Like me, you probably still have some last minute Christmas shopping to do. If there is a person on your list that is a studio owner or recording enthusiast, it can be tough to find that perfect gift. For starters, lots of the cool recording stuff can be really expensive, but also as recording folks we generally have fairly specific tastes about what sort of things we like or don’t like. But fear not, there is a good and cheap option that will always be a hit….

Percussion!

A small portion of the studio percussion collection.

Giving interesting percussion toys is always a great gift because very cool things can be found inexpensively, percussion is one of the great secret weapons of producers, and you can never have too much around the studio. As an extra bonus, they will always be thinking about you when they use it on a production.

Any good drum or music store will have lots of good options, and I recommend trying to find things that are odd or unique, that will be fun to pick out and offer some interesting sounds. I probably have more than a dozen different shakers, half a dozen tambourines and well as many oddball bells and whistles (literally!)

You can check out an article I wrote a few years ago about one use for a $13.99 Tambourine here.

If you want to spend a little more we have a few options from Recording Boot Camp. We are selling certificates for our 2-Day Recording Boot Camp ($199),  as well as certificates for Skype or phone consulting with a special 2 for 1 sale (get credit for double the amount you purchase before December 25). The consulting can be used for mix critiques, equipment advice, or consulting on any aspect of recording or studios. Order before Christmas and we will send you a printable certificate. Consulting  or 2-day Recording Boot Camp registration can be purchased via paypal links on the 2-Day Recording Boot Camp or Skype or phone consulting pages.

Have a great holiday from all of us at Recording Boot Camp.

The most important advice I ever got about personal recording studio insurance.

As we were working at the studio on some updates to the recording equipment insurance policy, I was reminded of some great information I was given years ago, that I want to share with you.

My first Recording Studio

Like most of us, my first studio was in my bedroom. It was a tiny set up and it was the most exciting thing in the world to me.  Thanks to growing up the son of a man that valued insurance, I always had a renter’s insurance policy in case my gear got stolen or destroyed.  Like most of us, my collection of gear started to grow and so did my professional aspirations.  Eventually I started to make a few bucks using my equipment. I was now a professional!!!

One day, years later, I was out on tour working for a fairly well known band and we started having a discussion about how we deal with being on the road making sure everything is OK at home.  I said that I did not own much of value except my music and audio equipment, but I did not worry too much because I was well insured.  Knowing I was still a bit of a professional newbie, one of the guys in the band asked me a question that shook me to my core: “Are you sure?”

You see, this veteran musician guessed that I had made a typical mistake many music professionals make. HE WAS RIGHT.

I, like many musicians, had a renter’s insurance policy for my home and figured that all the gear I kept at home was covered. After doing some research, I found I was completely wrong.  As a professional musician and recording engineer, all of my equipment is considered professional business equipment and many (as in probably most) renters and even home owner’s insurance policies have exclusions for professional equipment.  Should your equipment ever get stolen or destroyed, there is a good chance that the insurance company will not reimburse you for the loss, even if you have a special amendment to your policy for musical instruments.  Keep in mind that insurance companies make money by taking in more money than they pay out, so it is in their best interest to find ways not to pay you. If you have ever made ANY money with your gear, there is a good chance they have a legal right not to cover your loss. Myself, and many of my professional friends, keep all of our recording gear and musical instruments on a separate policy dedicated to music professionals. While I am not the one to give advice about specific policies, I will say that it is worth looking into dedicated policies, and if you are going to include your recording gear and instruments on a renters or home owners policy, make sure that you specifically ask if your stuff is covered if you use it professionally.  I would strongly recommend that you get the insurance agent to answer that question in writing.

My current recording studio

Speaking of insurance, if your studio is anywhere that could get hit with floods, tornadoes, earthquakes… you might want to be sure your insurance covers those things. I have heard some heart breaking stories of people losing all their gear in a natural disaster and not having their stuff covered, because the policy had exclusions for the specific disaster that struck their home.

It is also strongly recommended that you keep detailed documentation of all your gear. Take photographs of it and keep a spread sheet with model numbers, serial numbers and declared value. MAKE SURE TO KEEP ALL THIS INFO SOMEWHERE OTHER THEN YOUR STUDIO!! store it at some one else’s house and keep it in the cloud. If a fire wipes out your studio, you do not want it wiping out all your documentation of the gear you lost.

I graduated from a home studio years ago, and these days almost all of my equipment is in my commercial facility. Thankfully, I have never had to make a claim, and I really hate cutting that big insurance check every year, but the peace of mind that comes from knowing I have a safety net should disaster strike is well worth the expense.

