ed is right - you will need another mic to record either of those instruments. for flutes, i use a single large-diaphragm condenser, about 5-6 feet up, about 3 feet away from the player, and positioned slightly off to the right of the player angled toward the middle part of the player's body - not straight at their face. on the mixer, you will want to roll off almost all of the low freq EQ to minimize room noise, and generally you will also want to roll off the high end EQ somewhat to warm the sound up a bit. during mixdown, you may also want to roll off some of the high end on the reverb return. do not try to record too hot a signal for the flute - the transients are deceptive. keep it around -6 to -10 for the average signal. do not over compress - if anything, just use some limiting for peaks. the piano is the hardest instrument there is to mic properly (though drum kits are nightmares too!). use at least two mics if you have them - it is okay to mix a good mic with the sm-57 -like ed says - try a few things and find the best arrangement for what you have. take your best mic and place it at the best "sweet spot" you can find with your ear. then listen to a test recording of the piano with that mic. then, based on what you hear, decide where the second mic needs to go to reinforce the high end, or to add some more ambient sound, or bottom end. some people will pull a bit of mid EQ off the piano during mixdown to minimize competition with the flute's range.
flute recording and mixing
- Thread starter jnorman
- Start date
sonusman
Banned
Gonna need a new mic. Especially in the case of a piano, where the sound board is spread out over at least 3 feet.
The SM-57 is a good mic for things like a guitar speaker, a snare drum, a tom drum, and even a trumpet with a Harmon mute. But for instruments that are really subtle like a flute, or an instrument like a piano where the is a very big frequency range, you will need a much more precise microphone.
You really can't go wrong with something like a Audio Technica 4033. They are currently selling for around $400. In the case of the piano, you may really need 2 of them to really get a well balanced sound. You can back the mic away from it to balance the sound between the low and high strings, but you also pick up more of the room sound doing this. With two mics, you can place them much closer and play around with placing them to share the whole sound board.
Hope this helps. Good luck.
Ed Rei
Echo Star Studio www.echostarstudio.com
The SM-57 is a good mic for things like a guitar speaker, a snare drum, a tom drum, and even a trumpet with a Harmon mute. But for instruments that are really subtle like a flute, or an instrument like a piano where the is a very big frequency range, you will need a much more precise microphone.
You really can't go wrong with something like a Audio Technica 4033. They are currently selling for around $400. In the case of the piano, you may really need 2 of them to really get a well balanced sound. You can back the mic away from it to balance the sound between the low and high strings, but you also pick up more of the room sound doing this. With two mics, you can place them much closer and play around with placing them to share the whole sound board.
Hope this helps. Good luck.
Ed Rei
Echo Star Studio www.echostarstudio.com