, such a tactic can be disastrous
because all you end up hearing is the transients, rather than any of the
body of the instruments timbre. Dynamic or ribbon mics are more
understated in this respect, so theyll usually give you a fatter, more
mixable sound right from the outset.
Pick mics for each vocalist: Amateur engineers are particularly prone
to choosing capacitor mics automatically when recording lead vocals,
which is a shame, since harsh, overbright vocal sounds are a problem I
commonly encounter in Mix Rescues, and the problem could easily have
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been solved in most cases by using a

dynamic mic. Bear in mind that
many iconic studio vocal
performances were captured with
dynamic mics. The Shure SM57 and
SM58 have a long history on record
with powerful rock vocalists, but
thats only the tip of the iceberg.
Beyerdynamics M88 was Phil
Classic dynamic mics such as the Sennheiser
Collins mic of choice for years, for
instance, and Michael Jackson used MD421, Beyerdynamic M88, Shure SM7B, and
Electro-Voice RE20 are tremendous value for
a Shure SM7 for several cuts on
money, and a great way of expanding your
palette of sounds while tracking.
Thriller. Electro-Voices RE20 has
been another perennial vocal favourite, capturing female vocals on
Fleetwood Macs Rumours and Stevie Wonders lead on I Wish, for
example.
Headphone foldback is at the root of
many problems I hear on project
studio recordings. For simple solo
overdubs, the most obvious side
effect of poor headphone monitoring
is floundering pitch, but it can
interfere with the tonal and
emotional quality of the
If latency delay on a singers foldback signal is
performance too. On top of this, the causing problems with tuning, one simple
workaround that often works well is asking the
unnaturalness of headphone
singer to use their headphones onesided, so
listening can undermine a bands
that they can hear themselves acoustically.
ability to perform well as a unit,
making heavy-duty processing and automation work necessary to stabilise
the ensemble balance at mixdown.
Quick Tips...
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Check for cuemix problems: When a performer is struggling with

tuning while overdubbing, it may be the foldback mix at fault, so ask to
listen to their headphones. The most common culprits are the backing
track being too quiet, so the performer cant clearly hear pitch cues from
other instruments, or the performers own signal being too quiet, so they
cant judge their own pitch reliably. With vocalists, another big factor is
monitoring latency, because even the slightest latency delay incurs comb
filtering between the monitoring signal and sound vibrations carried
directly to the singers ear via bone conduction. The simplest workaround
is to encourage singers to monitor themselves acoustically by slipping one
headphone earcup off their ear, but its usually better in the long run to set
up zerolatency (ie. analogue) monitoring, which eliminates the
monitoring delay completely.
Look for signs of unease: A tentative performance can signal that the
performer is mixed uncomfortably loud in their own cans, whereas a
musician who cant hear themselves well enough will often end up overprojecting, delivering a strained and spindly tone and succumbing more
quickly to fatigue. Performers are frequently reticent about asking for
headphone mix changes, so stay alert for the sonic warning signs.
Give each performer the balance they need: When recording
ensembles, try to resist the urge to give everyone headphones from the
getgo. Instead, consider who really needs them (and indeed what each
person actually needs to hear) and work from there. If your band wants to
use a click track, for example, maybe just give that to the drummer and
have everyone else follow him/her, as they would on stage. Or if you have
to isolate a bands singer in a separate room, feed vocalonly foldback to
the rest of the band, rather than giving them each their own fullband mix
each player should be able to hear their own natural band balance by
using just one headphone earcup, assuming youve not set the instruments
up too far apart.
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Consider losing the cans: Dont neglect the

possibility of loudspeaker foldback when
overdubbing, especially with fledgling studio
vocalists for whom headphone monitoring can be
a bit unsettling. Normally I wouldnt put any vocal
foldback in the monitoring feed in this situation,
but if the singer complains that they cant hear
themselves well enough, try reflecting some of
their own acoustic sound back at them in the first
instance using a reflector on one side of the
microphone. (A clipboard on a music stand does
the job rather nicely, as it happens.) A similar
strategy can help singers hear themselves better
in an ensemblerecording situation, too.
4.10.2016 23:40
Where a singer is performing

within an ensemble or with
loudspeaker monitoring, you
can use a hard surface as a
reflector to improve their
acoustic foldback so they
can hear what theyre doing.
Lots of people seem to come unstuck when

