Resources — Page 14 — learning at the elbow of the internet

The 7 Steps of Ideal Mic Placement — SonicScoop

Wessel Oltheten, producer, engineer and author of the book Mixing with Impact offers a roadmap to getting better sounds out of your mics, every time. For even more on this subject, look for his new in-depth series on placing mics, starting next month on SonicScoop.

Getting the ideal mic placement means making important decisions before you even move the mic. Here are 7 steps to getting better results in any context.

1. Guess—but don’t just guess.

I start by placing every microphone at the spot where I think the odds are best for it to work well.

9 Tips for Using Reverb with Drums

by Nick Messitte, iZotope Contributor August 20, 2019

Some of the reverbs we’ll be working with today
Your drums sound narrow, dry, and small. You need them to sound bigger, so you send them to a concert-hall reverb. That’ll do the trick, right? Probably not. Now all you have are small, narrow drums surrounded by a lot of incongruous reverb.

Mix Busses 101: When, Why, and How to Group Tracks into a Bus

by David Bawiec, iZotope Contributor August 21, 2019

What’s a mix bus? Learn here!
We’ve got your guide to everything mix bus-related. Learn how they work, the difference between a group, aux bus, or master bus, when you should route your tracks to a group bus, and how to do it the right way.

Keyboard Soloing Ideas from Jeff Lorber — KeyboardMag

When I was playing the club circuit in Boston and New England in 1972, I thought I had a pretty great keyboard rig: a Rhodes Stage electric piano, a Fender Twin Reverb amp, and a wah pedal. Then I stopped by Bunratty’s Bar and saw a band that had a brand new Minimoog. It was love at first sight, and I had to get my hands on one. I was mesmerized by how it lets a keyboard player bend notes and be expressive the way a guitarist or horn player can be. I’ve been a big Minimoog proponent ever since. Here are some tips for building your own expressive jazz-rock synth solos.

Drum Overheads — A Stereo Pair Or Cymbal Spot Mics? | Production Expert

In a recent conversation among the team we were discussing what the thinking was behind the apparently common practice of using a spaced pair of cardioid mics, often facing inwards, as a pair of overheads on drums? If the idea of a pair of overheads is to capture a stereo picture of the whole kit, rather than be cymbal mics, then exactly what is this arrangement trying to achieve and where does it come from?

Good examples of how to capture a drum kit. Lots of examples and clear discussion.