Here we are again with Simone Coen, continuing our discussion about microphones that we started last time. Could you give us some advice on how to record at home a violin, a cello, a viola... So, before microphones, there's the issue of the environment. Before you get to capturing a sound, that sound must have a "good nature". And we say this for orchestras as well, right? We showed how the sound of the halls; how and how much the sound of an auditorium can influence the sound, and it's the same thing in our home.

Some say that the bulk of the budget - if one is setting up a studio - should not go into the equipment, but into soundproofing. That's right. The first thing to do is to use your own ear: find within your home the position where, when playing your instrument, you ear the best sound available. For acoustics, the parallelepipeds we live in are the worst of the worst... The only thing worse is a cube. Parallelepipeds don't sit well with acoustics, they don't please sound waves.

First of all, find a place where you ear sufficiently good. Then, try to use what you have at hand, like pillows, sofas, etc., to try to "tame" the sound a bit. For example, I really suffer from bad reflections off ceramic tiles. In that case, good old carpets are useful. Yes, because otherwise we risk playing well, having a good instrument and a good microphone, but still ending up with a bad result. Good results come from a series of good decisions.

So, once the environment issue is sorted out, we place the microphone. You need to pay close attention to the characteristics of the microphone itself, see how it interacts with the environment. Don’t think about the instrument you're going to record, but first about the environment's characteristics. Most entry-level microphones have as their directional characteristic what is called "cardioid", which is heart-shaped. This is a directional microphone, meaning that it picks up sound from the front and attenuates it from the back. This aspect is attenuates it from the back.

This aspect is positive and all the cheaper microphones have this feature, which is useful in most situations. This is an advantageous aspect, but microphone placement is very important in relation to the environment and only afterward to the instrument. For example: the violin emits sound mainly upwards. So the main position for recording the violin would be from above, basically. You can’t record the violin sound too close - unless you're looking for an American fiddle or country sound - in the realm of, for example, film music or classical music, a close recording generally sounds bad because you hear a lot of bow friction, the sound attack, noise, etc. It’s therefore important to record far enough to get a perspective that’s more pleasant to the ear.

Now, this clashes with the environment and the fact that in our homes, we generally have a ceiling at 2.70 m. One possible suggestion is to keep the directional microphone as far away as possible, not necessarily on the ceiling but close to it, and if possible, play sitting down, because sitting increases the distance. If you play standing, you’re more or less halfway to the ceiling, and acoustically, that’s not good. This is just to give an idea. There are the so-called "nodes", i.e., reflection points that sum together and create a particularly resonant or particularly dampened area, which is acoustically harmful. Instead, if we had to record something coming out of an amplifier, like an electric guitar, for example?...

That’s something that can be done at home - if neighbors allow - much more easily, because for a long time now, the sound of electric instruments has been recorded from amplifiers, and up close. Almost always with directional, dynamic, or condenser microphones, but very close. This means that if you turn up the volume - it doesn’t need to be turned up too much - you’ll have an excellent signal-to-noise ratio, where by noise we mean the amount of room sound captured. Which, for acoustic recordings, is generally a problem; we gave the example of the violin, which doesn’t sound nice when recorded too closely, but for example, even vocals - except for certain cases like whispers and things like that - aren’t particularly pleasant when captured with room sound. But speaking of voice, sometimes I see those "things" that do like this... at first glance, tending to be on the wrong side, that is, why should they be behind my neck, instead of behind the back of a cardioid that already tends to attenuate that part.

But are they useful?.. It depends. Generally speaking, what you're saying is correct. So what they're trying to do with that stuff is basically... Excuse me, maybe it’s a good idea to specify: we're talking about those kinds of boxes that are also sold online, and that promise exellent results. There's even a terrible one, which is a kind of contraption that you get into...

if you’re not claustrophobic! What Fabri was saying makes sense. What are these tools trying to do? Not so much to limit the reflections on the back of the microphone—which is still less sensitive—but to block as much as possible the incident sound so that it doesn’t reach the front panel to then bounce back. Because let's remember that, even if it doesn't seem like it, everything that enters the microphone isn't just the direct signal, but a bombardment of reflections that the room has and that inevitably creates the timbre that the microphone is capturing. Sometimes the extreme is to close yourself in maybe a closet...