capturing stereo. Partly to blame is
the bewildering variety of stereo
recording methods available,
leading many people to rely blindly
on some prescribed miking template
(such as Blumlein or ORTF) and/or
the power of prayer! The most
frequent undesirable outcome is an
over-wide panorama, which not only
Here you can see a common mistake people
makes centrestage images vague,
make with the classic Blumlein stereo array (a
but also inflicts serious tonal
pair of figureof-eight ribbon mics crossed at
damage should left and right
right angles): placing it too close to a large
instrument or ensemble. In this case, the
channels ever be mixed together
cymbals at the edges of this drumkit were
as they will be, for example, if your
picked up significantly out of phase as a result
mix is played through massmarket of the low mic placement.
singlespeaker playback devices. The other major pitfall is
misrepresenting the natural balance of an ensemble, most commonly by
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subjectively distancing edgeofsound-stage musicians too far from the

listener.
Quick Tips...
Dont mic too wide or too close: To avoid an over-wide image, dont
space the mics in an AB mic pair more than about 60cm apart, and keep
the mutual angle between crossed cardioid mics below 130 degrees.
Whichever stereo mic array you choose, be wary of positioning it too close,
because the recording angles of many common setups arent actually very
wide in practice. For example, the useful pickup zone of ORTF is roughly
110 degrees, in my experience, while a 60cmwide AB configuration will
only suit a soundstage of around 60 degrees. The Blumlein arrays crossed
figureeights often catch people out here, especially when miking large
instruments such as drum kits and pianos, because their useful pickup
angle is only 70 degrees or so, and any sound source located outside the
frontal 90degree arc will suffer tremendous monocompatibility
problems.
Check references when using headphones: Its almost impossible to
judge stereo width instinctively over headphones, because of the way they
stretch the recorded panorama across a 180degree angle. To improve
your decisionmaking, keep a couple of suitable commercial recordings on
hand for comparison and use a stereo vectorscope as a visual confidence
check. Plus, dont forget to switch the mix to mono from time to time to
check for unacceptable timbral sideeffects.
Move the instruments: Assuming youre already capturing a suitable
image width, the best fix for ensemble imbalances is to adjust the positions
of the instruments in relation to the mics. If musicans are set up in a
straight line across the sound stage, thatll cause centre-stage sources to
appear about 3dB stronger than those at 30 degrees, so try to avoid that
kind of setup if at all possible where its unavoidable, you may need to
use additional outrigger mics to support the instruments at the edge of
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the group.
Understand polar patterns: Using
cardioids crossed at right angles will
overemphasise the level of central sources,
so Id widen the angle to at least 110 degrees
for ensemble recording, which gives a
recording angle of about 160 degrees. If you
choose a MidSides setup with a cardioid
Mid mic, itll tend to give its most natural
balance across the soundstage if you treat its
pickup angle as being roughly 130 degrees,
whereas with a figureof-eight Mid mic,
that angle shrinks to around 90 degrees.
If youre attempting to record with a

stereo microphone technique while
monitoring on headphones, try
using a stereo vectorscope meter
(such as Fluxs Stereo Tool or
Meldas MStereoScope, both
pictured) to help you avoid
unwittingly over-widening the
captured stereo image.
One of the most fundamental rules of

recording is beautifully summarised by
engineer and author Mike Stavrou: Dont
ever forget [the musicians] job is
more difficult than ours... If our
recording setup ruins his ability to
perform, were not helping.
Although this seems like common
sense to me (and hopefully to you
too), I hear way too many horror
stories from musicians about
engineers putting the cart before the
horse, unilaterally imposing some
working method which destroys
everyones ability to perform well. There are few better ways to throw a wet
blanket over a session than antagonising the talent in that manner and, on
a commercial level, I scarcely need add that its unlikely to generate any
repeat custom for the engineer!
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Quick Tips...
If musicians prefer to play together, find a
way: As a rule, band musicians hate building
up productions one overdub at a time.
Tracking proceeds at a snails pace, and often
involves a lot of boring waiting around while
other musicians record; its much more
difficult to play in time and generate natural
musical interactions between different parts
when youre not performing in a group; and
mixdown is usually a painful process,
because earlier tracks need more processing
to fit with later additions, and nothing has a
natural acoustic connection. Yes, its more
challenging for the engineer to record people
playing together, especially in a small studio,
but thats really no excuse. Where theres a
will, theres a way.
Where your desired tracking setup

