Radical Recording Tips

Apr 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By D. James Goodwin

SOMETIMES DOING THE WRONG THING GETS THE RIGHT SOUND

As engineers, we are naturally drawn to recording because of our love of music as well as our pursuit of sonic perfection. But after we've mastered the craft of making records, it's easy to forget that perfection is relative. Sometimes we have to break the rules to get the right sound.

I relate recording and mixing to filmmaking: I stage every song like a new scene in a movie. In that light, adventurous production techniques can be an effective vehicle for transmitting the emotional core of a song.

In this article I will share some of my favorite techniques for getting unusual sounds. Some of these ideas may seem absurd or gratuitous, while others you may have seen before. But all of these tips can be used within the context of a mainstream recording, providing subtle ornaments to a more traditional approach.

The only rule I'm not willing to break is that the song always gets priority. If something I do obscures or detracts from the song, I nix it. Everything else is fair game.

Trashing Talk

Microphones are addictive to many engineers. But even though I love the usual suspects, such as a Neumann U47 or an AKG C12, they can be a bit boring at times. Why use what everyone else uses? That's why I collect odd mics (see Fig. 1): from vintage Soviet tube mics to flea market specials, every microphone has an unusual character that you can exploit.

Although many of these low-quality mics have ¼-inch plugs at the end and offer instrument-level output, that's not a problem — just run them through a stompbox. A lot of engineers would consider my inexpensive Realistic dynamic mic useless for recording, but I typically run it into a pedal effect, then into a DI, and finally into a mic pre. It sounds a bit noisy at first, but because the mic itself is not capturing anything above, say, 8 kHz, you can aggressively EQ out the top end without affecting clarity.

I also use old Dictaphone microphones on various sources because they have a low threshold for volume and an extremely limited frequency response. Recording piano with only the Dictaphone mic gives me a built-in narrowed bandwidth simply because the mic is not very good. The resulting sound is arguably more organic than what I'd get from electronic methods of filtering. Of course, you can use this setup as a supplement to a normal miking scheme as well.

When I use the Dictaphone mic as the trash mic on a drum kit, I usually wrap the capsule with a dense towel to lessen cymbal wash and dampen the harsher frequencies. Then you can compress the signal liberally to increase the energy of the track. Compression also tends to raise the midrange frequencies of certain instruments, such as piano and guitar. In addition, the attack transients will often become aggressive, which can help the instrument sit on top of a dense arrangement.

Other mics you should consider trying are carbon mics, crystal mics, and the often-overlooked electret condenser. Whether you use them exclusively or to complement a normal setup, these mics will give you spectacular distortion when driven hard. And when they're used irresponsibly, they provide character that nothing else can come close to replicating.

Tone on Contact

Contact mics are a seemingly infinite source of fun. Rather than picking up airborne sound like a regular mic, they transmit vibrations from solid surfaces, giving you an entirely new perspective on whatever it is that you're recording. You can plaster them virtually anywhere, and most contact mics distort beautifully under duress.

Building your own contact mic using a piezo is simple and inexpensive (see Fig. 2), and there are online sources that show you how. You can also purchase them premade: my favorites are from Cold Gold.

Because of their strong transients, drums are often a great candidate for contact miking. One method is to tape the mic onto the drumhead, although this will affect the drum's sound. (That might not be a problem because we're not going for pure drum tone here.) If that's not an option, tape the mic onto the drum's shell. In both cases, you'll get an excellent thwack along with the intimate resonances of the drum itself. Shape the results with EQ and compression, and don't be afraid to get heavy handed when necessary.

Contact mics work extremely well on resonant surfaces such as cymbals, a guitar body, or the back side of a piano. I've had some success affixing them to a singer's chest or throat, and even on a drummer's sticks. (The latter technique requires a bit of caution.) Anywhere you put them, contact mics provide a much different perspective of an instrument.