Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Q What's the best way to record a psaltery?
Various
Q What's the best way to record a psaltery?
Can you offer any suggestions for which type of microphone to use to record a psaltery? I know there will be a huge difference in both price and quality, but I just need somewhere to start. An idea of the type of microphone would be helpful — for example, condenser or ribbon. Also, any information about recording techniques would be useful as well. I'll be recording this along with electric bass, djembe and possibly udu. I'll be using Cakewalk's SONAR X1 with M-Audio's ProFire 610 and a Radial JDV direct box and it will be recorded in a small room that is not acoustically treated.
Jeff Van Beek via SOS web site
SOS Editor In Chief Paul White replies: For an affordable solution I'd look at a good small-diaphragm condenser microphone, because these can usually handle most acoustic instruments well, and they'll pick out the transient detail in the sound. There are plenty of such small-diaphragm mics from various manufacturers such as Neumann, AKG, Sontronics and Oktava, which might work well, but the Rode NT55 is my own go-to affordable acoustic instrument mic and I know that would do this job well.
For recording acoustic stringed instruments with resonant bodies, such as the psaltery, a small-diaphragm condenser is a good bet — particularly if it offers a choice of capsules, as does the Rode NT55 (pictured).For recording acoustic stringed instruments with resonant bodies, such as the psaltery, a small-diaphragm condenser is a good bet — particularly if it offers a choice of capsules, as does the Rode NT55 (pictured).As for the mic position, my rule of thumb about using the physical length of the instrument body as the initial mic distance should work, with the mic pointing towards the sound board but not directly at any sound holes. You can then try moving the mic closer while listening to how the overall tonality is affected, but try not to get the mic closer than half the body length. If you can get the desired separation from the other instruments using improvised screens (if you're on a budget, polyester duvets should do the trick) then an omni capsule may produce the most natural-sounding results in an acoustically sympathetic room. That's one reason that I like the NT55: it has changeable capsules. If this doesn't give the desired results, the cardioid capsule will improve the separation slightly and pick up less room ambience — but you may have to experiment a little more with the exact positioning to find the sweet spot for the instrument.
Q What's the best way to record a psaltery?
Can you offer any suggestions for which type of microphone to use to record a psaltery? I know there will be a huge difference in both price and quality, but I just need somewhere to start. An idea of the type of microphone would be helpful — for example, condenser or ribbon. Also, any information about recording techniques would be useful as well. I'll be recording this along with electric bass, djembe and possibly udu. I'll be using Cakewalk's SONAR X1 with M-Audio's ProFire 610 and a Radial JDV direct box and it will be recorded in a small room that is not acoustically treated.
Jeff Van Beek via SOS web site
SOS Editor In Chief Paul White replies: For an affordable solution I'd look at a good small-diaphragm condenser microphone, because these can usually handle most acoustic instruments well, and they'll pick out the transient detail in the sound. There are plenty of such small-diaphragm mics from various manufacturers such as Neumann, AKG, Sontronics and Oktava, which might work well, but the Rode NT55 is my own go-to affordable acoustic instrument mic and I know that would do this job well.For recording acoustic stringed instruments with resonant bodies, such as the psaltery, a small-diaphragm condenser is a good bet — particularly if it offers a choice of capsules, as does the Rode NT55 (pictured).For recording acoustic stringed instruments with resonant bodies, such as the psaltery, a small-diaphragm condenser is a good bet — particularly if it offers a choice of capsules, as does the Rode NT55 (pictured).As for the mic position, my rule of thumb about using the physical length of the instrument body as the initial mic distance should work, with the mic pointing towards the sound board but not directly at any sound holes. You can then try moving the mic closer while listening to how the overall tonality is affected, but try not to get the mic closer than half the body length. If you can get the desired separation from the other instruments using improvised screens (if you're on a budget, polyester duvets should do the trick) then an omni capsule may produce the most natural-sounding results in an acoustically sympathetic room. That's one reason that I like the NT55: it has changeable capsules. If this doesn't give the desired results, the cardioid capsule will improve the separation slightly and pick up less room ambience — but you may have to experiment a little more with the exact positioning to find the sweet spot for the instrument.
