PLACEMENT PLACEMENT PLACEMENT. Sorry for the all caps. I think good mic placement is even more important then good gear. Some of the best recordings I have heard have been done with cheap mics placed properly. Back in the 40's and 50's they did not have the great recording devices we have now. They had recorders that would so 30 to 14,000 cps if you were very lucky. So the old engineers relied not on EQ, Compression, or most of the hi-tech tricks we have now. They relied 100% on a good source, and great mic placement. I think you can take a cheap mic place it properly and get a good recording, what you can't do is place a great mic in a bad spot and get a great recording.
I think people wanting to record should use there ears first when it comes to placement. Technique is one thing but the old engineers used there ears first, allot of what we now know about mic placement comes from these "old guys"
They would say what if I place the mic here or there what happens? They did all the hard work we now have these mic techniques to fall back on. But.... even with techniques there is no technique greater then using your ears first, to help with mic placement.
I know that when recording a concert you don’t have much time to check out placement, but I say hey that's what the opening band is for
(unless that is who you are recording) use this time to experiment and try new placement ideas, if possible use a good set of isolating headphones to listen to the mix. See/hear the effect that moving the mics has on sound an inch here or there makes a huge difference in sound quality.
This is the part of audio that is being lost IMO no one is really experimenting with moving mics around anymore oh sure we will try new techniques but they are for the most part ones that were already developed. We rely too much on the work of these old engineers. We have forgotten what has made them great in the first place: EXPERIMENTATION, IMAGINATION, and the willingness to try new things they did that back then because it was all they had they did not have sound forge to fix it later, it had to be right the first time.
Who knows maybe you will come up with the next new mic technique. This is what audio recording is all about IMO. It’s more then just capturing a moment it’s about learning new things, I think as an audio engineer, if I am not learning something new I should get out of the business. No one knows everything and everyone can learn from each other. I love audio I think of it like an ocean we still have allot of uncharted places to check out.
Chris Church
is there anything else I should be alert for in the future as something that will mess with my recordings? I've heard a little about cell phone interference; is it that bad? Hopefully I can save some future recordings with your help. Thanks in advance!
Topic: Besides obvious noises, what else affects recordings? (Read 5778 times)