If you are longtime reader of Shure Notes, you'e been exposed to the basics of microphone characteristics and placement techniques. (For those of you who are new to Shure Notes, visit our Archive page for access to past issues that cover this essential subject).
But once you get past the basics and enter into the rarefied air of the touring FOH or monitor engineer, do the rules still apply? Do artists have favorite mics? Does the playbook change?
We talked to four of the country’s top sound engineers to get the answers.
Hugh JohnsonHugh Johnson has been working with sound since 1972. He’s living in Nashville and has been Production Manager and FOH Engineer for country legend Vince Gill for over 17 years. He also began working for Sound Image in Nashville two years ago.
Back Story
My father owned a local electronics store and I played in the school band, so I was drafted into service as the sound man. I took care of all the A/V stuff in high school for the same reason and worked part-time with a small local sound company.
During college, I mixed and production-managed in clubs, then mixed and production-managed regional bands in North Carolina until I moved to Nashville in 1986. In Nashville, I worked in publishing studios recording and mixing demos during the day and mixing sound at night in some of the local clubs. That’s where I met most of the people I still work with today.
"Buying mics based on some company’s aggressive advertising plan or 'looks' or buying based on hearsay are all big mistakes."
How much creativity is there in mic choices and placement? Do most engineers follow "traditional" practices?
I think experimenting with choice and placement are great ways to find better mics for some applications.
Five of my favorite examples are:
A lot of engineers follow traditional practices, but with more new products in the marketplace than ever before, even the “old school” guys like myself are trying new things.
Nowadays, new products are just getting better and better. New and better materials and manufacturing techniques are producing better products. R&D is better, and in the case with Shure, there are over 80 years of experience in designing microphones. Also, Shure tests their new products in the field, with engineers like myself, which makes total sense in releasing products that have predictable and consistent quality and performance.
What’s the biggest mistake people make in buying microphones?
Buying mics based on some company’s aggressive advertising plan or “looks” or buying based on hearsay are all big mistakes.
Top three considerations in selecting a mic?
Maxie WilliamsOf course, his rides of choice are a ’93 Harley and his custom-built chopper. The good news: they both survived when Katrina hit in Biloxi, Mississippi. The bad news: half his home and his brand-new gig as Senior Production manager at Hard Rock Live didn’t. With a resume that includes running live sound monitors for Guns n Roses, Marilyn Manson, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, Charlie Wilson of the Gap Band and a host of real, down-home, genuine Gospel acts, Maxie knows a thing or two about microphones.
While he waits for Hard Rock to re-open in July, we spent an animated hour or so talking to this McComb, Mississippi native as he checked out a venue in DC for ArenaCross, an eight week motocross event in which he’s handling Show Director duties. “I got a Mac console in my left hand and a computer and a mouse in my right hand with a Clear-Com® and a headset on and I’m running four spotlights.“
Back Story
I was about 16 or 17 when I started piddling around with knobs and speaker cables. After high school, I began running sound for all my friends’ bands. I started a sound company and during those 11 years, I did a lot of installs for local music stores around McComb. I did tons of festivals and I got to know many of the touring acts that came through the area. I sold the company in 1994 and was asked to go on the road and I’ve been touring ever since.
You’re a Monitor Engineer now. How much input do you have on mic choices?
It used to be that the house engineer did 90% of the call, but now most of the time the house engineer and the monitor engineer are getting together on the selection of mics - everything — from the kick drum to the guitar to what type of RF mic is being used for the wireless vocal. It’s all about the application - whether it’s miking a tom or a Leslie B3 organ speaker.
What about placement?
Mic placement is critical. It matters. Put on a pair of in-ears or headphones and slide a mic off-axis of the speaker and you can hear it go from dull to bright. We like that sweet spot where the guitar is nice and bright and crunchy. Same thing for toms. Same thing with kick drum. A Beta 52®A in the porthole of a kick drum may be great, but back it up two inches and the kick drum just fades away. Or a snare mic on a snare backed two inches off the rim not pointed straight dead to the center of the drum – it just loses the attack and the gain that we like.