There it makes sense for reflections, but it doesn’t for the construction of sound, because actually the "clean" sound is ugly, it’s thin, it’s poor. We need reflections. If we go into an anechoic chamber, we go crazy in about 15 minutes, because the total absence of reflections drives us mad, We don’t perceive it as natural... I had them, now I don’t anymore. I tried using them and in a couple of situations they were useful; other times they were quite totally useless. What I suggest is: if you have it, keep using it; but an interesting solution is to put your back to a wall, the microphone is in front of you; that wall can be panelled even with a curtain or a heavy blanket to absorb the reflection from the wall; then eventually that panel, could help you to limit those sounds, but the further you stay away from the wall in front of where you play or sing, the better it is.

Which microphone do you think is suitable? So, here we open a can of worms... All the guys tell me "I need to record a voice"; the first thing I ask is: what voice? which range, what type, what timbre, what genre, because singing metal or opera is not exactly the same. Generally speaking, a large diaphragm microphone is preferred, because it tends to have a more pleasant response to the human voice. It’s important, actually, not so much which microphone, but that this microphone suits your voice.

Even for me, when I have to recommend a microphone to a singer, what do we do? We test the microphones and record them here, because it happens that within the same family of microphones, from the same brand, there can be, paradoxically, a microphone that costs a fortune, which pairs poorly with your voice; And then you may find a microphone that costs very little, that becomes amazing, capable of enhancing the characteristics of your voice. This becomes a huge advantage in precarious situations, where you can't bring along many equalizers or outboard gear. A microphone chosen correctly for your timbre is already ready to be used, without relying on further processing in post-production. One of the things I often do is receiving singers in my studio, specifically to evaluate microphones. I'm fortunate to have many microphones, so we have the chance to try different ones.

And find the right one. Then, another little shameless self-promotion: periodically in my studio, in Cernusco Lombardone, we hold free testing days; we invite distributors and manufacturers of microphones to send us stuff and then anyone who wants, can sign up for free and come to try them out. The fundamental aspect that you touched on, I would like to expand on slightly: the less you do to a sound, the more the sound gains. The microphone should enhance all the positive aspects of your voice while also trying to slightly change the small defects. Let's take an example: Neumann U87 is the microphone par excellence for at least two or three generations. The Neumann U87 has a very specific tonal characteristic: since it is also made for speech, it supports 2/4 kilohertz the frequency response.

So it’s a microphone that on a voice, for example, on a nasal voice tends to make it even more nasal. As long as there were singers, those who studied and took care of their voice, it was an excellent microphone for singers. With less refined and more "personal" voices or with somewhat "pointed" or aggressive voices, that’s the microphone that fits the least. I use the U87 maybe once a year... I don’t want to say that it’s a bad microphone, it’s a beautiful microphone, but there are many other microphones that fit better. And let's finish with the instrument I grew up with: the piano.

To have that soundtrack sound very muffled like Arnalds, what would you use? So, the answer is that actually there’s a whole chain. There would be a whole chain, so the discussion would be long... And we partly showed this chain in American Beauty. We showed in American Beauty how we went from the piano here in the studio to that muffled feeling with a whole chain of effects. Let's see how it can be done differently.

Lid closed or open at minimum, dark microphones, so I would say Ribbon. It’s perhaps the cheapest way to get to that destination. On the other hand, using more hi-fi microphones - like, for example, condensers - you risk going a bit off-road and then having to do a lot, a lot more. Where to put the microphones? If it's close, obviously outside. If it’s open a little, you can try to put it right on the opening but in my opinion, the best thing is to have someone play the piano and you listen where you find that kind of sound.

It’s not excluded that even with the lid open you can achieve that kind of effect, finding the correct position Having a positioning with a microphone - even a condenser - but towards the tail of the piano, gives you back a sound that is a bit more distant, a bit more muffled, a bit dreamier... Overall, we need to limit the resonances because as soon as we enter the piano there's a world of resonances. And for that type of sound, they can be useful. One of my virtual instruments for piano called O.D.D. is almost entirely recorded with different sets of microphones, but they are all low-quality microphones placed in strange spots such as under the piano... the idea was precisely to create sounds that are not faithful but that instead return a something a bit more concrete, a bit more "dirty"...

which I think is absolutely suitable for film use. Okay, this is for grand piano. What about a vertical piano? So, the "Abbey Road" positioning is with the vertical piano open and with extreme left and extreme right. This is a positioning that works well for, for example, piano and voice because it has a very wide and very "unrefined" stereophony, which in the case where there’s a voice in the middle - or any other leading instrument - then it fits well. I also find the microphone placement under the piano very interesting, that point is very interesting to mic.

And the back of the piano as well... I believe we’ve provided some answers; we haven't solved the problems of humanity... Listen to what you like according to your taste and then if possible, rely on a professional. Simone will come back... See you next episode!...