recording first album (do they still call them that?) with band An Triur… been playing as you know for a long while… but the tone of the pipes even with a professional recording engineer sounds like total and utter ^&&(!!! damn man, how does anyone get them to sound good? had top end turned almost completely off, pumped up low end, but still sound so pickin’ nasally. great top of the line mic’s… very experienced engineer/musician working the board, but still, pipes sound like poo (i know, its all me)… great BK chanter et. al… mind you, weeks of practice and all worked well, until we begin and suddenly 3 year old reed with radical haircut… reed of great perfection according to mcnamara gives out (humidity, or lack there of issue) but still man… sounded like &T^(!!!
any blind advice or consolation? i need it… about to scrap them for the box or something.
Try your tracks with just the chanter. Then fake your drones later. If it’s good enough for the Chieftains to do it that way, it should work for all of us.
Nasal honk is most likely in the 800Hz to 1.5kHz range rather than the high end. It would be worth doing a EQ sweep through those frequencies to see if you can get rid of it.
Obviously it’s better not to have it in the first place. Even if the mics are good quality they may not be best suited to recording the pipes - some of highest quality mics can be the least neutral. What exactly did you use and how were they placed? With wind instruments getting in too close can cause an imbalance in the sound.
Not to rain on the engineer’s parade . . . I don’t know what his experience is, but I will speak from my own experience.
When I am recording or running sound at church, I try to reproduce the sound of the instrument (whatever it may be) without EQ first. I try different mics, mic positions, etc. The ambience of the studio may also be a contributing problem, but I don’t know. My question for that is: do the pipes sound good or bad to your ear while just playing in the studio?
I haven’t messed around too much with recording the pipes, but I suspect pumping the low end is not a good idea. Think of how many bass notes a chanter can play. None. It’s like pumping the bass on a vocalist–all it does is boost chest noise. Additionally, there are layers of wonderful high-end harmonics that are in the natural voice of the chanter that would be missing from the recording if you’re cutting the highs.
A few threads mention Sure SM57 as a good mic. Try different mic positions and record them, see what sounds good/bad. Try more than one mic in different positions. Artists have done some really creative things to reproduce their tone. For example, Troy Donockley puts a sax mic right on the reed inside the windcap. Pretty extreme, but it works.
Once you can reproduce the sound without EQ and effects, then I’d say you’re ready to use EQ and effects to enhance the good sound you already have.
Also, try doing a search in the forum–there’s a lot of good stuff that comes up.
There are several good threads here on C&F about mics. Try doing a Search. If I remember correctly, there was a good article about Eric Rigler’s mic set-up on the Seattle Pipers’ page.
Dynamic mics like the SM57 may be ok for stage work but in a recording studio a large diaphragm condensor mic is best, but the recording engineer knows that already.
A competent and recording experienced engineer would know this. I can’t say diddley about who you have on board John, I do not know them or their qualifications, but I have to wonder why they seem to be having some difficulty getting your EQ correct.
I agree that a large diaphragm condensor mic is the way to go. I have two of them (and two small ones) for just that purpose.
In my limited experience in the recording studio, I’ve generally found that just a little bit of reverb seems to be necessary in order to get the chanter to sound like “itself.” Don’t get carried away, though.
There was a Jerry O’Sullivan interview in the Pipers’ Review, I believe he said in the studio he simply set up two condenser mics a bit off ground at something like 10 and 2 O’Clock. Check that out, Jerry knows what’s what.
the best sound I ever got in a studio was when the engineer set up two condensor mics - one in front of the chanter and one hanging above my head but out to the front about equal with the lower mic. Plus a little reverb is required, as already mentioned.
The O’Flynn-in-the-studio photo illustrates what I was going to say, which is that I’ve noticed that the chanter tends to sound more natural and less “ducky” when miked from a bit of distance instead of right up close.
this was the discussion exactly, though i had not used the term “ducky” which is right on the mark. a fellow musician kept moving my mic closer, and i kept moving it away… running argument all day.
i had a brain fart when we were setting up the mics, remembering that i have a nice AT studio condensor. i remember now that when i bought it, i was put in a room alone with a few dozen mics to test until i found one with the best chanter sound. where that thought was on saturday i will never know… leaving it up to the EQ faeries… remaining tracks will involve my AT at a distance…
thanks all. we had a great room mic as well that can add in the top end perhaps.
