This week we compare mics on a bass amp. In the Rapid Fire section we cover: Latest trick we learned; Do you use ribbon mics?; and Do you make your own cables?
Joining us for discussion this week is Joe Gilder from Home Studio Corner
The Home Recording Show
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Nice addition of the honky tonk/carnival music in the background of the comments section. Cool show!
Great show! I think the SM 57 from a distance wins the prize for “most terrible”. I was surprised at how well the SM 7B did at a distance (although still not great).
Wow, you guys better be careful; or you’ll lose your “Family Friendly” rating. Swapping out trannies? Close your eyes and twiddle the knob? The more I listen to this show, the less my wife understands why I like it!
I hope Ryan is getting a damn serious commission from Cascade Microphones. I stopped counting mentions of the Vin-Jet after 123490571234907123904781239047. Way to work the system guys.
Ride the Lightning!
-James
You guys give great advice on micing and mixing drums. But would like to present a challenge. I play guitar and mandolin along with my fiancé belly dance group and we will be competing on the national scale in January. I was asked to write & record some music for the dancers to practice to. I’m very curious to hear all of you give advice on recording djembe and aribic fram drums. Close mic with a 57? With a small blend of a condenser room mic maybe? I also play a cojon (pronounced kahone) if you are unfamiliar please take a look on YouTube. It has a sound hole on back. How would you mic this instrument? Thanks guys hope my question is picked for the show………BAZZZING!!!
Aribic “FRAME” drum. …….sorry 🙂
Unlike Eric, I found the ragtime piano mixed behind the question and answer segment distracting, repetitive, and annoying, especially when it’s the same riff playing over and over for ten minutes plus. Given that the sense of ragtime music is “funny and clunky” (at least in the current cultural milieu), it also adds a “who are these clowns writing in” sense to the segment, a sense that I’m sure you don’t mean to convey.
Ditch the ragtime. Use it as an intro, if you must, but don’t play it over and over and over AND OVER in the background. It’s annoying enough that I’d consider not listening to your podcast any more if it stays in.
Best line of the show:
“If one’s available (ribbon mic) I’ll try to use it… but one’s usually never available.” -Joe Gilder
2nd best line of the show:
Ryan: “You don’t use a soldering iron?”
Joe: “Nope! I can’t even spell soldering iron.”
Wow that’s 2 best-of-show quotes for Joe. I hope he’s on again soon.
-James
When I mic djembe, I typically mic top and bottom. Think of the bottom mic as a kick drum mic for a really high tuned kick.
The top mic should have a good high frequency response and good transient response, maybe a LDC if you have one. Remember that you’ll likely need to invert the polarity on one of these mics.
I’ve also added room mics as well for djembe, room tone is incredibly important for percussion.
You should also try reversing the phase of one of the two mics. Preferably, the mic on the lower part of the drum.
James
re your :
“2nd best line of the show:
Ryan: “You don’t use a soldering iron?”
Joe: “Nope! I can’t even spell soldering iron.””
comments …
That is because they call it Soderin’ not Soldering 🙂
Bit of a bummer really because Soderin’ probably has a different meaning in New Zealand. 🙂
BTW guys another interesting show as always.
@Steve
My bad; I feel silly. I assumed that nobody was referring to the famed landscape photographer Stig Söderin from Östersund Sweden. I mistakenly guessed we were talking about “the process in which two or more metal items are joined together by melting and flowing a filler metal into the joint…” (Merriam-Webster) which is know by audio and electronics enthusiasts as: soldering.
Don’t worry @James.. I fully understood…
I just pulling Ryan’s leg.. (they (Ryan and Jon) always have a crack at me any my typing & english) ..
Just love the Americanization of words.. Especially where letters are dropped.
i.e. Soldering (with the “L” said sodering (without the “L” in USA) . Aluminium.. (the metal on the international table of elements) with the “i” near the end so often called and even spelt Aluminum (without the “I”) in USA., Router (said “Raowter” in USA – but Rooter in UK) etc etc etc.
The Aluminium one is fun.. I was watching a video of Leonard Bernstein (the fabulous old classic Ombibus series) .. And one of the sponsors was the American Aluminium Company (with the “i”) and was announced as such but then they said on the video that the company was a major provider of Aluminum to USA – said without the “i”. It was Hilarious…
You just have to love all the differences around the world..
(NB the New Zealand& Australian accent sure isn’t perfect either)
Just a suggestion; next time it would be helpful if the bass track didn’t have so much string and fret buzz. A lot of the high end response was colored by all the string buzzing and along with being an mp3, it made it difficult to tell exactly what the differences were and what the mics actually sounded like. For example, I agree the Apex sounded best, bit I think that is probably because it was the best at subduing the offending buzzes and their frequencies, not necessarily because it is the best sounding on an cleaner source…
PS: what’s with the circus music in the background? I was walking the dog, listening to the show and I kept thinking the ice cream man was coming…
Hey guys
I love the show. I was inspired by an old show to build a subkick and would like to send photo’s of it. How can I do this? I’m not very good at this computer stuff but I’m learning.
Email the pictures to us. Send to ryan [at] homerecordingshow [dot] com. Obviously replace the words in brackets with their proper symbols.
Ryan – You didn’t try the Audix D5 on the bass cab. In the doucmentation they recommend it for this and I tried it on my Orange 30 bass amp which also has a DI, so I did both – DI and the Audix. Sounds pretty awesome actually. I’ll send you an MP3.
ps – I too found the honky tonk piano quite distracting.
Great show, KUTGW.
Whoops – that’s the D6 of course!