...what kind of microphones did you use?
Track 1 (Kick) - EWI Audiopile 454 (this came from an old mic kit, no longer sold.)
Track 2 (Snare) - Shure SM57 (top head only)
Track 3 (Tom 1) - Sennheiser e604
Track 4 (Floor Toms x2) - Gear One MK1000
Track 5 (O.H. Ride side) - Shure KSM109
Track 6 (O.H. Hat side) - Shure KSM109
Track 7 (Bass) - Countryman Type 85 DI
Track 8 (GTR left) - Sennheiser e609
Track 9 (GTR right) - Sennheiser e609
Track 10 (Pedal Steel) - Shure SM57 (outside edge of speaker)
Track 11 (Harmonica) - Hohner Astatic Blues Blaster
Track 12 (Vocal 1) - Electro-Voice N/D 767a
Track 13 (Vocal 2) - Electro-Voice N/D 767a
Track 14 (Vocal 3) - Electro-Voice N/D 767a
Track 15 (Vocal 4) - Electro-Voice N/D 767a
Track 16 (Audience Applause) - Oktava MK-012
I hardly did any EQing on anything. All guitars, vocals, and harp have no EQ what-so-ever. You are hearing them flat and raw as recorded. The drums and bass only have an upper-mid hump to add attack and a low-end tweak here or there to reduce rumble. (The house subs were creating lots of room thunder.) The lead vocals do have a touch of reverb. That's it!
I spent a few evenings choosing mics in preparation for the recording. Here is how...
My goal was to find the ones which required the
least amount of EQing to sound good. If you have good sounding tracks to start with, they nearly mix themselves in the end. If you find you have to EQ things too heavily, then you've used the wrong mics. This is what they mean by, "Don't try to fix it in the mix."
I have drums and a few instruments to experiment with at home. I test recorded a few seconds of each piece with several different mics. I started with the kick, as I had four kick drum mics on hand. (I tried my best to play it the same way each time.) Then I listened to the playback of each one in the control room to compare them.
When you hear the test tracks played back-to-back you can really hear the differences in microphones. Two of them sounded too boomy in the lower-mid. One sounded too thin. One sounded just right. Once I had a winner, I set that aside and made a note.
Next I tested about ten different mics on a floor tom. Most of them sounded thin and boring because they were just your everyday dynamic mics. But then, just for shits and giggles I put a kick drum mic on that tom. Wow! It really came to life with big low-end. It also rejected the highs from the cymbals due to roll-off. I had three kick mics left over, so I tried them all. Sure enough, one of them sounded sweet. (Ironically, that same kick mic sounded like crap on the kick. Go figure.) I did the same thing for the rest of the kit until I had the best selections all set aside.
At the gig, the soundman recommended the guitar mics. (I had planned to use ribbons on those.) I finally agreed to go with his choice and it worked out great.
EDIT: Notice that some of those mics are low-buget junk and some are well respected. It only goes to show that used in the right situation, any mic can work well.
