Ribbon Mic Summit

Aug 1, 2006 12:00 PM, By Gino Robair

           
 

Ten top engineers share their favorite techniques.

FIG. 2: To get a big guitar sound from an open-backed amp, Chuck Ainlay points an SM57 at the front of the speaker, while simultaneously miking the back of the amp with the back of a Royer R-121. By pointing the back of the R-121 at the rear of the speaker, you keep both mics in phase.

The Turnaround

Ainlay also suggests combining a ribbon mic with an SM57, but he adds a twist. “Sometimes I'll place the ribbon mic in back of an open-back cabinet and turn the microphone around backwards, and then mix that in with a 57 in the front [see Fig. 2]. Obviously, the back of the speaker is the opposite phase of the front of the speaker: if you turn the ribbon microphone backwards, so that the back of the microphone is facing the speaker, you're putting the microphones in phase with each other. It makes a huge guitar sound.

“I place the ribbon mic about 3 or 4 inches from the back of the cabinet,” Ainlay continues. “You have to put the front mic up close to the speaker. You don't want it too distant, or you're going to have time smear.”

Rather than reach for the EQ, some engineers suggest using the back of a ribbon mic to brighten up the sound of an instrument. “Sometimes a ribbon close on an electric guitar amp gives you a nice, chunky, lower-midrangy kind of tone,” Chiccarelli explains. “But if I feel like the sound I want is close but a bit dark sounding so I want to brighten it up just a bit without using any EQ, I will flip the mic around. The back side of some ribbon mics is a bit brighter.”

“You can turn the mic around and use the back side if you want an acoustic guitar to sound a little brighter,” says Wakeman. “You can also do vocals on the back of the mic and they sound great.” But he notes that it depends on the sound of the singer's voice “and how much brightness you need for the track.”

Acoustic Guitar

Al Schmitt (www.studioexpresso.com/profiles/alschmitt.htm) prefers using ribbons on acoustic instruments, and guitar was one instrument he singled out in our interview. “If it's got an f hole, I might place the mic about 8 or 10 inches from the bottom one. You have to listen and see where the sound is, because every guitar is a little different. Moving the mic an inch or two makes all the difference in the world: you really have to listen.”

FIG. 3: Hogarth captures the player’s perspective when he records an acoustic guitar by placing a stereo ribbon mic over the player’s head. [photo by John Jennings]

Chiccarelli used ribbon mics to track jazz guitarist Peter White, whose nylon-string guitar presents its own recording challenges. “I've used the Royer R-121 on his nylon-string guitar and gotten great results. The ribbon is a lot slower on the transients, and a nylon guitar played with fingers can be a little spiky, attackwise. The ribbon definitely softens that.” In terms of placement, Chiccarelli will start by aiming the mic above the sound hole, where the neck meets the body, anywhere from 6 inches to 2 feet from the guitar.

Hogarth, on the other hand, has a distinctive — and personal — way of miking an acoustic guitar. “We all mic guitars at the 12th fret or the sound hole, but that's not where I hear the guitar, unless I'm in front of the guy. Because I'm a guitar player, I've always wanted to capture what it sounds like to me when I'm playing the guitar. To do that, I place a Royer stereo ribbon mic right over the head of the guitar player [see Fig. 3].” Hogarth adds that you should turn down the player's headphones to avoid bleed-through.

Ainlay says a ribbon mic is the ultimate mic on two other acoustic string instruments: the banjo and the Dobro. “They're kind of noisy instruments, and ribbons sound really great on them. I mic the Dobro about 6 inches away, on the portion of the resonator away from where the right hand is picking.”

He also mics the banjo head from the same distance. “I just try to mic an instrument where I'm out of the way of the musician. And I'll move the mic around a little bit if it's too bitey because it's close to the bridge.”