The pros know these things and most of the top echelon engineers tend to follow general guidelines.
"Back in my younger days, I used to look at mics and think – that's a cool looking mic. But did it sound good?"
You’ve been doing this for twenty years or more. What advice do you have for newbies?
Back in my younger days, I used to look at mics and think – that’s a cool looking mic. But did it sound good?
It’s important to keep up with the industry and the technical aspects, as opposed to just the marketing. Sound is like computers – it’s the flavor of the week. Now that we’ve gone digital, what’s new this week is going to be outdated next year.
I pick up a lot from other sound engineers who are out on the road and I read. Mix magazine, for instance.
What’s the best way to check out a new mic? How do you do it?
We on-the-road engineers are all about trying things. We A/B mics all the time. If someone wants us to try a new mic, we test it against a mic we know. We do it in rehearsal and sometimes we do it in a live situation, onstage in a sound check. If we’ve got a good hour for the sound check and a guitar player wants to try something, we’ll have it on a separate channel and let them try it out and see what they think of it.
Parting thoughts?
Most important tip: Read and find out what the mic does, especially if you don’t have the advantage to trying mics for free, like we do. Know what you’re going for. Music stores, some of them, will let you try mics. Take the time to do the research.
He lives in Grand Haven, Michigan but he’s not there very often, now that he’s taken on the role of monitor engineer for Christina Aguilera. Returning from Christina’s European tour, he was home for Christmas just long enough to pack up and get ready for her New Year’s Eve appearance in Times Square. The American leg of the Christina’s tour begins in mid-February.
Bill Chrysler Back Story
I’ve been in the industry for 28 or 29 years. I started as a musician, and then I began mixing acts for friends of mine. An act that I was mixing went to Los Angeles and from that point on, I started working with Electrotec Productions. They gave me my first world tours – I think it was Roxy Music and Tom Petty – and just never slowed down since then…Kept goin’!
How much input you have in the mics that are used?
I don’t have all the ‘say’ but I have a lot of it. If I choose a mic, it’s really rare that someone else will say they want to use another one. In the last couple of years with Christina, Tony Blanc, our FOH engineer, has come in, so I go over the mics with Tony to make sure that he’s OK with them and he may suggest a different mic. It’s very rare that a musician will suggest a different mic from one that I have suggested. So pretty much, I carry a lot of weight in suggesting a microphone that is actually used in the final product.
What about creativity in mic placement?
Nowadays it is much more creative than it used to be in the old days. In the very old days, microphones were fewer to find and harder to keep working. And so, there were “rules”. I was just reading a Jeff Emerick book about recording The Beatles. The norm was to mic the drums from four feet away using a condenser mic! It’s changed radically since then.
Now that we’ve started with near-field miking, everybody has their favorite spot to put it on a cone of a speaker or the rim of a drum or the snares. People are actually getting different results and some of the results they’re getting are why they’re working so much. Their sound is what’s happening.
What’s the most important thing to keep in mind?
It’s about what I want the mic to do. If it’s a voice, I need it to have a sweet high-end and a good mid-range and I want it to be able to roll off the low-end. If it’s for an instrument that has a good low end, then I want it to be a large diaphragm mic and get a lot of that good low-end stuff. It’s application-specific.
I look at what I want the mic to do and then I go after a mic that’s going to accomplish that.
If you choose the right microphone and get in the right place, you can use a lot less electronics like equalizers and get a better, cleaner signal. Especially nowadays with digital recording, you don’t need to go through equalizers – you can put it right on the hard drive. It’s very important to make the right microphone decisions. You’ve got to have the application in mind.
It’s tough to try and find a microphone that can do a whole lot of things, although there are some out there that I own myself. I may not have the specific mic that’s perfect, but I know that I have one that will work.
