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M123 Recording Tech Tip

Condense this!

Condenser microphones are at the heart of nearly every studio, and rarely is a record made without one. The good ones are highly sensitive and also very accurate, and that is why condenser mics are such a staple. They help recordists capture sounds with an extended, precise response not found in most dynamic microphones. The heart of the condenser mic is its diaphragm: an extremely thin piece of either Mylar, plastic, or metal (and sometimes Mylar-coated plastic or metal) that is suspended in front of a metal plate called a back plate. When you hit the diaphragm and the back plate with voltage it creates a charge in the space between them. When a sound wave (air movement) hits the diaphragm, it moves into the charged field generating a fluctuation in voltage that is picked up and amplified by the internal preamp of the microphone. This internal preamp is why all condenser microphones require some form of power, usually from phantom power, but sometimes from an onboard battery. While condenser mics were traditionally expensive and used almost exclusively in pro studio settings, the last decade has seen a large selection of condenser microphones hit the market at prices well within the reach of most home studio owners.

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Music123 Recording Tech Dude

Music123 Question: When recording music, is it best to record everything dry and save effects for mixdown?

Music123 Answer: There are 2 schools of thought on this issue. Audio purists believe that sending the cleanest possible signal to disk without effects that may crowd or muddy your mix is best. This gives you more options at mixdown. This approach hearkens back to the days of $2,000-a-day studios, when going back and recording a track was expensive and problematic.

The other school of thought is to record effects as you go and think of the effect as part of your instrument’s sound. This is the approach of Grammy-winning producer/mixer Tom Lord-Alge. Many people have a hard time working when they don’t hear instruments the way they expect them to sound in the final mix. Also, having too many options at mixdown can cause problems. Because there’s so much going on in a mix as it is, you don’t want to add decision impairment to the list.

Another consideration is our tendency to imitate nature and fill voids wherever we find them. If you wait until mixdown, you may find that the sonic space you needed for a reverb may be filled with something else. If you have a limited amount of effects processors, recording with them expands your sonic palette, providing more opportunities for contrast. Otherwise, your mix will be limited to the few processors you have.

Personally, I prefer to “record” with effects as I go along. Even with plug-ins providing multiple instances of effects processors, you only get so many before your computer chokes. My favorite trick is to apply the plug-in and bounce the processed track, which frees up my CPU (just like recording hardware effects in the old days and having them to use again in mixdown). Also, I save a "dry" version of the track, which saves going back and re-recording if I don't like the effect in context of the final mix.

And nowadays, in the time of affordable, high-quality home studios, if you don’t like an effect, going back and re-recording a track is not that big of a deal.

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