Originally Posted by Polly Hager

BTW, Dave mentioned an "Audix" mic? Said it's the best kind for my voice. Anyone ever had one?


I've used them both live and in the studio. For one Sweetedge vocal session I put up a Neumann U87, a Neumann U47fet and an Audix OM5 just to see how our recently purchased Audix live mic would fare against the established studio heavywieghts. We actually ended up using the Audix version on a couple of tracks as the sound suited the song best. The OM7 is also good on female vocals live - especially quiet female vocals where you want as much level as possible before feedback.

Some singers who are used to singing into a mic live find that singing without a mic in front of their mouth is a very odd experience so I've been known to set up a live mic close up and a studio mic further away at the same time (although only actually using one mic at a time to avoid phase problems).

Studio engineering is very much about psychology and, whenever I'm working with a singer, I always try to remember what it is like in front of the mic. "Lets give it a go and see what happens" is probably one of my most used phrases. Always record the first run through is another of my tips - it is rarely the best performance but, if you don't record it, you can be sure that you will have missed something that you want.

Cheers

James.

James Perrett, JRP Music http://www.jrpmusic.net

Della Perrett's Sweetedge http://www.sweetedge.com