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My Big Stupid Recording Failure

And they all lived happily ever after... except not really
This article is provided by Home Studio Corner.

Once upon a time, Joe made a stupid mistake.

I was recording a bunch of acoustic guitar tracks for an album project.

I was super-excited. I had set aside an entire afternoon to knock out all the songs.

Also, I had just gotten a brand new microphone, and was going to use it along with another mic to record the guitar in stereo.

All was right with the world. I set levels, listened through my headphones, and the sound was HUGE.

Jackpot. Let’s start recording.

Four or five hours later, all the songs were recorded.

And they all lived happily ever after… except not really.

Did you catch the mistake? It was seemingly small, but it had a huge impact on the rest of the recording/mixing process.

It was harmless.

The problem? I was in such a hurry to start recording and knock out a bunch of songs that I failed to take time to make sure the recording actually SOUNDED good.

If you scrolly-scroll back up, you’ll see I “listened through my headphones, and the sound was HUGE.” That’s it. I listened while I was playing and thought it sounded fine, so I moved on to recording.

Therein lies the mistake.

The result? All the acoustic tracks had an unnecessary amount of low end. See, I placed the microphones really close to the guitar, assuming it would give me the best sound and pick up the least amount of noise.

Well, I was wrong on both counts. They still picked up some room noise, AND they picked up way too much bass.

Ye olde proximity effect was in full force that day. (Proximity effect = increased bass response when mics are very close to the source.)

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