Chapter Six - Microphone Placement and More Myrtle - Posted on 2016-08-11 by Andrew Pitts

Microphone placement creates much of the timbre of a recording, and placing them correctly can make the difference between a quality or a dead sound. The lesson included many invaluable techniques I have never heard of, such as the XY method and the Mid-Side method. These are both used for recording sounds within a small area. For recording larger areas, such as a choir, the Decca Tree method, where three mics are placed in a roughly "T" shape, may be the best choice.

Phase problems may occur in stereo recording, so it is important to check for tonal differences with the channels mixed in mono after recording in stereo, to be sure that phasing is not an issue. If it does occur, there are two possible solutions: first, the engineer may rearrange the microphones so phasing becomes less prominent. Second, one track may be inversed (so troughs become peaks and vice-versa), similar to balanced cables such as the XLR.

On Friday I will be leaving for Myrtle Beach (again), this time for a family vacation. I plan to use the free time to experiment with the various techniques I've learned so far, make some more progress in the textbook, and hopefully write and record some new songs.