Obsessed with sound: The importance of clean audio – words Alexa Wang
If you’ve ever listened to an old vinyl record, perhaps an LP 33 (Long Play at 33 RPM), you know how much scratchy noise it makes. The audio is anything but clean. YouTube videos that were recorded from old LPs are instantly identifiable because of that scratchiness. That might be okay for the casual user or listener, but if you’re a professional musician or studio recording expert, you’re obsessed with getting clean audio, first time every time.
Starting A Music Career
If you are thinking about starting your own musical career, either in front of the microphone or behind it, you know there is nothing more exciting – or scary – than turning a hobby or passion into a full-time career. The pitfalls that will crop up are too numerous to mention and you have to steel your nerves in advance to overcome rejections because there will plenty of them along the road to success.
You need to have a lot of confidence in yourself and your product. If you’re going pro, your music or the way you record it is your product. Don’t ever lose sight of that. Be confident in your product and your brand. You need to promote it relentlessly by networking with other musicians and recording artists and posting plenty of music samples on your social media accounts.
Music As A Health Benefit
One thing you can do to promote your music, in addition to raving about how good it is, is to emphasize how all the ways music can improve your health. It can help you sleep better, relieve stress, improve your mood, help you work out better, sharpen your memory, and better express your feelings so they don’t stay bottled up inside. All music does that but many musicians don’t emphasize that in relation to their own music. Perhaps you should promote those health benefits as a way to stand out from the crowd.
The Right Equipment For The Right Job
Of course, you do need to have professional high-quality recordings to offer to the public. That is where the people at microphone geeks can help you get the kind of precision equipment you need. From microphones for live recordings to studio mics, lapel mics, and shotgun mics, they have it all and can explain all the intricacies and details of them so you know which ones are best for your needs.
Live Vocal Microphones
Live performances require robust microphones that will pick up all kinds of voices; male, female, and children. With the right mic you will be able to hear yourself over the music and the crowd, whereas the wrong one will leave you wondering if anyone can hear you. Most importantly, a live performance microphone should be extremely resistant to feedback.
Studio Microphones
You have to produce quality music in the studio if you’re going to put it on albums. That means you need a microphone that will produce exceptional clarity and purity of sound. Nothing but the best will do. With the right equipment, even an average musician will sound excellent in a studio recording, but the greatest musician in the world will sound flat or uninspired if they’re recorded with substandard microphones. You can scrimp in a lot of areas, but studio microphones aren’t one of them.
Lapel Microphones
There will be times you’ll need both hands free to hold an instrument while you move around. A stationary microphone can’t follow you around on the stage so a lapel microphone would be the appropriate thing to use. You’ll want to pair it with a good zoom recorder to cancel out the ambient noise in the room during your session. You can also use it during interviews. The news media can always adjust their equipment to work with your mic and it ensures you that you’ll never have to worry about someone else’s microphone making you sound bad. Can’t have that!
Shotgun Microphones
Are you making music videos? A shotgun microphone on a boom frees you from worries about holding a mic or having it pinned on you. Shotgun mics only record the sound directly in front of them and cancel noise from the side, so as long as you’ve got a good boom operator, it will be you that it records.
Get Started Now
Don’t let fear or trepidation hold you back from your dream of having your own musical career. Get the right equipment, microphones, instruments, and others who share your dream, and start making some sweet music for your adoring public.