"People are actually getting different results and some of the results they’re getting are why they’re working so much."
What about new gear? How do you stay informed?
A lot of it is buzz between sound engineers. I tend to hear about a product from other sound engineers before it ever comes out in print and before I can actually get my hands on it. Manufacturers work with specific engineers, so there’s a lot of information that gets exchanged that way.
I also look at trade magazines. I thumb through the publications and if there’s something that catches my attention, maybe I’ll get in touch with the manufacturer and ask if I can give it a try. But probably most of it is word of mouth.
Phil StrongPhil Strong is a FOH Engineer and a Production Manager extraordinaire who has toured with the likes of Common, Kanye West, Jurassic 5, Bilal, Musiq Soulchild, The Roots and Black Eyed Peas. A Chicago native, he was in Los Angeles to lend a hand with Common’s appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. That’s where he hooked up with Shure’s West Coast Artist Relations man Bill Oakley who took on the role of interviewer to get Phil’s views on microphones in live sound.
Back Story
I’ve been in the business about 12, 13 years now. It was a conscious choice. I fell in love with concerts when I was in high school. I saw them putting up sound and lighting rigs and thought – “What is that?” I wanted to learn that, I wanted to do that.
I went away to college and I did a lot of DJing, radio station work, production work, commercials. The DJing kind of grew into “hey, we want to have a mic”, then “we want to add a band”. I didn’t know how to do any of that, so I went to the local store to get some help from some music guys in the area. I learned to understand speakers and amplifiers and mics and consoles and how to set everything up. And my interest grew.
When I got out of college, I decided to go to work for a sound company full time and see if I could make a run at it — a career out of it. I joined Sound of Authority in Chicago where I learned a lot of my skills under John “Buggs” Parkinson, Bill Barnett, Glenn Odagawa and Ernie Green – really good guys who have done a lot of work in the industry. Over time I was able to carve out a niche.
Let’s talk about what you’re doing here – right now.
We’re getting ready for the Jay Leno show. Common will be performing a tune from “Smokin’ Aces”, a new movie with Jeremy Piven, Ben Affleck, Andy Garcia, Ray Liotta, Alicia Keys and Common. He’s in the movie, and doing the lead song from the soundtrack so he’s going to be performing it on Jay Leno. We’ve been rehearsing.
In February, I’m going out with Jurassic Five for their South Pacific run – Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Japan and then coming back in March and getting ready for Common’s new album release - “Finding Forever”.
Most of the engineers we’ve talked to for this issue pretty much control mic choices. Has that been your experience?
I’ve never had a client specify a mic or brand. It’s always been my choice. In live music, it’s usually the FOH engineer’s domain because he has to create the best sound for the audience using the best tools available. Of course, it’s a good idea to consult with the monitor engineer. But most of the artists really trust our judgment.
What’s the first consideration in choosing a mic?
Application is #1. What am I trying to mic? Is it a drum, a guitar, a vocal? What does that instrument sounds like? Does it have deep bass tone? Does it have a solid midrange that I’m trying to pick up? A distinct high end that I need to get?
"No matter what, you’ve got to be wiling to try – that’s another important tip. You’ve got to take it down and put it up and take it down and put it up until you get a feel for it."
There are standard practices in mic choice and placement. Has that changed at all, do you think?
Most engineers follow traditional practices. But as mics have evolved and improved, there have been some changes in application; for instance, a stereo overhead mic versus two mics, an SM81 on snare bottom, or even percussion mic placement.
Piano and string miking has also always been up for debate. Based on a particular microphone application, you may move in different areas in a piano to pick up the tones, or float it on tape across a bridge, especially if the piano is open or closed. Different things like that; same thing with live strings. It’s changed from using an SM81 aimed a bridge to a smaller mic, like a Beta98 that’s actually puttied to the instrument so that it doesn’t move or pickups. Now, a violinist can move instead of playing to the microphone — the mic is following along.
