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Knowing nothing, for our first CD we recorded all the instruments (except our Shoki Family flutes) with just dynamic microphones. We weren’t pleased the recorded signal was thin and feeble, but it was our first try and we told ourselves we should be satisfied.
Still we knew our sound could be much better, and to make that happen during the recording of our next CD we started miking our Bowus Family instruments with a condenser as well as a dynamic mic. This turned out to be a major improvement, the condenser added clarity to the initial attack and shape of the recorded sounds, nicely complimenting the rich mysterious ring of our non-standard self-made instruments which we’d already captured with the dynamics. The difference was significant.
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We’d bought these condenser mics to record our songs and that we ever could have thought them the right choice for vocals shows the deapth of our initial ignorance. In the end of course we realized dynamic mics worked better, that if we stayed close to them even our soft non-trained voices were loud enough.
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Since then there hasn’t been much change in the positioning of our AKG condenser mikes, except to increase proximity effect over time we’ve nudged them ever closer to our instruments. That way with more volume we can dial back preamp amplification and reduce the hiss added to our signal by these very modest condenser mikes (the cheapest we could find back then that even somewhat worked).
But over time the way we positioned our Shure dynamic microphones evolved dramatically.
For our first CD we’d made crude stands which held their tips very close to our instruments.
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But very close still wasn’t good enough, so for our second CD we experimented with using two big rubber bands to tie a Shure directly to the neck of Dotara, one of our Bowus Family instruments…. and bingo！ Suddenly we had a huge sound！
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This direct contact approach also worked for our Kalimba Family instruments. Putting our dynamic microphones directly on top of Boxus Quartus produced a much bigger sound. Presumably in both cases direct contact had in effect turned our dynamic mics into cost effective high quality pickups.
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But we suspected we could do still better than just resting the sides of our Shures on our instruments. So like you can read in our blog post “Creative Microphone Placement”, to record the third cut of Work In Progress we tried putting the microphone heads not their sides against them. Since we knew they were very directional mics, we thought this might give us an even richer signal.
We experimented first with Boxus Quartus, and since we didn’t have any stands which would make this possible, we improvised a solution with the aid of gravity, bookends, and rubber bands.
And lo and behold it worked !! The weight of the microphones held them tightly enough to the instruments so they didn’t rattle (to make doubly sure of this we usually put small patches of single-ply tissue between their tips and the instruments), while as we’d hoped, positioned this way they did indeed record a much stronger signal.
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Extending this gravity assisted miking approach to our Bowus Family took more ingenuity because their sound boxes have slanted sides, but we made it happen by using piles of books to build inclined planes which supported the dynamic mics at the proper angles.
To be sure this looked a bit clunky, but to us it felt totally appropriate since already we’d been using stacks of books to prop up the necks of our Bowus instruments, because we live surrounded by books and old books in particular are absolutely critical for our sanity.
And again it worked !! Though unlike with our Kalimba instruments gravity was not pulling the mics straight down onto the instruments, even though it was just pulling them at an angle, their weight still held them tightly enough they didn’t rattle (too much….) And as with our Kalimba Family instruments suddenly there was lots of volume.
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As a bonus our new miking arrangements did more than just give us additional volume, they also made the amplified sound of our instruments warmer. Probably in part this was because with more volume we could play more softly, and we always sound better when we’re not struggling to be loud…
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However since most of our books are used and have challenged bindings, eventually we started feeling terrible about asking them to serve as microphone supports. These books were and still are our most important intellectual friends and after a while it seemed disrespectful to use them for anything but reading.
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So first for Dotara and then for Bass Bowus we replaced the books with proper mic stands made from triangles of 5/16” plywood glued to short lengths of 2′ x 4′.
Because we were careful with our carpentry measurements, the Shures are more precisely perpendicular to the tilted sides of the sound boxes than they ever were with inclined planes of books. We think its this plus that the stands position their heads closer to the center of the sides, which explains why the exact same mics now pick up a bigger signal.
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Not only do these stands save our books and give us a richer sound, they’re also more stable than piles of books, quicker to set up, and look much spiffier. They share the same basic design as the stands we built to hold the Bowus necks, the difference being that the necks sit between the plywood triangles, while the mics rest across notches cut in their truncated tops. While the shape of both types of stand mirrors that of the Bowus triangular sound boxes. Visually the instruments with their stands make a cool Bauhaus style kit.
We wish we could report a similar triumphant ending to the story of miking our Shoki Family flutes, but unfortunately that’s an area where we’re still far from satisfied.
For our first CD we just put a condenser mic in a bag and hung it from the low ceiling of our trailer and played standing next to it. This was kind of cool since back in India when we first started making and playing our flutes, we usually played them standing. But it proved difficult to stay the same distance from a hanging mic, so our recorded volume fluctuated wildly. Also when we got too excited we’d glunk into it.
For our second CD we used wooden stands to position dynamic mics on both sides of our shokis, and then struggled to keep our flutes floating precisely between them. But though being seated meant we moved around less than when we’d been standing, not surprizingly with two mics to avoid we banged into them even more often. Especially since with dynamics we had to stay very close to their heads.
So for Work In Progress, our most recent CD, to record our Shokis we used just a single AKG condenser microphone resting on a pad of cloth with its face turned towards the bottom backside of the flute.
But doing it this way we still had to be careful not to hit the mic and not to float too far away from it. So though it gave us a bit more freedom to move, though it was less restricting than trying to float our Shokis precisely between two Shures, we know we can do better.
Maybe next time we’ll try fastening a very light pickup directly to our flutes….
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