threatens sight lines between
performers, you can sometimes
use mirrors to square the circle
as in the session pictured, where
the two musicians were able to
stand back-to-back while
recording, a configuration which
was much more conducive to
miking.
Attend rehearsals: Before you record

any young band, visit them in rehearsal.
Make a note of where everyone has set
themselves up and roughly what each
player is seeing and hearing from where
theyre standing. As you plan your studio
setup, think carefully before deciding to
deviate from this layout. However, if an
otherwise promising session layout
jeopardises sight lines, you can
sometimes work around that using
mirrors. I like to use universal lorry wing mirrors, because theyre fairly
cheap (1015 if you shop around), usefully large, and have rear
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mounting brackets which fix easily to spare mic stands.

Beware isolating performers: When recording ensembles, try not to
distance or isolate players from each other any more than you absolutely
have to, because its difficult for musicians to perform well if they feel
physically dislocated from the action. Whatever initial setup you come up
with, dont commit to it until youve asked the musicians how it feels for
them. In the grand scheme of things, theres a lot you can do to manage
spill during recording and mixdown, but youre never going to remedy a
shaky performance. I dont care whether its classical or rock or country,
says producer Eddie Kramer, for instance, youve got to capture that
performance, and the hell with the bloody leakage!
Make communication easy: While overdubbing, its a lot easier to
communicate with the talent if youre both in the same room. With
amplified electric instruments, a long cable from the amp to the
instrument (or, even better, from the amp to the speaker cabinet) makes
this fairly straightforward, and also allows the player to monitor over any
controlroom speakers you may have. With acoustic instruments and
vocals, a dry sound can usually be captured fine in any control room (even
an improvised one) with the help of a duvet or two, but dont disregard the
idea of setting up your recording system (or just the keyboard, mouse, and
monitor of a computer system via a KVM extension unit) in the live room
either, if a more open sound is desirable.
In any situation where youre
recording multiple instruments
simultaneously in the same room,
spill between the mics can add
significant complications both
during the setup process and at
mixdown. Because of this, some
recordists seek to minimise spill at
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Despite the loss of acoustic isolation, there

all costs, often by unnaturally
are considerable benefits to setting up your
isolating performers from each
recording system in the recording room,
other with gobos or isolation booths, particular in terms of easy communication
and favouring extreme closemiking between engineer and performers during
takes. Indeed, some celebrated commercial
methods which drastically
studios, such as The Churchs Studio 1 shown
here, make a virtue of just such a layout.
misrepresent instrument timbres.
Other engineers simply fight shy of ensemble recording altogether and
record everything as overdubs, which is not only more timeconsuming,
but also inhibits natural musical interaction and groove between the
parts. Unfortunately, such tactics frequently turn out to be something of an
own goal at the mixdown stage, because spill often glues mixes together
very naturally, and recordings without it usually require much more work
with mixdown effects to reconstitute a coherent ensemble sound!
Quick Tips...
Point the instruments elsewhere: Some sound sources, such as
electric guitar cabinets, woodwind and brass instruments, are inherently
quite directional, and you can use this to your advantage while setting up.
For instance, just pointing a trumpeter 30 degrees to one side can make a
massive difference to the amount of trumpet spill picked up on another
mic, without substantially cramping the musicians style.
Get the balance right: The big
trick to getting decent separation
between mics is to get the
instruments themselves balancing
sensibly in the room. So if theres
too much guitar spill on the drums,
try turning the guitar amps down in
the first instance, or alternatively
feed the drums through a PA system
in the room. Or if the snare drums
Just because you record a band in one small

room doesnt mean you have to get masses of
uncontrollable spill. For example, the fullband
session pictured here had both guitar amps
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within two feet of the kick drum, but the level

too loud on your piano mics, maybe
of spill between them and the drums was
ask the performer to try different
amazingly low, simply because the
instruments were wellbalanced in the room,
sticks, or even brushes. Where
the amps were directed away from the drums,
acoustic guitar or upright bass are
and the most problematic sidewall reflections
struggling to compete with other
were damped with thick quilts.
instruments acoustically (such that their microphones capture more spill),
you can hedge your bets by capturing a DI feed alongside the mic signal,
because this allows you to add more dry level at mixdown if necessary.
This is a trick Frank Filipetti used on his Grammywinning recording for
James Taylors Hourglass, so theres no shame in it although it will
sound most natural if you use as little of the DI signal as you can get away
with.
Contain reflected spill: Reflected spill is typically more problematic at

