Recording mallet percussion

[Owls88]

I'm extremely new when it comes to recording. However I have Cool Edit Pro, and that Samson USB CO1U Condenser microphone.

My main problems are with too much frame noise from the vibraphone (maybe I just need to oil the pedal a little) and then the bass sound on the marimba is just deafening. Anything I can do for that?

[cheetah23]

do a q sweep with the parametric equalizer.... then you can isolate the frequency of the pedal squeak and lower it. then again it might hurt the overall eq of your vibes track. I personally dig weird sounds like pedal squeaks... I think anything in the groove can't hurt your song. you can always treat the squeak as part of the sound and eq everything accordingly

[oretez]

Originally Posted by Owls88

[snip] Samson USB CO1U Condenser microphone.

[snip] and then the bass sound on the marimba is just deafening. Anything I can do for that?

while I would not expect the CO1U to be optimal for marimba my guess is that the room is a more significant factor with regard to bass

without knowing something about size and shape of room there aren't any really specific suggestion I can make. Pretty much by design of instrument marimba is dependent on interactions with the room. It's pretty difficult to reduce those interactions effectively with a single mic and still get anything resembling a full marimba sound

where have you positioned mic in relation to instrument so far?

[Owls88]

I've just tried putting the microphone directly under the center of the marimba. I do have a mic stand that I could use to mic it from on top, but I'm worried it may get too much attack sound.