In this week’s Audio Premium content, Björgvin Benediktsson explores recording with multiple microphones in an informative tut crammed with audio examples.

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Sound engineers are naturally obsessed with microphones. Microphones to audio nerds are like women to a playboy: he wants to go through all of them but he only has time for so many. Risqué analogies aside, we do love trying them out. (The microphones, not the women, stay with me here.)

I wanted to demonstrate the different sounds the typical microphones sound engineers use in their day to day work, with audio samples of how each microphone sounds and how much of a difference a little positioning can do to your sound. Pure Wave Audio was gracious enough to lend me a few microphones, one of them being the ultra-awesome SE Electronics VR2 ribbon microphone. With each type of microphone in hand, I set out to explore some of the standards in microphone techniques, using a typical instrument everybody will record at some point, the electric guitar.

Here’s the kind of music you’ll be able to create once you harness the knowledge inside:

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Table of Contents

• Microphone Types
• Recording in a Home Studio
• Microphone Techniques and Audio Examples
• The Cone
• Comparison
• Ribbon and Condenser
• Multi Microphone Techniques and Room Mics
• Conclusion

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