mixdown than spill coming direct from an instrument, so if you put up
acoustic absorbers to reduce spill levels, its usually better to put those up
around the performers, rather than between them.
Check polarity as you go: As you build up your own monitor mix during
tracking, be sure to check the polarity setting for each mic/DI signal you
add, because the sonic difference this makes can be enormous. Theres no
right setting, though just choose the one that sounds best.
Build from the spill: Try to bear in mind how each instrument sounds in
your tracking mix before youve added its dedicated mic (ie. when youre
only hearing that instrument as spill from other mics), and adjust your
miking choices accordingly. If youve already got bright hihat spill coming
down your snare mic, say, then maybe a meatiersounding dynamic mic
on the hihat might make sense. In this context, it makes a lot of sense to
start building your rough mix with those mics which capture the most spill,
as these will likely have the greatest influence on your mic technique across
the session as a whole.
Sayfa 18 / 23
Do you use cardioid mics for

everything? If so, youre not alone,
because I only see omni and figure
ofeight polar patterns being used
rarely on typical smallstudio
sessions, despite the affordability of
both ribbon mics (which are nearly
always figureofeight) and multi
pattern capacitor mics. This is a real
pity, because noncardioid polar
patterns are much more useful for
those on a budget than most people
give them credit for.
Quick Tips...
4.10.2016 23:40
The deep rejection nulls of figureeight

microphones can achieve astonishing
separation even between sound sources that
are physically very close together, which is
why a pair of figure of eights is often
employed for singing acoustic guitarists, using
a configuration like the one shown here with
the null of the vocal mic rejecting the guitar
and vice versa.
Work closer to omni mics: The normal homestudio advice for getting
a comparatively dry sound out of a cardioid mic is to hang a thick duvet
around the back and sides of the performer to intercept room reflections
before they reach the sensitive side of the mic. By extension, you need
another quilt to defend the back of a figureeight mic, and a full enclosure
for an omni. (My favourite fixing solution here is to secure little key rings
to the blankets, and then hang them on cuphooks screwed into the ceiling.)
Remember, though, that omni microphones exhibit very little proximity
effect and are fairly insensitive to air blasts (such as plosive vocal
consonants), so you can also work closer with them to get a drier pickup.
The pattern can affect tonality: Switching a largediaphragm
capacitor mics polar pattern doesnt just change its directionality. It can
also have a dramatic effect on its tone, especially with budgetfriendly
mics and not just on account of the differing amounts of proximity
effect bass boost (which is greatest for figureofeight mics and least for
omnis). For example, I was recently helping an SOS reader closemic an
Sayfa 19 / 23
4.10.2016 23:40
acoustic guitar using their Rode NT2A, and the cardioid polar pattern was,
frankly, rather brashsounding under those circumstances. By contrast,
the omni pattern might as well have been a different mic it was that
much smoother-sounding!
Pick a spillfriendly pattern: Wherever offaxis sound, such as room
ambience or spill, features heavily in your recording, be wary of using
largediaphragm capacitor mics in their cardioid mode. This will often be
the least goodsounding option, as sounds arriving from the back and
sides of that pickup pattern typically sound rather unpleasant, whereas
omni and figureofeight patterns generally provide a much more benign
tone from all angles.
If a performer moves, try an omni: An omni mics broader pickup
angle, more even offaxis frequency response and negligible proximity
effect make it a good choice for maintaining an even tone when
instrumentalists or vocalists move around a lot while performing this is
something topname producers such as Phil Ramone, Al Schmitt, Bruce
Swedien, and Michael Tarsia have all mentioned in interview. For similar
reasons, an omni is also great when youre recording a comparatively large
instrument (such as a piano or acoustic guitar) from very close up.
Choose mics to reject sounds: If you want to mitigate some unwanted
sound while recording, whether its fan noise from your computer,
slapback echo from a nearby wall, or spill from a foldback loudspeaker or
another instrument, the rejection plane of a figureof-eight microphone
easily trumps the rear null of a cardiod in terms of performance. A pair of
figureofeight mics can provide astonishing separation when recording
singing acoustic guitarists or duetting lead vocalists, for instance, while a
curtain of figureofeights can be handy for picking up a choir in large
scale orchestral works, because the mics can be angled to reject the brass
section blaring away directly in front of the rear risers a trick Andy
Payne mentioned using for his BBC Proms concert recordings in SOS
Sayfa 20 / 23
4.10.2016 23:40
November 2014.
There continues to be a persistent belief amongst homestudio users that
the purpose of tracking is to maximise the number of sonic options
available when mixing. As reasonable as this may sound in theory, its
often extraordinarily inefficient in practice. The first problem is that
keeping options open is usually code for shirking decisions about how the
productions meant to sound, which makes it wellnigh impossible to
choose a suitable recording technique. How can you judge when your mic
position sounds right if youve no clear sonic goal in mind? The second
problem is that every option you keep open spawns a multitude of others.
Lets say youve used two mics and a DI on your bass cab without
committing to a balance for them. How many mics will you need on each
guitar overdub to make sure its sound can be fitted in with the bass at
mixdown? Three? Four? And then what about the piano, vocals, egg
shaker...? In short, sonic indecisiveness is a recipe for bloated multitrack
projects that you end up loathing once youve finally trudged your way
through the inevitable sweatsoaked mixdown nightmare.
Quick Tips...
Bounce things down: Heres a
good method for encouraging a
more decisive attitude when youre
recording any instrument with
multiple mics, or with a
combination of mic and DI box:
make a habit of bouncing down a
Bouncing down liverunning amp simulations
and MIDIdriven virtual instruments doesnt
representative balance of those
just save you CPU cycles its also a great
signals straight away, to a single
decisionmaking discipline which can
seriously fasttrack your production workflow.
mono or stereo track. An additional
benefit of this approach is that it keeps the total number of tracks down,
which speeds up navigating around the session. Its also a good idea to
Sayfa 21 / 23
4.10.2016 23:40
bounce the output of guitaramp simulators and liverunning virtual

