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A nice ribbon would work well. I like an RCA 44BX or an RCA BK-5B on a banjo. Both on the banjo would be ideal. The 44BX a bit further away resonates lower frequencies quite nicely. Ribbon mics on stringed instruments sound natural with a little mid growl.

--Adam Lazlo

These Otari's are like a foreign car...when one thing goes it's hard to narrow it down yourself. I notice you're from MPLS, as am I. I had Scott Cummings from American Pro Audio do a once over on my Otari MTR90II after it was shipped from Boston. He said there are certain problems Otari's develop af...

Here's what I'll rotate through:

(not particular order)

SM7
SM58
ATM23HE
ATM63HE
421
U87
RCA 74b jr

It depends on the tone, obviously. I'll generally use the SM7 or the ATM23HE as my top choice. I also will use a seperate DI track for support.

--Adam Lazlo

I would never part with mine. I've had good success using it on the Kick, Floor Tom, Bass Cab, Vocals, and Guitar Cabs. It surprised me the other day when I was originally using an RCA 44BX ribbon for vocals and then the singer wanted to do some of the songs handheld. I picked out the SM7 and I was ...

Oh my...I'd say Neumann themselves. I'm surprised that one drop killed the 184. If you're really slimy and want to get a free fix, buy a new one from Guitar Center or alike and save the warranty then send in your spent mic to get a free fix while returning the other perfectly fine mic to GC for cash...

If I'm hired as a Producer I'll make sure I talk to them about their intentions and see them live as much as possible before we record. Usually when I'm hired as a Producer they are aware of the records I've already done so they know what kind of results I get, I think that's important too, although...

I've been really surprised with my Audio Technica ATM23HE's. They cut through a bit better than an SM57 or SM58 and are pretty even toned. I've had mine for years, used them for drums, but have found them useful for almost everything else. Beyond that I'd like to add that there really isn't one mic ...

I might be repeating some other suggestions but that's because it seems to work. If I'm going to do mono I'll use a KM184, U87, CMV563, or an RCA 44BX placed accordingly to the room and integrity of the instrument. I'll also compress the crap out of it post tape especially if it's a layer for other ...

hey adam, have you ever had any problems with the bass tracks panned? I used to screw around with this a lot (bass mic one side, bass di the other), but something seemed intuitively wrong about doing it that way. i would always check mono for phase. this was some time ago when i knew less than i do...

Other than my own studio I've freelanced in at least 10 different studios, some huge and some not so huge. I'll sit in on a session with their Chief Engineer before coming in with my group to see how they set things up (especially drums). The best thing is when I find a different 'sweet' spot for th...

Okay... A U47 with a coffee can over it. Sounded like you'd expect, hollow. Had a pretty good effect for what we were after, hollow-ness. There was a laundry chute at my old studio that went from one of the tracking rooms to the second floor and I put a mic at the top of the chute. We actually recor...

I've been tracking everything in mono and then panning during the mix to taste. I guess I do set up so guitars are left/right (not always hard panned--usually 2 mics for each pass with a darker tone hard panned one way and a brighter mic just a bit off center, respectively to the other overdubbed gt...

I've had really good luck with a few methods: Two Neumann CMV563 w/omni capsules - I'd place them according to the room and found that keeping one further away from the high hat gets a nice overall tone and space. The CMV's have a very specific sound that works well for drums. It's not a 'tight' sou...