Audio Pro

This month it’s all about what you have up top, not in terms of your seventies fling back hair do (or even what you keep below that and between your ears), but your front end.

It is common sense that in order to get the best sounding mix you need to have the best sounding recordings to begin with. If you can get a quality signal down on tape in the first place, it prevents having to try and save the mix later on.

One of the first things I was taught was the age-old industry proverb that, ‘you can’t polish a turd,’ and this is very true, although some vocalists really try to push the boundaries of scatological buffing by making you salvage more than you want to, hoping that Auto-Tune or Melodyne will turn them into the next Aretha Franklin.

Equalising a poorly recorded signal can only get rid of some of the unwanted frequencies, and you can only cut and boost what is already there, so if your signal lacks low end and warmth, an eq plugin will never be a quick fix solution.

If you are recording a vocal in a home studio you also have to consider your recording space. If the studio does not have a nice sound and is not acoustically treated, using a very sensitive condenser microphone with a hypercardiod, figure-8 or omni polar pattern may pick up unwanted and undesirable room noise. Try using a cardioid pattern while positioning the vocalist in a suitable area of the room where the reflections are likely to be less.

If your condenser is picking up too much background noise, try using a dynamic microphone instead. When using a close mic technique with a cardioid pattern dynamic mic, it tends to be very directional and should pick up more of the direct sound source (in this case, a vocal) and less of the room noise. There are a lot of ‘lo tech’ tricks you can use, too – for example, hanging a duvet behind the source to prevent bounce back into a unidirectional mic.

If you find that even your favourite condenser mic is not sensitive enough, or the quality and/or tone of your recorded signal is lacking an apparent ‘space’ or ‘depth’, it could well be that you need to take a good look at your mic preamp.

Most people agree that the preamps on most soundcards are not built to a very high standard. If you consider how much is spent on the A/D and D/A converters of a £300 RRP soundcard, plus the casing and manufacturing, you will probably find that around 50p is spent on each mic pre.

It is definitely worth investing in a good quality mic pre to add to your set up, whether you have a budget soundcard or a more high-end interface. A dedicated preamp can offer a good alternative and allows you to have greater flexibility over the quality, tone and depth of your recordings. For people on a tighter budget, channel strips tend to be the best value purchase as you get several functions included on one unit, offering good value for money and more flexibility.

Going back to my cooking analogy from last month’s column, I also feel that recording and mixing in analog, as opposed to digital, is similar to the difference between cooking in the oven and in the microwave. The microwave might have some fancy touch screen controls, and it may be quicker and easier, but it just doesn’t ‘taste’ the same as cooking with an oven.

A combination of digital and analog recording and mixing seems to be the answer: quick and efficient without sacrificing ‘taste’. You need to know when to take advantage of different technologies, which is something that I intend to help with over the coming months. Having a nice analog front end can make a huge difference at the very beginning to your finished sound.

So put some thought into what you have up top, make sure your ingredients are of the best quality possible, and then you can turn your studio heat up to number 11 (gas mark that is).

Sarah Yule is an experienced audio engineer and Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) graduate. After graduation, Yule became one of the first sales staff for Dolphin Music. She currently works for TL Audio where she was recently promoted to the position of sales director, which is partially due to the success of her conceptual design of the ‘Fat Track Tube Production Suite’.