Disclaimer: I am a studio owner and not an insurance expert. Consult an insurance professional before making any important decisions about your insurance needs.

Ronan Chris Murphy is the founder of Recording Boot Camp. His diverse discography ranges from Youtube sensation Tay Zonday to over a dozen albums with King Crimson. Known as the man behind the boards for many virtuosos including Terry Bozzio, Steve Morse, Chucho Valdes, Tony Levin, Steve Stevens, Jamie Walters, Ulver, and Nels Cline.

We are moving Ronan’s Recording Show to the Recording Boot Camp site. Until we get them moved over, Watch older episodes at Ronan’s Recording Show

In this episode we test a wide range of microphones on the appalachian dulcimer and see how different mics can affect the sound of an instrument.

Download the 16/44.1 Audio files. To watch on your iphone or ipad, download the m4v version

Dulcimer: Folkcraft Ash FSH dulcimer

Pick: V-Picks Bing Futch model

Mic Pre: A Designs Pacifica

Converter: Apogee 16X
_____________________________________________________
Microphones:

Shure SM57-LC Microphone Cascade¤Microphones Fat Head Ribbon Microphone (Black / Gold)

Pearlman TM-1 Tube condenser Mic

Shure SM7B – Cardioid Dynamic Announcer Mic

Cascade¤Microphones Elroy Multi-Pattern Tube Microphone

Audio-Technica AT4060 Microphone

Electrovoice 408B (out of production, and replaced by the Electro-Voice N/D468 )

Shure KSM32

Audio-Technica AT4051b Cardioid Condenser Microphone

AKG D1000E

Electrovoice RE-18

We had a last minute cancellation for our 6-day Recording Boot Camp December 9-14, so we have one spot available again. Let us know if you would like to attend. If you cannot make that one, the next 6-day program is January 27-February 1 (starts the day after NAMM) Details>>>

Maybe you already own the right gear.

For a year or two I have been doing consulting (and mastering) for a great artist from Indiana named Briagha McTavish and her producer/father, Neil. On a recent trip to LA they came by the studio to have me help them pick out the best vocalmic for her.  They brought their own mics to add to the ones I have in my personal collection and we borrowed and rented a few others to get a good wide range of microphones including condensers, ribbons and moving coil dynamics. The value of the mics we tried ranged from about $100 to well over $3,000.

One of the big things I have learned about comparisons and “shoot outs” between gear is that people will usually pick the louder option as the “better” option, and that we will very often pick the one we expect to sound better as the one that sounds better (even if it doesn’t). So I had my engineer (and RBC associate instructor), Diego Lopez, set up the mic shoot outs in a way that I would not know which mic was which when we listened. He also made sure all the recordings were level matched.

One thing that was obvious is that a voice as good as Briagha’s is a hard thing to make sound bad with any mic, but we did find that some of the mics sounded surprisingly similar and others radically different. Many sounded good and, oddly enough, the two mics that sounded the worst on her voice were the least expensive mic in the shoot out and the most expensive!!

In the end it came down to a VERY close tie between a Pearlman TM-1, an Audio-Technica AT4050, and a vintage Neumann U87. Each mic sounded great overall, but each mic had particular aspects where it beat out the others (better on high notes, better on low notes, etc). In the end we decided that all 3 of these mics sounded great on her voice and none could be described as truly better than the other two.  The great thing about this is that the Audio Technica 4050 was a mic they already owned and had used on her recent EP. Buying new equipment is, of course, exciting and tons of fun, but it is important to make sure that when you spend part of your limited budget the money is going to the right place…. Speaking of which, after the mic shoot out we tried recording Briagha with the AT 4050 through one of the high-end compressors at my studio and the improvements were dramatic. So now, instead of spending money on an expensive mic that would not be an improvement, they can use that money on an investment that can make a big difference.

The important take away is not that the 4050 was a “better” mic than the others, but that it was the right match for this singers voice. In the previous shoot outs I did for another project the Pearlman TM-1 was the winner, and before that it was a Shure SM7B.

To hear Briagha McTavish’s music check out www.briaghamctavish.com

I am excited to be at the Taxi Road Rally again this year. I will be doing lots of lecturing and mentoring, most of it free if you are already attending the Road Rally. I will also have a table in the book sellers room, so come by and say hello to me or one of the Recording Boot Camp staff.

Friday, November 8th

Driver’s Ed: Vocal Recording & Mixing Master Class
11:00 am – 12:30 pm – Orly Room, 2nd floor
One on One Mentoring
3:00 pm – 5:30 pm – Trattoria Restaurant, 1st floor

Saturday, November 9th

Mentor Lunch
12:15 pm – 2:00 pm -Concourse Ballroom, 2nd floor

Driver’s Ed: 5 Secrets for Creating Broadcast Quality Recordings
2:30 p.m. – 4:00 p.m -Kennedy Room, 2nd floor

Production Bar
6:30-9:30pm -Orly Room, 2nd Floor

Ronan is available for private consulting throughout the Rally at a special discount rate of $45 for 30 minutes.

