Current trend in microphone placement and the effect on your sound

Robh3606 said:

arny said:

You're asking the wong people. Singlers don't lhear themselves sing like the rest of us do. There is considerable bone conduction.

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Why is that??

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Human physiology.

Almost all the DVD's I have clearly show them with custom made in ear phones. I would assume that is what they are using to hear their own vocal feeds.

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Incomplete assumption. The IEMs are primarily used to deliver the sounds of the other musicans. Beleive it or not, musicans are incredibly interested in playing and singing in synch with each other. That is one of the most important things to them while they perform. Possoble exception: drummers.

One strong advantage of IEMs is that they minimize bleed from the monitor mix to the musican's mic.

In live sound where there is a lot of lleakage from the other musicans and the house, some of the musican's own sound may be routed into his monitor (whether speaker or earphones) to overcome that leakage or spill. That's called in the trade: "More me". ;-)

I understand that they don't hear themselves the way we do but all said in done they certainly hear the results of any techniques they chose to use in the playback of their studio work.

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The error here is that you seem to think that musicans always have a say or somehow control the EFX that are used during mixing or mastering.

Looking at things from that perspective who else should I be asking??

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If don't trust me I would be happy to ignore your posts and instruct others to do the same. You seem to think that you can deduce the rather complex arts of recording and live sound from a few publicity stills and maybe a video or two, and then argue with experienced practitioners.

Is it all just a little added drama or is it deliberate for their sound.

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By now you should have seen a post from a musican who said about the same thing as I.

I am not talking strictly sound quality here.

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?????????

DaveyF said:

Tim, I think that you may be in the minority today with your mike placement. It would appear that most of the current crop of singers seem to prefer the 'mouth on mike--proximity effect' technique.

The problem associated with that and with engineers not pushing the singer back in the mix, is seemingly evident in contemporary vocal albums like 'Adele 21'. I'm fairly certain that this type of sound is what the artist and the engineer is looking for. While it may be impressive on a lower fidelity set up like an ipod or the typical home system, it is, IMHO, fairly unpleasant and unrealistic when you listen on most any high-end system

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What's wrong with Adele 21 is what is wrong with many of the pop albums on the planet these days -- they are over-compressed in the mastering stage to make everything "loud" so it will pop out of the radio, or your earbuds, and get attention. Once the trend got started, it escalated out of fear of a cut being too "quiet" to get noticed, until everything got all the dynamics compressed flat out of it. A sideband to all of that is some unfortunate use of eq in the mastering process (and over-use of noise reduction in the re-mastering process) as well, in an attempt to make tracks that are ever-more noticeable compared to others. It sucks. Particularly when someone with real talent, like Adele, rises to pop stardom and gets the major label pop record treatment. But I doubt if it has anything to do with proximity effect. Singers with their lips directly on the wind screen of a microphone is nothing but a pain in the rear for recording engineers, even bad ones, who would much rather be in control of ruining your records.

On what evidence did you and your friends at the show conclude that proximity effect had become a trend in recording, not a result of cardioid microphone design? Because if it is the sound of modern pop recordings there are more logical, obvious, and well-understood explanations. You didn't need to create a new one.

Tim

Hello Arny

You seem to think that you can deduce the rather complex arts of recording and live sound from a few publicity stills and maybe a video or two, and then argue with experienced practitioners.

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I was asking questions to get a better understanding.

If don't trust me I would be happy to ignore your posts and instruct others to do the same.

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A little over the top don't you think?? Have a nice day.

Rob

Are you saying that today the use of the 'proximity effect' isn't more prevalent than in the past and not a major cause of the issues that we are experiencing?

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That's exactly what I'm saying. Even more importantly, I'm saying that, in the studio, proximity effect shouldn't be a factor at all. Cardioid mics are seldom used to record vocals and no engineer worthy of the title would let a singer eat the mic. Not to mention no singer with a few sessions under his belt would do it, even if the engineer was asleep. I suspect you are taking something that you've observed in performance, imagining it happening in the studio, then relating the results to something you hear in modern recordings that is actually the result of something totally different. This is what it looks like in the studio, then:



And now:



See that thing between the singer and the mic in the second pic? It's stated purpose is to keep sibilant pops, etc, from hitting the mic's diaphragm. Odds are pretty good that the engineer put it there to keep that post-punk tool from getting close enough to the mic to cause the problem in the first place.

I'm not saying that, in many bedroom project studios, or even a pro studio somewhere, no one ever uses a cardioid mic, or gets too close, or that there isn't some dope out there somewhere who thinks it sounds cool and does it on purpose. It could happen. A million monkeys with typewriters/Shakespeare/ etc. But a trend? A major cause of the sonic degradation of modern recordings? I don't think so, but hey, I could be wrong. Did you and your group come to this conclusion based on anything other than observations of live and taped live performances?

Tim

Phelonious Ponk said:

I'm not saying that, in many bedroom project studios, or even a pro studio somewhere, no one ever uses a cardioid mic, or gets too close, or that there isn't some dope out there somewhere who thinks it sounds cool and does it on purpose. It could happen. A million monkeys with typewriters/Shakespeare/ etc. But a trend? A major cause of the sonic degradation of modern recordings? I don't think so, but hey, I could be wrong. Did you and your group come to this conclusion based on anything other than observations of live and taped live performances?

Tim

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Tim... I'd have to disagree with you on this one. Cardioid mics are pretty much ALWAYS used to record vocals these days. Cardioid is a type of polar pattern that the mic picks up. That's all it is. The most common patterns are Omni, Cardioid, Super Cardioid, Figure-8 and Shotgun.
You can read more about it HERE.
The most common types of microphone are the Dynamic (used mostly in live situations, the most famous would be the "Elvis mic" or the Shure 55S), LDC or large diameter condenser (which is used mostly in recording vocals like in the above photos), SDC or small diameter condenser (which are mostly omni pattern mics where you want to record ambience), ribbon (which you will see alot of the old crooners used the RCA ribbon) and shotgun (for location and set recording).

I'll bow to your greater knowledge, Bruce, though my own experience is with cardioids for stage, large diaphragm condensers for studio. When I think of a cardioid, I think of the SM-58. Don't see many of those being used for vocals in the studio. I remain very skeptical that proximity effect has become a popular recording technique, and if it has I think the world needs a few engineers who know what to do with a microphone.

Tim

Phelonious Ponk said:

When I think of a cardioid, I think of the SM-58. Don't see many of those being used for vocals in the studio. I remain very skeptical that proximity effect has become a popular recording technique, and if it has I think the world needs a few engineers who know what to do with a microphone.
Tim

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Yeah, the SM58 is a dynamic cardioid mic that you mostly see live. I've only seen it used once in a studio for vocals for a "beat box"!
The most amazing beat box effect I've seen is actually using a LDC/pop filter.

Most (all I can recall) of the studio recording sessions I have been involved with over the years used cardioid patterns on the mics, even selectable large-diaphragm condensers (e.g. AKG414xx). As a matter of fact, most of the condensers I have used, large or small, from Beyer to Neumann, have been cardioid. There was virtually always a pop filter, and the singer's position was as well-controlled as possible. The SM58 is a rugged stage mic with a upper-midrange response hump that a lot of singers like. Me, eh, not so much.

I would add M-S (mid-side) to Bruce's list of patterns. Although it is not as popular, it is fun to play with in the mix!