There are standard techniques, but the application of the microphones has come along, making them easier to mount. It has freed up the artists and as a result, it has allowed them to concentrate on playing instead of standing in front of a microphone to play.
Let’s talk about challenges. Got one?
One challenge I’ve run into is when a drummer wants to use a variety of cymbals, but there are one or two cymbals that he’s using for primaries, like his ride or a specific crash, and everything else is more ambient color. You’re trying to pick up a ride that he’s playing in a jazz feel where you’re listening for the stick action, as opposed to a crash where he’s really smashing it – but they’re right next to each other. So, how do you set it up in order to get the best results out of both mics when you’re mixing front of house and its not a studio application? So there are things you can do with miking from underneath, miking from above, miking from six inches above the cymbal, miking from two feet above the cymbal – different things you can do with particular style of music to make it work.
I do a thing with Common where our drummer actually plays bongos in place of his toms. We actually mic the bongos top and bottom in order to get both stick action and the tone. You get the crack of the sticks on the top and the tone on the bottom. A lot of times you don’t have to do that if someone is just playing with their hands, but in our situation, the stick action was too bright a tone, so we had to pick up some of underside of it and we chose to mic the bottom as well.
Important tips
Really listen to what you’re trying to mic and pay attention to its primary tones.
If you’re listening for a kick drum and you’re needing more low end bass out of it, then you need to choose a mic that’s going to get you that. If you need more attack out if it, then you need to choose a mic that highlights the attack a little better.
If you have a female vocalist, you may not want to mic her with an SM58 because of a lack of high end or a Beta 87 because it might be a little too bright. It may sound good on a male, but you’ve got to think about the application and try a few different mics.
No matter what, you’ve got to be wiling to try – that’s another important tip. You’ve got to take it down and put it up and take it down and put it up until you get a feel for it. That’s really important.
"There are some artists who want their show mixed a certain way – whether you like the feel of it or not."
How do you feel about checking out new gear?
I really like doing it. But only in rehearsals to see if I like it. The last thing you want in a show situation is a sense that, in the middle of the moment, you’re not getting what you want, that you have to adjust to rest of the mix to compensate for that particular mic. It takes you away from some cues that you need to hit and interferes with feeling the music and being into the moment. You don’t want to concentrate on what you’re missing. I like to try new things, but I like to do it in rehearsal. Or sound check — sound check is a good time, too.
How do you keep up to date on new gear or new techniques?
I get most of my info from trade publications, from reading magazines and from manufacturers’ releases talking about new products that are coming out. I’m kind of a spec geek, so I read through all the specs on where the frequency bumps are on certain mics.
Engineers don’t always talk among each other. Maybe they think it’s a little like trade secrets on how to mic things. But you can develop a rapport among a small group of engineers who like to share information. For example, I read an article, written by a sound engineer, about a really good drum miking technique that really helped me settle down my drum mixes and get a nice natural sound. That was something I read about. I’ve shared that with other engineers and some found it useful for them.
When you’re working with a small group of pros that you like to share information with, and you open that door by maybe sending an e-mail that says “check out this article”, you start to get some of that information back. You only do it with people you’re comfortable with because you don’t want them to think your style is better or you’re pushing your style on anyone else.
Everyone and their particular artist have different needs. There are some artists who want their show mixed a certain way – whether you like the feel of it or not. Others leave the interpretation totally up to the engineer. And there are different stages of development. I’m not the engineer that I was ten years ago. Hopefully, I’m substantially better. And in five years, I hope to be better than I am right now.
We want to offer our grateful thanks to Phil, Maxie, Bill and Hugh for taking time from their unbelievably busy schedules to share their short stories and helpful tips. While each situation is unique, they all agree that understanding what you want and what the mic will do is fundamental.
For a thorough understanding of the general topic of mic techniques, we suggest Shure’s education booklet, "Microphone Techniques for Music – Sound Reinforcement" available by clicking here.