If you need another reason to come out to a Recording Boot Camp at the RBC studio in Santa Monica, check out the sunsets in the neighborhood.

I have understood how flanging (and the related phasing effects) works for many years, and have emulated the old techniques many times with modern gear, but this week I had a chance to hear the classic flanging effects in action (while using modern tools). This will be less confusing when you watch the video.

The term flanging comes from tough the flange, the metal spool for a real of tape, to slow the speed of a tape machine. You can learn about the origin of Flanging on this Wikipedia page.

Beautiful Studer C37 tube tape machine at Prosdocimi Recording Studio in Italy

Most of what we do at Recording Boot Camp is more about the craft or recording and music rather than the business side of thing, but sometimes we get opportunities we can not pass up. A couple friends of

Sherry Orson, Music Supervisor

have offered to present a workshop on music placement. Understanding the process of getting your music into films, TV, video games, etc..

Event is being hosted at the Recording Boot Camp studios June 4th, 2013

check out the even page for all the details. recordingbootcamp.com/courses/special-events/music-placement-workshop/

Why I care about microphone pre-amps

If you look around the recording blogosphere and Internet forums you often find two opposing viewpoints about mic pre-amps. One is that it is critical to have a large variety of high quality mic pre amps for various instruments/genres, and the other is that the whole concept of needing high-end mic pre-amps is just a big marketing scam. The truth is somewhere in the middle.

I have a pretty good selection of high-end mic pres. And while that is fun and opens up my sonic options in the studio, there are many albums I have made using only one kind of pre-amp, and I would be willing to bet that many of your favorite albums were done that way as well.  So as cool as it is to have many different kinds of mic pres, one great style of mic pre is perfectly adequate, especially for a small studio.

On the other end, I think the idea that high-end mic pre-amps do not really matter is way off the mark. I am not going to say that having a high-end pre amp is as important as having a great sounding guitar or drum kit, but great mic pres really do make a difference.

The biggest problem is that cheapo mic pres actually hurt your audio. Not only can many of them have high levels of noise, but they can smear details, clarity and depth of the tracks. This can make mixing far more difficult. I mix records from all sorts of different studios and, in most cases, when the music was recorded with high-end mic pres, rather then cheapo stock pres, the mixes come together easier. When a track has lost its detail and clarity because of low quality equipment, there is very little you can do to try and get that back.

While cheapo mic pres can actually hurt your audio, great mic pres can help you out. In my experience great mic pres will not only give you better detail, depth and clarity, they will actually make all of your mics sound better. I have even found some cheap condenser mics that I really dislike when I heard them through cheap mic pres, but found them quite useful when running them through my best pre amps.

You do not need to own a lot of mic pres, but I think buying one great mic pre is a great investment. It can make all your tracks sound better, and even if one holds the opinion that great mic pres only make a small difference, a small bit of improvement across all of your tracks can really start to add up. But if you do not have great mic pre amps, do not let that slow you down. Fire up whatever gear you have available, have fun and make some music!!!!

Since I am sure this article will fill my email in-box with people asking what mic pres I recommend, I will give you a few examples of mic pres I really like at a few price points. There are some great affordable options in the 500 series (lunchbox) format, but that is beyond the scope of this article.

Under $500-ish
I have not really tried any mic pres under around $500 that I think are a huge step up from the stock mic pres on a small console or interface. I am always on the lookout though.

$500-600 range
My favorite mic pre in this range is the True Systems P-Solo. It does not have a lot of “mojo”, but does a great job of good clean gain with a lot of detail. I prefer it over some other mic pres that are more prestigious. You can see my review of a few of the options in this price range on Ronan’s Recording Show.

$1000-ish
It is a bit over the $1000 range new (and not used), but the Great River ME-1NV is a fantastic mic pre. It offers a broad range of sounds and has a very good built in DI. It is one of my favorites, and high on my list of things I want to buy for myself.

$2000-ish
My favorite mic pre is probably the A Designs Pacifica (and the similar Ventura from the same company). About 80% of the things I record are recorded through the A Designs Pacifica. To me it has the perfect balance of detail and bigness, and I use it on everything from heavy metal to chamber music.  This is a two-channel unit so it is actually a little cheaper per channel than the Great River, but unfortunately is not available in a single channel unit (there is the P-1, a similar single channel option in the 500 series format).