Picking the right tool

[surf's up]

During tracking, what guides your 'editorial' decisions most when it comes to choosing the right mic, preamp, placement, etc. for a specific job? Is it just intuition? Personal experience? Trial and error? Convention? Maybe some sort of combination of these? How do you go about the process? And how has your approach changed throughout the development of your career?

[TapeOpLarry]

You pretty much answered the question for me. A combination of things. Sometimes boredom leads to trying diffferent or "wrong" things...

[joelpatterson]

Up until very recently, I didn't have all that many choices in what gear I could reach for. So I just used whatever seemed "best," like probably my "best" mic for anything close-up, and my 57's for the guitar amps, and hopefully I had enough mics and inputs to cover all the bases.

Just winging it. Whatever seemed apropos. Prayed alot.

[drumsound]

I'll often go with what experience tells me should work. Or like Larry said I might just be bored and try something else. Sometimes I open the mic cabinet and notice a mic I haven't used in a while so I'll set it up.

I think the real key is knowing when something doesn't work and swapping it out for something else

[Professor]

I'd say that it's pretty much all of the above except maybe intuition even if it's a 'quick' session that is preset before the musicians arrive because you will always choose the mic based on previous experience.
As for my process, well I am always thinking about how I am going to mix the tracks so I have a concept of how each instrument needs to settle into its place. For example, I could use dozens of different mics in countless locations to record piano but I will choose a fast, articulate and bright mic if the piano is the lead/solo voice in the group, or a slower, smoother, darker mic if the piano needs to hang back behind the group, or something in between if the piano is changing roles. And I'll choose a wider stereo pattern if the instrument will be the only stereo source, or a narrower pattern in the instrument needs to stay in a smaller space among a larger group.
Whenever possible (and there really sometimes it's not), I listen to the specific source (that instrument, with that player, in that room, on that day) and choose the mic that will emphasize the stuff I like and subdue the stuff I don't. Sometimes I listen and then stand in front of the mic locker trying to connect the mic with the source in my head to 'hear' what the result will be. And if I'm having trouble deciding, I put up multiple mics and compare them in mixdown, which has the added benefit of refining my concept of the sound of each mic for future sessions.

And then sometimes, the situation dictates the microphone to be used.
On Wednesday I recorded the school big band in the studio with all 17 players and the conductor in there at once. I placed the drumset (inside a ClearSonic shell) and the piano (9' grand) in the isolation room together, the upright bass in the airlock, and the 14 horn players in the main room.
Bass was easy because he was in his own space so I picked out a TLM-193 and also ran a DI from his pickup. For horns, condensers in the main room were out of the question because the bleed would be too intense, so I used only dynamics with 5 SM-57s on the trumpets, 4 MD-421s on the alto & tenor saxes and an RE-20 on the bari sax, 3 TapeOp ribbons on the trombones and an RE-20 on the bass trombone. (An example of a time when I couldn't set a specific mic to each individual horn.)
In the iso-room, piano & drums shared the space, though the drums had a 7-panel plexi-wall with a 2" rigid fiberglass lid to contain them. I needed to keep the piano lid closed to minimize the bleed, so I placed two DPA 4061 miniature omnis (lavaliers) inside the case, aimed at different points on the sound board and left the lid closed.
For drums, the kick and snare were easy, and I tried out 2 TapeOp ribbons on the toms (worked great) but had to select overheads carefully. The drummer tends to bash and crash the cymbals with lots of side-stick hits, so I used a dark & splashy ride & crash that could take those hits without sounding ugly. But I knew I needed articulation from the cymbals and chose a very 'bright' condenser (Chinese built, Studio Projects LSD-2) because I knew it could pull out the articulations and subdue some of the bashinng & crashing. The LSD-2 is a dual, multi-pattern, so I knew I'd use either MS, XY or Blumlein, and I chose Blumlein. At first I wasn't sure because the mic went behind and above the drummer, right against an absorbant wall surface and the fiberglass 'lid' on the clearsonic booth - so all the space behind the mic was absorbant. I considered just using XY, but I figured that would be too narrow of an image, so I chose Blumlein for the stereo width in the front, and not for the ambience of the room in the back. I even did a quick test with a student employee where I played 30-seconds inn Blumlein and 30-sec in cardioid XY and both compared and measured the results. The Blumlein was slightly "thinner" sounding on the ride cymbal though that worked out great for articulation, and more important, the image was indeed wider, placing the ride cymbals and hihats perhaps 15-20? further out on each side. We measured with some of the Waves PAZ plug-ins and saw some confirmation of our listening tests on the scopes and graphs. I figured that I could always narrow the Blumlein pair with the pan control in mixdown but couldn't widen the XY without some fancier tricks.