Q How best do I make use of diffusers when recording?
Various
Q How best do I make use of diffusers when recording?
If I have a live room with diffusion on one wall what is the best way to orient a player (eg. a violinist) and room mics in order to achieve the best effect from the diffusers? Should I have the mic facing the performer, with their back to the diffusers? I know that diffusers need a certain distance to work, which is why I'm guessing that I should put the mics as far as possible from the diffusers but this means that the player would have to be right in front of them and I'm not sure if this is good or bad. Is there a better orientation? Putting the mics or performer in the middle isn't really an option since it is a fairly small room and so it wouldn't be a room mic anymore, more of a close mic.
Via SOS web site
SOS Editor In Chief Paul White replies: I wonder if the diffusers in question are something of a red herring! A diffuser's job is to help randomise reflected sound and hence reduce room coloration of the type that occurs when sound bounces around in a plain rectangular space with flat walls. As reflected sound behaves in the same way as reverb — in that it is essentially a similar level in all parts of the room — it shouldn't matter whether the player is fairly close to the diffusers or not.
Where should you position a performer if you have diffusers (such as this Auralex WavePrism panel) in a recording space?Where should you position a performer if you have diffusers (such as this Auralex WavePrism panel) in a recording space?Your job is to get the best sound you can from that room so if you get a good sound working with the artist close to the diffusers then that's fine. Just experiment and see what works best in that space. Avoid working too close to walls, though, as the bass build-up caused by the boundary effect can cause problems. (That said, in the case of the violin a low-cut filter should take care of any such issues because violins don't produce very low frequencies.) More important is having enough space above the instrument to position the mic, which should also not be positioned too close to walls or the ceiling. If the room isn't high enough, then the recording may sound better with the player seated. As with the electric guitar, a reflective floor surface, such as a piece of hardboard or MDF, under the playing position may add a little more life to the sound.
Q How best do I make use of diffusers when recording?
If I have a live room with diffusion on one wall what is the best way to orient a player (eg. a violinist) and room mics in order to achieve the best effect from the diffusers? Should I have the mic facing the performer, with their back to the diffusers? I know that diffusers need a certain distance to work, which is why I'm guessing that I should put the mics as far as possible from the diffusers but this means that the player would have to be right in front of them and I'm not sure if this is good or bad. Is there a better orientation? Putting the mics or performer in the middle isn't really an option since it is a fairly small room and so it wouldn't be a room mic anymore, more of a close mic.
Via SOS web site
SOS Editor In Chief Paul White replies: I wonder if the diffusers in question are something of a red herring! A diffuser's job is to help randomise reflected sound and hence reduce room coloration of the type that occurs when sound bounces around in a plain rectangular space with flat walls. As reflected sound behaves in the same way as reverb — in that it is essentially a similar level in all parts of the room — it shouldn't matter whether the player is fairly close to the diffusers or not.
Where should you position a performer if you have diffusers (such as this Auralex WavePrism panel) in a recording space?Where should you position a performer if you have diffusers (such as this Auralex WavePrism panel) in a recording space?Your job is to get the best sound you can from that room so if you get a good sound working with the artist close to the diffusers then that's fine. Just experiment and see what works best in that space. Avoid working too close to walls, though, as the bass build-up caused by the boundary effect can cause problems. (That said, in the case of the violin a low-cut filter should take care of any such issues because violins don't produce very low frequencies.) More important is having enough space above the instrument to position the mic, which should also not be positioned too close to walls or the ceiling. If the room isn't high enough, then the recording may sound better with the player seated. As with the electric guitar, a reflective floor surface, such as a piece of hardboard or MDF, under the playing position may add a little more life to the sound.
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Q Can I use carpet as acoustic treatment?
Sound Advice : Recording
Hugh Robjohns
Can ordinary carpet be useful as a form of acoustic treatment in either my recording space or my control room. If so, is any type better than another, and is there anything I should avoid?
Henning Jakobsson, via email.
