Mike Senior's Expert Tracking & Mixing Tips
Cardioid mics are tremendously popular amongst recording musicians, but can also work against you. In this episode, Mike Senior explains some of the reasons why, and illustrates how omni and figure-eight patterns can often give more useful results.
Chapters00:00 - Introduction01:39 - Proximity-effect bass boost04:44 - Spotlighting 05:48 - Low-end response at a distance06:40 - Off-axis tonal coloration09:06 - Insufficient spill rejection10:56 - Plosives and handling noise12:33 - The hand-held LDC trick14:11 - Summary
If you'd like to listen more critically to the audio examples, you can download a high-resolution 24-bit/44.1kHz WAV of this whole episode from the podcast support page for this show https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/why-not-use-cardioid-mics-mike-senior-podcast
CreditsThis month's episode features recordings from David Tyo's 'Long Way Home'. You can check out more of David's great music here:
https://davidtyo.bandcamp.com/
If you'd like to try mixing 'Long Way Home' for yourself, you can download the full raw multitracks here:
https://cambridge-mt.com/ms/mtk/#DavidTyo
To read more about the low-spill figure-eight guitar-recording method, check out Neil Rogers's January 2014 'Session Notes' column:
https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/session-notes-thomas-rumbold-reds
For more general advice about microphone polar patterns, try this March 2007 article by Paul White:
https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/using-microphone-polar-patterns-effectively
Mike Senior Biog
Mike Senior is a professional audio engineer, regular SOS contributor, and author of the best-selling books Mixing Secrets For The Small Studio & Recording Secrets For The Small Studio. He runs the Cambridge-MT educational resources site (including the web's largest free multitrack download library) and hosts two monthly independent podcasts, Project Studio Tea Break and the Cambridge-MT Patrons Podcast.
