The Ribbon path April 1, 2009

So I sent the “So many days” track to several mastering studios. I had a big discussion with one of them, so I had to work again on the mix, with different options. I think I’m close to a far better version. And the engineer told me he was surprised I didn’t use any compression on the vocals.

I spent a lot of time trying to find a decent vocal chain. I first experimented an Audio Technica condenser microphone… Very bright sound, excellent for acoustic guitars for example, but the main problem was the voice had no body. Worse, because I’m currently recording at home, it was also perfect for birds and neighbour recordings… Not that fine for a good mix.

I then considered using Shure dynamic microphones, in order to reject background noise. Well, that kind of microphone is normally dedicated to live perfomance, and I didn’t find something fine either, even if I got some good results with the really good preamp I own, the Chandler Limited Germanium.

I finally chose a ribbon microphone, the Sontronics Sigma. It’s got a soft sound, a little bit bassy, a lot of density so almost no compression is needed. It allows to keep a really good dynamic, and it’s got far more air than dynamic models. And it needs phantom power, whereas most ribbon microphones don’t need any but most of them have a low gain so you have to choose really carefully a dedicated preamp.

When I sing into it, I can feel that old jazzy special color, those guys put some really good red wine into a microphone.