Best Tips For Using a Microphone in Music Production

Today, musicians can create complete inbox music with incredible compositions. Most of them struggle to find and select the best live instrument for their studio and their musical career.

The addition of accessible but powerful royalty-free samples, DAWs, and new software instruments has drastically curtailed the obstacles to access for music production, regardless of the access of individual’s outboard gear, use of microphones, instruments, or its well-treated room. One thing is certain, live and recording instruments are not moving anywhere. If anything related to popular music nowadays appears to be fascinating is the increase in weaving back of non-electronic instruments into their compositions, excited to showcase the human's organic energy for their performance.

Read: The Ultimate Guide To Electric Piano

So, how can one person use these live instruments to capture the rich sounds of music? about capturing rich sounds of live instruments? Below are the three insightful tips for you:

Empower the versatility of your kit

Many engineers like to enter for a broad array of microphones for particular situations. Castro, the musician, however, has been discovering a lot of importance and pleasure into one versatile mic. “The usage of Peluso 22 47 LE is an extraordinary microphone with a sounding tube condenser, also with table polar patterns,” Castro continues. “Whenever I am recording in my studio, these are my best choice of microphone, without any matter of the utilized instrument. The ability to shift polar patterns is extremely helpful because it gives you several possibilities,” Castro proceeds. "I have been recording overheads, vocals, saxophone, flute trumpet, acoustic bass, percussion, and have been using it as my room mic. It never leaves me unsatisfied.”

Turning threats into opportunities

We have observed clipping and a lot of distortion as unwanted phenomena in the digital globe. Though recording live instruments do not have much impact due to this distortion as AMS Neve 1073LB preamp is one of the lethal combinations for this microphone so far as per Castro, the admire the functionality of character as it provides sound soon as he distorts the signal by pending into preamp too hot. To avoid peaking digitally to his converters and interface, he reduced the trim knob and that is one of the major game-changers in tracking the bass, drums, and vocals. 

Read: Top Rated Free Music Production Software

This process kind of preamp-induced distortion that could be utilized to crank it up to create a creative effect or add a sprinkle of some harmonic interest. This can either be done in a much subtle way or one can go wild to make an instrument sound such as exploding, Castro further explains, for instance, when it comes to bass, he sometimes records multiple versions of the same but splitting the signal. One version goes in super distorted whereas the other was a clean take. After that, he further blends both records might be due to outro or chorus if music becomes intense or heavier. With the help of some distorting some samples in the music, one can give an illusion that is louder than they were to the listener. 

Read: Best Vocal Remover Programs to Make Karaoke

It’s a total miss if you don't try. 

Either with production, arrangement, or with recording, it could be easy to place under the habit of settling towards what we learned from experience. Though, Castro inspires us to continuously for open mind thinking, and do not lose sight of the fact that soundtrack can be an extremely creative attempt. Recently, he was shocked by how Shure Beta 52A's fascinating kick drum microphone expressed on a floor tom, and then he strained it on vocals, and then on his horn. He loved the exploring effect in different ways by utilizing his gear and it sounded so cool. It could be humble using a kick drum mic with vocals room mic via a bass amplifier, or you could even use few guitar effects pedals, as you no need to stop your gear either.

Furthermore, to test your gear, you may adjust your surrounding as there is always a possibility that your parking garage might have the perfect reverb that you have been working on. Setting up your mic in the garage and play the synth via a speaker to capture that amazing reverb you expecting.