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TONY PLATT – PRODUCER/ENGINEER
Bob Marley, AC/DC, Thin Lizzy, The Stranglers, Motorhead, Gary Moore, Buddy Guy.
'There is really only one thing to say about the sE4400a - it is fantastic!'
'There are so many microphones on the market these days and so many of them claim to be 'as good as xxx' or 'better than yyy' - at half the price of course!'
'So far my experience of SE microphones has been that they tread their own path and are designed towards a particular application rather than compete with existing (often industry standard) microphones. I like this attitude because I am always more enamoured of audio products that have their own personality.'
'The 4400a is exactly one of those - it seems to be somewhere between a U87 and a C414 - warmer than the U87 but brighter than the C414. This of course makes it a very useful microphone to have around.'
'I have used it on acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass, percussion - it is a true all rounder. Most importantly it has a particular character so I can choose it to do a certain job with confidence.'
'I can see the sE4400a becoming a requirement for all good microphone cupboards.'
There always going to be a number of dilemmas when recording singers with an acoustic guitar. Most of them perform better when doing both at once, they very rarely stand in one place and if they do, the resulting performance is invariably stiff and lacking feel. The variation in sound as they 'waft' past carefully placed microphones is distracting and difficult to manage. Coupled with that, the sound of the vocal might be enhanced by the leakage into the acoustic microphone but the problems with the guitar are compounded more by the leakage of the acoustic into the vocal microphone.
I recently recorded two artists within the space of a week that presented me with these challenges.
The GM10 offered a solution to part of this problem by anchoring the microphone to the acoustic so no matter how hard he tried, the player could not get away from it! The big surprise though was how good the microphone actually sounds. It is equal to any good quality condenser mic and suffered from no mechanical interference. It was very easy to position exactly where I wanted it and most importantly the players quickly became oblivious to its presence. The top response is clear and natural and the middle frequencies smooth and balanced. The bass response handled the proximity well and remained pleasantly detailed. I mixed it in with a vintage Neumann U67 and a Coles 4038 and it contributed significantly to the blend as well as holding the image in place despite the movement.
For the first artist, who was isolated from the rest of the musicians, I used the Reflexion Filter horizontally to screen between the vocal microphone and the acoustic. This worked fantastically to control the separation without distracting the player at all. However, when we came to use the vocal microphone without the filter underneath I realised that the filter was also having a conducive effect on the spacial delivery of the vocal microphone (which was an M49)
Encouraged by these results I took the idea one step further with the second artist who was to perform in the same room as at least one other musician. After employing a certain amount of basic engineering common sense I was able to set up two Reflexion Filters, one horizontally and one more conventionally behind the vocal microphone.
Again the artist was not distracted by this array and the results allowed me to control the spill very easily.
Both these devices have been well thought out and beautifully constructed to address a simple problem with a simple solution that has enabled me to enhance the creative environment for these artists - many thanks SE!
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