M-Audio Microphone manual Electric Guitar, Grand Piano

mount is needed to minimize vibrations from tapping feet and the like.

In most cases, cardioids are the best choice for miking acoustic guitar.While you can certainly attain good results with a large diaphragm mic, medium diaphragms are often preferred in order reduce proximity effect.

1.Bridge. Miking the bridge yields a very sweet sound.Angle the mic either away from the sound hole or tilted up from underneath.The difficulty with this position is that the performer￿s hand can obstruct the pickup pattern, yielding a fluctuation in sound. Working with the performer to find a way to capture the bridge sound unobstructed can be well worth the effort.

2.Neck joint. The most popular position is where the neck joins with the body.This placement yields a nice balance of warm body and bright neck, including natural fret and finger noises. Deploying a matched pair with one mic at the joint and the other at the bridge can result in one of the most satisfying acoustic guitar sounds. Panning the results hard left and right can yield a dramatic stereo sound.

3.Nut. Miking the nut usually results in a bright ￿jangly￿ sound.Additionally miking the bridge and panning the two mics hard left and right produces an extremely wide stereo effect.

4.Audience perspective. Close-miking techniques are often a bit too ￿in your face￿ for solo classical guitar. In that event, try placing the mic three to four feet in front of the performer and level with the sound hole in order to capture more room sound. To create more of a concert ambience, deploy a matched pair left and right at even greater distances. You can also attain the best of both worlds by using multiple mics to combine the aforementioned close-miking techniques

with this distance-miking technique.

Electric Guitar

The most common way to mic a guitar amp is to place a cardioid four to six inches in front of the speaker. If it sounds as if the microphone or preamp are overloading, try engaging the pad switch on the condenser￿typically providing a 10 to 15dB reduction in gain. Proximity effect applies here, so closer positions yield more low mids. Experiment with moving the mic from the center to the outer edge of the speaker. The center typically has a more edgy quality, while the outer portions are mellower. One time-honored trick is to don headphones and move the mic until the hiss sounds minimal￿and you￿ll probably like the sound at that spot.

Close-miking the center and edge of the guitar

amp speaker yields different tonalities

As with most miking situations, moving the mic further away brings in more of the room sound. Consider miking the cabinet in stereo at various distances. One popular technique is to use an inexpensive dynamic mic tight on the speaker and an M-Audio condenser mic further back, panning

the two in stereo.

Grand Piano

The key to getting a great recording of a grand piano is to start with a great piano in a great recording environment. That said, every instrument and situation is different￿and the same piano can also sound different at the hands of different performers. Each situation has to be evaluated differently.

The extremely wide frequency range of the piano combined with the broad throw makes stereo miking with one or more matched pairs the de facto standard. Large diaphragms such as the M-Audio Solaris and Luna are excellent choices. The exact placement has a great deal to do with the type of tonality you are desiring. In most cases, the lid should be all the way open. When isolation is required, many engineers will adjust the lid to the halfway height, then enclose the opening and mics with a moving blanket.

Choosing & Using Microphones 27