In yesterday’s blog post, I railed on the type of folks who are always floundering, waiting on the next piece of gear to come riding in on a white horse and save the day.

Today I’m going to give you a simple tip.

If you follow this tip, I guarantee you’ll get better recordings.

How do I know? Because it has worked every time for me.

I gotta warn you, though. The odds aren’t in your favor. Chances are you’ll read this tip but won’t ever do anything about it.

“It can’t be that easy,” you might say.

“He’s over-simplifying things.”

You shouldn’t just blindly believe me.

A few weeks ago I told you about a live concert recording I did for a friend of mine.

It was a simple show, just her and a piano in an old church. She sang half of the songs with a handheld mic; the rest were classical/musical theater pieces performed without a microphone.

My plan was to simply use two mics on her vocals (one for the handheld stuff, one farther away to capture the classical tunes) and a pair of small-diaphragm condenser mics in an XY pattern on the piano (a nice old baby grand).

That was the plan. Four mics.