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ecording theroomDrums: Kick And TomsPlacement is key. With the kick drum mic, the closer to thebeater, the less bass you get – often engineers use two, one bythe beater and one inside the sound hole or if the head is offjust above the floor of the drum. Be careful the snare micdoesn’t pick up too much high hat by positioning it with thehat to the rear, sometimes tricky with certain drummers’set-up. Ringing toms have to be dampened – tape, Moongel,O-rings, etc – these all help dampen the drums into a tightsound without losing power. There are lots of budget workarounds like old drum heads cut for O-rings, plumber’s puttyin place of Moongel, etc – just remember to use your ears.If it’s not right keeping trying things out.Alan Branch, Producer/Engineer andAudio Media ContributorUp Close And BassyCardioid and bi-directional (pressure gradient) microphones exhibit proximity effect:low frequencies are gained the closer the microphone gets to the sound source.Eddy B. Brixen, Audio Specialist, DPA MicrophonesMic BasicsChoose a microphone that will fit theinstrument best – a condenser, a dynamic,a ribbon… all of these pick up sound verydifferently. Condenser mics are very sensitiveand very responsive to high frequencies.Quite open and accurate, they will captureeverything. Ribbon mics are coming backinto fashion and are regarded very highlyfor their warm vintage sound but have to behandled carefully; whereas dynamic mics aretougher and handle loud volume very well,are easier to isolate unwanted frequencies,and are also much cheaper.Alan Branch, Producer/Engineer andAudio Media ContributorPrism_ronsonSOSjuniorpage_ad_july11:Layout 1 01/07/2011 13:51 Page 1Time WiseDistance is not always a good solutionfor isolation. It may be counter-intuitive,but often putting the piano next to thedrums, with a lot of baffling, is better thanseparating them by ten or fifteen feet.The bleed level may be a little less atfifteen feet (in a practical room, not asmuch as you might expect), but the bleedis also about a millisecond later for eachfoot of separation. It can be the 15 mstime delay that sounds so bad in the mix.David Mathew, Audio PrecisionTECHNOLOGY FOCUS‘Portable, versatile andunbeatable sound!’Joshua Blair andMark Ronson (Sphere studios)The only interfacefor the jobORPHEUSProfessional FireWireaudio interfaceWhen looking for a high quality I/Osolution there is only one choice.Orpheus provides Prism Sound's worldrenowned performance, sound quality andstate-of-the-art clock technology in adedicated FireWire unit compatible withboth Windows and MAC OS X.Orpheus features line, microphone andinstrument inputs, selectable RIAAEqualization for turntables, a built-inpremium-quality monitoring mixer andconcurrent ADAT and switchable S/PDIF orAES3 digital I/O plus support for outboardMIDI devices. The Microphone inputsinclude MS matrix processing and dualheadphone outputs are provided each withtheir own volume control.The Brauner Phanthera is the impressiveproof that a phantom powerednon-tube microphone can soundamazingly close to a real tube microphone.With the Phanthera microphones, Braunerexpanded its product portfolio to include areference quality microphone which couldstand beside the sound characteristics of thecoveted tube models VMA and VMX.According to the Company, thePanthera range is characterised by finelyelaborate and highly nuanced sonic details.Narration recordings also have clear gainsin proximity and plasticity – results withconvincing quality without time-consumingpostproduction.The Phanthera V is a multi-patternversion and features the same sonic qualitiesas its cardioid-only counterpart. Availablealternate patterns are omni or bidirectional foradaptation to different recording situations.The bidirectional pattern is particularlyuseful for simultaneous stereo recordingwith a second microphone in XY or MSconfiguration. An additional switchableattenuator reduces the output level of themicrophone by 10 dB, providing furthervaluable dynamic range where necessary.This makes the Phanthera V a versatileprofessional tool for almost every recordingsituation.www.brauner-microphones.deContact us now to arrange your Orpheus demo.sales@prismsound.com www.prismsound.comUK +44 (0)1353 648888 USA +1 973 983 957714AUDIO MEDIA AUGUST 2011