Tonight, I was working with another engineer who commented on my particular snare sound that he was enjoying. He said that he had tried the same mic -- a Blue 100i -- and didn't care for it's sound on his snare. He really enjoyed how the one I was mixing sounded, and asked what I did differently. Fortunately for me, the drummer is an exceptionally good one -- and keeps a very finely-tuned kit -- which allows me to pair particularly good-sounding microphones to make a certain "sound" -- very true to the tone of the kit.
Many engineers really take pride in matching different mics to the different tonal characteristics of particular instruments, while others tend to take a "one size fits all" approach.
Which do you prefer, and why?
Many engineers really take pride in matching different mics to the different tonal characteristics of particular instruments, while others tend to take a "one size fits all" approach.
Which do you prefer, and why?
Comments
I think the most important issue is that the drummer you work with tunes his kit well and maintains it. It’s awfully hard to fix a bad sound from the source no matter how good your gear is.
I have found that (depending on the size of kit) a SM=57 on top and bottom work well.
Also, running a 57 at the snare position and a 57 or 58 as an overhead(centered on the kit, 4 or 5 pc) can really put some umph into the snare sound!
I f micing every drum, I still will use a 57 on snare top and Audix ‘d’ series on each tom w/ a Beta 52 on kick.
While there are general good starting points (SM57 on a snare or electric gtr amp, small diaphragm on acoustic gtr etc…) I think these are always just “starting points” and there really is no one size fits all. As you discovered, each situation is different. I will sometimes use a standard approach but years ago I would have never considered using a 57 on an acoustic guitar…particularly my beloved Taylor 514 CE. Recently however, that turned out to be a very good choice for a particular song. My Taylor has a high end sweet sound and my large and small condensers just added to that whereas the 57 brought in some nice mid-range (and I am generally not a big fan of mid range LOL) that worked out very well. Cheers,
Musically Yours,
Chris Dunnett
I like using a Sennheiser 609 or SM57 on electric guitar cabs. I put the mike away from the cabinet and out of the ‘line of fire’, i.e. not in the direct path of any speaker. This lets the ambience of the room have an affect. I also don’t have to use much compression with this technique.