instruments as audio at the earliest opportunity, which will help free up
CPU power for running your audio driver at low latencies without glitches.
In both cases, you can always keep the original source tracks archived
somewhere, on the offchance you really do want to revisit them. Just
make sure you dont leave them cluttering up the main recording project.
Edit before overdubbing: Dont overdub new parts in an arrangement
until all necessary editing/comping of the existing parts has been
completed. This isnt just about committing to decisions, as it also
invariably leaves you with better recordings. If you dont address the
timing issues of your drum and bass parts, say, before adding guitars and
keyboard, youll end up having to edit the timing of the guitars and
keyboards too, regardless of how good the players are. Get the drums and
bass groove right from the outset, and theres a much higher probability
that the guitars and keyboards wont need editing at all and youll have
saved yourself a few hours work. By the same token, dont put a click track
in a musicians mix while overdubbing if there are already enough recorded
parts to provide an adequate timing reference. The end listener wont hear
the click, remember, so its more important that the musical parts agree
rhythmically amongst themselves than that everything lines up exactly
with your DAWs notional bars/beats grid.
Dont track the vocals last: Consider recording your lead vocals as soon
as possible in the recording session, rather than leaving them to the end of
the tracking process. Youd be amazed how much easier this often makes it
both to select appropriate sounds for the remaining backing parts, and also
to mix the final arrangement once its complete.
Mix as you go: Another way to maintain a decisive frame of mind (and
indeed to improve your mixing instincts) is to keep doing new fiveminute
rough mixes of your inprogress project every time you record a new part.
It might seem odd reinventing the wheel like this, but the advantage is that
Sayfa 22 / 23
4.10.2016 23:40
it encourages you to repeatedly question the role of each existing part in

the mix, so youre much more likely to eliminate dead weight from the
arrangement and develop a strong vision for the final product. Eric
Mixerman Sarafin makes this point strongly in his book Zen & The Art Of
Producing: If, upon completing your last overdub, you have no earthly
idea how you want your tracks balanced, then you have been completely
ignoring how the track is supposed to make you move and feel... Therefore,
you should be toying with your balances each and every time you touch the
track.
Mike Senior has worked with various artists including the Charlatans,
Reef, Therapy?, Nigel Kennedy, and Wet Wet Wet. He spent several years
in the editorial department of Sound On Sound before leaving to take up
work as a freelance engineer. Hes also written a couple of audio
production books that have received rave reviews (Mixing Secrets For The
Small Studio and, more recently, Recording Secrets For The Small Studio)
and put lots of useful additional resources up on his Cambridge Music
Technology web site.
www.cambridge-mt.com/RecordingSecrets.htm
Sayfa 23 / 23

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