SOS Editor In Chief Paul White replies: Carpet isn't all bad, but please don't stick it directly to large areas of wall in the hope that it will cure all your acoustic problems: this approach will make things worse. It is, however, OK to use carpet on the floor of a control room or recording space if you want to, and if you can leave it loose in the recording space (or use rugs), it will give you a choice of working over a highly reflective solid floor or not — you can simply take it up when you wish, to add a little life to things like drums and acoustic guitars.
The acoustic traps you see hanging on studio walls are usually only effective at mid and high frequencies, with a typical foam panel losing efficiency rapidly below around 300 to 400 Hz. The frequency range they absorb is determined both by their thickness and by their distance from the wall; the thicker the absorber and the further it is spaced from the wall, the lower the frequencies it can absorb.
To make sense of this statement, consider what happens when a sound wave meets a wall. When travelling in free air, the air molecules move back and forth according to the vibrations set up by the sound source, but when they encounter a solid surface, they can no longer move and so the energy of that moving air is converted to a region of changing pressure. Porous absorbers can only do their thing if they are placed where the air is moving, as their role
Though there can be some uses for carpet in the studio, it certainly isn’t effective as room treatment on its own. As it only targets certain frequencies, this will likely make your room sound worse!Though there can be some uses for carpet in the studio, it certainly isn’t effective as room treatment on its own. As it only targets certain frequencies, this will likely make your room sound worse! is to rob those moving air molecules of energy by converting it to heat, through frictional losses. Maximum air movement occurs at a distance, a quarter of a wavelength from a wall, which at 1kHz is roughly 85mm from the surface. Some sound approaches at an angle and so encounters a greater effective thickness of absorber, which means that in real life an absorber of this type might be useful down to 300Hz or below.
If you stick carpet directly to a wall, it isn't thick enough to affect more than the very highest frequencies, thus throwing your whole room out of balance! The lows and mids will continue to bounce around as before, and only the extreme highs will be soaked, leaving you with a boxy, dull-sounding room. However, if you hang the carpet a distance from the wall, it will start to have a more beneficial effect. Providing the carpet is porous (not one with a sealed rubber backing), it can be used to cover a cheap absorbing material such as medium density Rockwool (mineral wool) slab 50 to 100 mm thick, to create an effective mid/high absorber with an attractive cosmetic finish that also prevents the mineral wool fibres from escaping. Just make up a simple wooden frame, fit the mineral wool and then glue the carpet to the frame. Spacing this from the wall by 50mm or so will make it more effective at lower frequencies.
You can also make cylindrical traps to stand in the corners of your room or to stack around an instrument you are trying to record, by making a cylinder of porous carpet 300mm or so in diameter and then stuffing the inside tightly with Rockwool loft insulation. A strip of thin plywood glued behind the join using impact adhesive will hold the two ends of the carpet together. You can cover the ends of the traps with fabric to hide the Rockwool and to keep the fibres from escaping or, alternatively, use a pair of large, empty sweet tins to form each end of the roll. Not only will this help your cylinder stay in shape but you also get to eat the contents!
Yet another trick you can do if you happen to have some spare solid rubber-backed industrial carpet is to create what's known as a limp-mass bass trap. These can be placed away from a wall, by at least 150mm, or hung across corners. The principle here is that the rubber backing forms a seal that prevents air from passing through the carpet, so the moving air tries to move the carpet along with it instead. However, being both heavy and well-damped, the carpet robs the sound wave of energy, again converting it to a minuscule amount of heat. The larger this 'curtain' and the heavier the carpet, the more effective it will be, and there's no reason not to double up on the thickness. Professional studio installations use the heavier and more costly mineral-loaded barrier matt (dead sheet) for this application, but if you have access to a cheap supply of suitable carpet it will do a reasonable job. What makes it through the first layer will be further attenuated by the second layer if you do decide to double up. While the carpet's surface will dry up high-frequency reflections to a useful degree, you may need mid-range absorbers elsewhere in the room or in front of the trap, just to keep the decay time more or less balanced across the audio spectrum.
Hugh Robjohns
Can ordinary carpet be useful as a form of acoustic treatment in either my recording space or my control room. If so, is any type better than another, and is there anything I should avoid?
