Lesson 4 - 5/1/13 - Posted on 2013-05-10 by Matthew Furci

Lesson 4 at Studio Du Chateau was a fun lesson. Stephen pulled out several of his microphones and showed me the difference in quality between each one, and explaining what each microphone does/can do - such as having multiple parameters - cardioid, hyper cardiod, stereo, omni, etc. I also had an opportunity to bring in a microphone that I had purchased a while back. The microphone I brought in was a "Blue" Yeti pro microphone - and surprisingly enough, Stephen was very impressed with the quality of the microphone. The reason that he was impressed was because it's a USB plug-in microphone - it has it's own pre-amps inside the mike. This led to a discussion on how microphones were and still are built - and he told me that as good as a USB mike "may" be, until the big boys like "Sennheiser" get on board and push out USB plug in mikes, they may not have a purpose in a studio.

During the past week, I have been given more responsibility when it comes to chosing and assessing which microphones to use for any given recording/purpose. For example, I know that if I have 1 singer coming in, I should use a condenser microphone. As to what type I should use - that will depend on how the persons voice sounds. However, during the same week, we had a group of 8 come in to do back up vocals on a track - and in this scenario, I used a dynamic microphone.

Next week, we are having a full band come in to do an album recording. This will give me the chance to test out how microphones sound in accordance to different instruments. I will be able to use the "proximity" effect to make some low end boosting frequencies - or to get rid of unwanted frequencies.

Matt.