northsiderap
New member
This recording was done with the Beh*Ring*er C2 stereo pair of mics. I wasn't sure where to post this - Studio Building, Microphones, The MP3 Forum, or Recording. I read this forum the most so here goes:
My room is a 12' by 16' or so room with a protruding closet. For sound damping, I used heavy mattress foam for HF areas, foam behind heavy sleeping bags for mids, and a large vintage wool blanket festooned above the drum set on the ceiling. I then used staggered pressed perfboard from the floor to an average of 4' high in attempts to create a helmholtz effect for the lower frequencies. I stacked high R value closed-cell foam to about 4' high in the corners and placed a few acoustic tiles in front of them. The whole thing is covered with a slightly folded curtain which hangs from the ceiling to a few feet from the floor varying from 2-6" away from the wall.
My instruments are in no way outstanding, in fact the banjo was purchased for $4 at a rummage sale and never fixed in any way. Then again, banjos sound like garbage cans with rubber bands on them anyway.
The ONLY mics used to record this tune were the matched pair of Bhringer C2 mics I just got in the mail. Why did one of them reek for grapefruit?
The C2 mics were used only in the XY position with the provided clip.
The mics were placed 4' high and 3.5' in front of the drumset. The bass drum was emphasized via EQ with a bump at about 75Hz and taken down around 4k to get rid of the cymbal sibilance. No effects on the drums.
I then turned the mics 90 degrees and stood in front of the mic stand (still at 4' high) to play all of the string lines. I had to de-emphasize some of the high end for the rhythym GTR track and raise the high end for the banjo. No effects on the guitars.
The bass was recorded direct without a DI or preamp.
The banjo got some soft RMS compression at @3:1 and -9db below peak and some light digital plate reverb.
I mixed to file, and compressed about -4 to -6db off of the peaks with a 1.7:1 firm mastering compression and added a touch of reverb to the whole mix.
Saved to MP3.
This was my way of putting these cheapy mics to the test... Not too bad, but you'll fight 'em with the EQ to get them smooth sounding... Compare 'em to even a pair of MK012s and you'll realize they are a bit harsh.
I played all of the instruments and improvised this tune. Pardon some of the slop, I've only been playing the banjo since this fall. I kinda like it tho...
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