Maximum Quality Minimum Cost (1 Viewer)

[InsidePoint]

Excellent article from Sound on Sound magazine on cheap ways to improve your recordings. Anyone ever try that thing with the hardboard under a chair?

 

[dubh in seattle]

there are some really good points there. Using a reflective surface behind or beneath an instrument can be great-- though for very complex reasons, you'll prolly wanna avoid parallel reflective surfaces (like a live wood floor and all smooth plaster walls); it's way more useful tonally to have different surfaces facing each other(say a live wood floor, one wall absorptive like draped curtains or acoustic foam, the wall parallel to that diffusive like a bookcase with books, or some other irregular surface, really those yarn loop-hook wall hangings yer gran made are great wall treatment--place a few randomly on a wall!) and the dimensional relationship between sound source/mic/reflective surface/barrier surface(nearest other surface) can cause problems as well as glorious tones. To clarify/simplify, the distance to the first reflective surface should be at least 3 times the distance of the instrument to the mic. This allows the early reflections to hit the mic "in phase" with the direct signal, giving you the most complete tone. Smaller distance ratios will result in some phase cancellation (lower frequencies can disappear via phase cancellation, it might sound hollow or whooshy), although that can sometimes sound very cool. experiment with everything!