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Outfitting Your Microphone Collection
What microphones do you really need for a home studio?
Building a microphone collection should be done strategically to suit your current needs, and still be useful as your studio grows. Which microphones you need depends on your budget, what you want to record, and how many channels simultaneously you want to record.
So what microphones should you get?
For recording vocals, I would suggest a good large diaphragm condenser. Since vocals are often the most prominent part of a song, I would suggest getting the best quality vocal mic you can, such as the iSK 2B Beauty. If you need something low cost, the iSK vibrato will also do an excellent job.
I’d like to clear up some of the confusion that’s all over the internet about vocal mics. Some people say some microphones are better for females, and some are better for males. It’s all individual opinions without any consistency or universal agreement. At least not with higher end microphones. Often, low quality microphones will add their own colour to the sound, and that colour might suit males of females better. However, high quality microphones will pick up the sound as it is, without adding significant colour. And if they do add colour, it will be in the form of richness or additional harmonics. Low quality microphones add colour in the form of noise, comb filtering, or will sound a little bit distant.
In my own studio, I use the 2B Beauty often, and it never fails, whether it’s on a male or female. This practice is fairly common for studios to have just 1 high quality vocal microphone that they use on all vocalists. The Neumann U87 is famous for this. Nobody says “oh, my voice doesn’t sound good on a U87”.
For most medium volume acoustic instruments, such as guitar, piano, violin, you can use the same mic as your vocal mic. You only need 1 microphone, and check lesson 38 on stereo miking techniques for stereo recording techniques using only 1 microphone.
So, with just one microphone, you can record a song, one track at a time, with multiple parts and instruments. The only thing you can’t do with just one microphone is record drums.
Many people like to use 2 microphones in an xy setup for recording acoustic instruments. You can get 2 of the same microphone you use as your main vocal mic, or you can get a pair of lower cost microphones. As long as they are the same make and model, they will sound close enough to the same for stereo recording. They don’t need to be stereo matched.
If you are recording several acoustic parts simultaneously in the same room, you’ll want as much isolation as possible. A hypercardioid or figure 8 polar pattern will help with this. The iSK little Gem is great for this, use the hypercardioid capsule, and stick it in really close to get the maximum signal to noise ratio.
If you want to record drums, that’s where things get a little more complicated.
While it’s possible to record drums with 3 or less microphones, I don’t suggest it. I recommend at least 4 mics for kick, snare, and a pair of overheads. From there, it’s also good to add a few more mics for toms.
The kick drum is a little bit special. It has high volume and very low frequencies. Most microphones are designed to pick up mid range and high frequencies, so they won’t do a very good job of the kick. There are microphones specifically designed for kick drum, such as the iSK BDM-1. They’re almost always a dynamic microphone, and designed so they’re sweet spot is in the low frequencies. They work well for not only kick drum, but also bass guitar cabs, and any low frequency source.
For toms and snare, I myself, and I think most studio engineers, prefer a good multipurpose dynamic microphone. My preferred choice for this is a bit unusual, it’s the iSK ICDM, which is a handheld vocal mic, but hey, if it works then why not.
For overheads, there’s a variety of microphones that can sound good. It depends on room treatment, the type of sound you prefer, and which microphones you have. The most popular choice is a condenser microphone with cardioid pickup pattern, but there are many more options that work well. Check out lesson 44 on recording drums for more details about the various options.
The same microphones that work well on toms and snare, also tend to work well on guitar cabs. These are dynamic microphones that perform well with high volume levels. The iSK DM-57 and iSK ICDM are both excellent sounding on guitar cabs.
A style of microphone worth talking about is the ribbon microphone. Some studio engineers can’t live without them, some have no use for them at all. They have some pretty major downsides, such as very low sensitivity, and they tend to have dull high frequencies. They have such a weak signal, a very expensive preamp, or an in-line signal booster is needed to amplify it to a useable signal. The iSK RM-12 is a rare breed of ribbon Microphone that has a signal booster built into the microphone body. This is a super clean amplifier circuit that runs on phantom power. If you use a typical ribbon microphone, without a high quality signal booster, you will most likely need to turn the preamp gain all the way up, which introduces a lot of noise from the preamp.
Well then why do people like them? Because they have a very natural reproduction of the mid range frequencies, in a way that dynamics and condensers simply cannot achieve. With good room acoustics, they are the most common choice among professionals for distance micing. When placed more than like 4-6 feet away from the source, they capture a true fullness that other microphone types cannot do. Since ribbon microphones really shine with distance micing, I really want to stress the importance of good room acoustics. Use ribbon microphones for recording an orchestra or choir. A pair in XY just a few feet over top of the conductor. Also, they sound great when placed 4-6 feet away ion piano’s, string ensembles, and drum overheads.
They can also sound really nice close miked on brass and string instruments, and guitar cabs.
For more information about the different types of microphones and their sound, check out lesson 13, we demonstrate a wide variety of microphones on a wide variety of sources.
If you have just a small studio, with only a few inputs, you can record pretty much anything except for drums with a good large diaphragm condenser, and a couple of small diaphragm condensers. If you are recording acoustic drums, then you’ll need a dedicated kick drum mic, a pair of overhead microphones, and some spot mics for the snare and toms.
