proximity effect

When Proximity Effect is Your Friend

With all the tutorial videos, podcasts, and webinars I do, I spend a lot of time in front of a microphone, recording spoken word.

I almost always use a dynamic microphone (my trusty AKG D5).

When I first started doing tutorial videos, I would go for my best “radio voice,” and put the microphone right up next to my mouth. As we all know, our good friend the Proximity Effect exaggerates the bass frequencies of a source as you move the mic closer to it.

While my voice sounded big, it also sounded a bit boomy. (more…)

Back That Vocalist Up

more voice recordingWhat do your vocal recording sessions look like?

You get the Pro Tools session ready (create the vocal track and extra playlists for takes, create a reverb track and route the vocal to it), set up the mic stand, pop filter, music stand. Maybe dim the lights, have a bottle of water handy…perhaps you even light a candle to “set the mood”?

Okay, I can’t remember the last time I lit a candle to record vocals. 🙂

What’s the next thing that happens? Where do you put the vocalist once she shows up? Do you plan to put her REALLY close to the mic, like an inch or two away?

Hang on there, cowboy.

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Day 15 – Get a Handle on the Proximity Effect [31DBR]

Welcome to Day 15 of 31 Days to Better Recordings.

One of the biggest challenges we face as home recording engineers — or is it recordists? Heck, I don’t know 🙂 — is low-mids.

Initially, when you’re recording everything, you want a really rich, full sound. You want everything to sound…wait for it…warm. 🙂

Once everything is recorded, you start mixing, you want to blend everything together and have it sound amazing, but you find that no matter what you do, everything sounds muddy.

When you solo the guitar, it sounds great. When you solo the drums, they sound great. When you solo the vocal, it sounds great. But for some reason when you play everything together it’s a big mush-ball of low-mids. (more…)