So all told, on this particular session I used my experience, trial & error, and convention, as well as employing some logic, experimentation, and problem solving to pick out the 24 mics which conveniently enough, all performed precisely as I'd expected them to from before the session.

-Jeremy

[I'm Painting Again]

I pretty much just move and change stuff till it sounds good in the speakers in the mix not soloed..using a combo of all you stated above..

[joel hamilton]

Trying a million different setups, until you sort of start to land on the stuff, and placement, and pre, and drums.... That YOU like. The stuff that does what you want it to do.

Intuitive choices come from experience. If you can "listen like a 57" then you can at least get in the ballpark for what it would sound good on... Now multiply that times every mic you have ever owned, or used, on every source you have ever recorded....

Mentally catalog the result of everything you do: the better you can "scan" your experiences, the more efficiently you can find a "solution" for the puzzle of how to record anything.

(i am just rambling, hope it helps).

[cgarges]

For me, that starting point for learing what gear sounds like is one of two things: Either common sense-type application, or just sheer random experimentation.

As for the latter, if I have a new mic pre in front of me and I'm doing say, a harmonica overdub, I will probably just throw the harmonica into the new mic pre just to hear what it does. If it works okay, I'll stick with it and see if it becomes a pain in the ass down the road (getting the harmonica to sit in the mix or whatever). If it sounds terrible, I'll go to something else, but I'll make a mental note of what sounded terrible about an instrument with the tonal qualities of a harmonica through whatever mic I used with that particular mic pre.

In the case of the former, a lot of times, it's applying stuff I already know. Like, if I'm recording quiet, fingerpicked guitar and I'm using a mic pre that doesn't have a lot of clean, quiet gain, I probably won't bother with listening to that mic pre if I want to keep the flow of the session happening. Or I might use a mic with a higher output that I wouldn't normally use on the guitar to see how it fares with that pre. On the other hand, I know that I generally prefer certain mic types on certain instruments and certain mic pres with certain mic types, so I might start there. But those are certainly guidelines, not hard and fast rules. But as much as I try, the reality is just that I can't find anything I like better than Oktava MC/MK012s on toms.

It usually takes me a while of using a piece if gear before I start finding out what's really cool about it and what sort of things it does and doesn't do for me, so it's all about catalogging the results. Lately, I've taken to writing stuff down on a note pad, especially when I've got a piece of gear I'm reviewing (and I'll have some good ones coming up, by the way). That's really helpful for being able to assess something quickly. Some sessions are just plain easier to experiment on then others.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[joel hamilton]

I will also put up two or three mics on something like an acoustic guitar i have never recorded before:
One I am 94% sure will work, one I am interested to hear, and one I think will sound really weird or interesting, or sonically "unique."

Sometimes I print the one i knew i would print, sometimes all three, but I never totally miss altogether these days.

Remember this: If you dont know how the hell to record something (like a harmonium or a marxophone or whatever thiing you have never encountered), Record the thing with a pair of omni's, AND something you just wildly guess on. At least that way it is like your ears in the room, along with something you think may work. I have gotten away with an M/S pair or a couple of earthworks TC30's or stapes on a BUNCH of random instruments in the past.

Really though i think puttin up a variety s an amazing way to learn, and get results quickly.

[HuskerDude]

It's been several years of trial and error. Until recently, I never got paid more than a case of beer for my services, so I had the freedom to goof around and stick weird mics in weird places and try weird setups. Most of the time, that just taught me that the old standbys are there for a reason, but sometimes I ended up with something really interesting.

[Fletcher]

If it's a "money" gig then I'll use something that is 'tried and true' that will have predictable results... if it's a normal gig then it will be something I've never tried before so I can further build my repetoire of techniques for the "money" gigs.