Lesson 6: Microphone Placement - Posted on 2013-12-10 by Brian Mulvany

Adapt to the situation. This seems to be the prevailing principle when it come to effective microphone placement. Beyond this however, there are some techniques that have stood the test of time, are tried and true and are common practice for some specific applications. For example some basic rules of thumb include: miking with the goal of minimal bleed to enable more effective post production, avoiding blasts of direct air from the source (hi hats/ vocals/wind instruments etc.), miking in ways such as the 3:1 rule in order to minimize phase issues, and above all, managing a workflow (including microphone placement) which makes clients comfortable and thus enables you to capture their best performance. This aspect will be further reinforced in the next lesson which covers the tracking process. Some specific mono miking techniques covered in this chapter were: Close Microphone Placement, Distant Microphone Placement, Accent Microphone Placement and Ambient Microphone Placement. Stereo miking techniques covered were: Spaced Pair, XY, Blumlein Pair, ORTF, Mid-Side, and Decca Tree.