MusicRadar

If you want a mixer for live recording, there are plenty of excellent choices.

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Recording is a big subject; even though our first 25 recording tips explained many aspects of the process, there’s still more to cover. So, MusicRadar offers another 26 unmissable tips that’ll help you to get better takes today.

1. Drum recording is all about starting with the right basic setup. Begin with a dynamic mic inside the kick and slightly off-centre, and two condensers above the kit, about 2-3 metres off the floor. Make sure nothing’s rattling, try a pillow inside the kick, and get your headphones on for fine adjustments.

2. Think carefully about your recording environment. Acoustic instruments generally sound best when they’re recorded in a space with a little natural ambience, whereas vocals are generally best recorded in a sound-absorbing environment ready for your own reverb to be added later.

3. Despite what you might see on Jools Holland, saxophones and other brass and wind instruments sound horrible when you jam a mic down their bell. In the studio you want to place the mic 1-3 metres away and slightly to the side to avoid gusts of air audibly hitting it.

4. Just because you have a bunch of mics doesn’t mean you have to use them all. For example, don’t rush into using a different one for every drum in your kit until you’ve mastered the art of placement. A really good engineer will get a better result with one overhead and a kick drum mic then a novice will with eight of them.

5. Microphone choice is a subjective matter (there are different schools of thought in the US and UK, for example), but generally speaking you want a condenser for softer instruments and voices, while a dynamic works best for heavy sounding amps and drums, or in environments where the mic is likely to get bashed about.

6. The worst enemy of recording is resonance, so whether it’s your amps, your monitoring or even your piano, listen out for that tell-tale hum and rattle, and if you hear it, try moving the offending item around the room until it disappears. Once it’s in the recording, there’s no getting rid of it!

7. You can sometimes get a smoother and warmer sound from a guitar amp by placing the microphone behind it. You can raise the amp off the ground for a different effect, or place the mic inside the cabinet.

8. For the best sound quality you should record different instruments separately, as it’s hard enough to get just one recorded cleanly when you’re starting out. That said, there is, of course, something special about a band playing together, so if you have enough space and mics, give it a go. And make sure that you use padded sound screens to help get separation.