Lesson 4 1/24/13 - Posted on 2013-03-03 by Ryan Catlett

I was really looking forward to this lesson because I never really understood how a microphone worked, or which mics to use for miking different instruments.  Jesse showed me a variety of dynamic and condenser microphones and explained the best application for both.  He also showed me some of the studios vocal microphones and we compared the differences in Pro Tools.  When you have a variety of microphones in front of you and can hear the differences between them, you really get a better idea of what they would best be used for.  Also, I never knew the distinct patters of microphones and how the way you talk into them can really effect the signal.  Obviously, getting line level input into pro tools requires the mic to go through a preamp.  We played around with different preamps, practiced turning on phantom power if it was a condenser mic, and touched on reverb.

Mics we used in studio:

AKG 414

Shure SM57

Copper Tone

AKG 451

Neumann V87

Right around this lesson I landed an engineering internship at the Grizzly Rock venue in Lakewood, CO.  The venue itself is a 1700 person capacity venue that uses an Avid Venue digital board for front of the house sound.  The monitor board is a Yamaha PM 2800 analog board.  My first time in there was basically just getting a feel for the equipment, shadowing the engineer, and rolling cables.  I never knew there was a proper way to roll a cable and how important it was that you do it the right way.  I intern at the Grizzly Rock Wed-Sat every week.

Artists I worked with:

Slopeside

Down Goes Frazier

Voz 11

Green Jeans