Reader asks about sound and recording: microphone techniques for singer, guitar, piano, trumpet for various genres of music.
I would like to ask you 2 questions about sound and recording. The first one is can you describe the microphone techniques used for reinforcement of a singer and an acoustic guitar? The second one is can you also decribe the microphone techniques for recording a piano and a trumpet for various genres of music?

Hi XXX,

Is this your school application essay? If so, I strongly suggest you get a book and study it since a short answer doesn't make a good essay.

Microphone reinforcement techniques have a lot to do with personal style. There are many factors to be considered -- what mics to use, where to put them, and also the room acoustic treatments. And the EQshould be done according to all the previous factors.

However, there are some common grounds. Condenser mics capture those nuances so they are usually the way to go. To record trumpets you'll need a mic which can take rather high volume without distortion; for piano there are many different ways (at least 6 that I know of) but in short you want a good balanced stereo image and you probably want to treat the lower register and the higher register differently. For vocal, gosh, there are even ten times more things to say because it really would depend on the singer's vocal quality and your music genre. I'd say the sibilants and other harmonics are what we are usually very careful with -- this is where EQ comes in to shine. I personally don't touch fundamental frequency (F0) too much, but again, that depends on the style. For acoustic guitar solos, I place a mic 3 inches in front of the sound hole and sometimes close enough to capture all the picking/fretting noises. Sometimes I use hypercardioid mic for that one and place another one farther from the player to get the fretting noises or even overall ambience. I usually had to remind the guitar players to make as little unnecessary noises as possible since mic'ing really amplifies everything.

That's all I can (afford to) say now. Hope this helps.

Tsan-Kuang