Henning Jakobsson, via email.
SOS Editor In Chief Paul White replies: Carpet isn't all bad, but please don't stick it directly to large areas of wall in the hope that it will cure all your acoustic problems: this approach will make things worse. It is, however, OK to use carpet on the floor of a control room or recording space if you want to, and if you can leave it loose in the recording space (or use rugs), it will give you a choice of working over a highly reflective solid floor or not — you can simply take it up when you wish, to add a little life to things like drums and acoustic guitars.
The acoustic traps you see hanging on studio walls are usually only effective at mid and high frequencies, with a typical foam panel losing efficiency rapidly below around 300 to 400 Hz. The frequency range they absorb is determined both by their thickness and by their distance from the wall; the thicker the absorber and the further it is spaced from the wall, the lower the frequencies it can absorb.
To make sense of this statement, consider what happens when a sound wave meets a wall. When travelling in free air, the air molecules move back and forth according to the vibrations set up by the sound source, but when they encounter a solid surface, they can no longer move and so the energy of that moving air is converted to a region of changing pressure. Porous absorbers can only do their thing if they are placed where the air is moving, as their role
Though there can be some uses for carpet in the studio, it certainly isn’t effective as room treatment on its own. As it only targets certain frequencies, this will likely make your room sound worse!Though there can be some uses for carpet in the studio, it certainly isn’t effective as room treatment on its own. As it only targets certain frequencies, this will likely make your room sound worse! is to rob those moving air molecules of energy by converting it to heat, through frictional losses. Maximum air movement occurs at a distance, a quarter of a wavelength from a wall, which at 1kHz is roughly 85mm from the surface. Some sound approaches at an angle and so encounters a greater effective thickness of absorber, which means that in real life an absorber of this type might be useful down to 300Hz or below.
If you stick carpet directly to a wall, it isn't thick enough to affect more than the very highest frequencies, thus throwing your whole room out of balance! The lows and mids will continue to bounce around as before, and only the extreme highs will be soaked, leaving you with a boxy, dull-sounding room. However, if you hang the carpet a distance from the wall, it will start to have a more beneficial effect. Providing the carpet is porous (not one with a sealed rubber backing), it can be used to cover a cheap absorbing material such as medium density Rockwool (mineral wool) slab 50 to 100 mm thick, to create an effective mid/high absorber with an attractive cosmetic finish that also prevents the mineral wool fibres from escaping. Just make up a simple wooden frame, fit the mineral wool and then glue the carpet to the frame. Spacing this from the wall by 50mm or so will make it more effective at lower frequencies.
You can also make cylindrical traps to stand in the corners of your room or to stack around an instrument you are trying to record, by making a cylinder of porous carpet 300mm or so in diameter and then stuffing the inside tightly with Rockwool loft insulation. A strip of thin plywood glued behind the join using impact adhesive will hold the two ends of the carpet together. You can cover the ends of the traps with fabric to hide the Rockwool and to keep the fibres from escaping or, alternatively, use a pair of large, empty sweet tins to form each end of the roll. Not only will this help your cylinder stay in shape but you also get to eat the contents!
Yet another trick you can do if you happen to have some spare solid rubber-backed industrial carpet is to create what's known as a limp-mass bass trap. These can be placed away from a wall, by at least 150mm, or hung across corners. The principle here is that the rubber backing forms a seal that prevents air from passing through the carpet, so the moving air tries to move the carpet along with it instead. However, being both heavy and well-damped, the carpet robs the sound wave of energy, again converting it to a minuscule amount of heat. The larger this 'curtain' and the heavier the carpet, the more effective it will be, and there's no reason not to double up on the thickness. Professional studio installations use the heavier and more costly mineral-loaded barrier matt (dead sheet) for this application, but if you have access to a cheap supply of suitable carpet it will do a reasonable job. What makes it through the first layer will be further attenuated by the second layer if you do decide to double up. While the carpet's surface will dry up high-frequency reflections to a useful degree, you may need mid-range absorbers elsewhere in the room or in front of the trap, just to keep the decay time more or less balanced across the audio spectrum.
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