There’s a multitude of advice, online especially, that says “this is the BEST’ choice. The best microphone for snare; the best mic for bass drum; the best plug-in compressor for guitars. The best, best, best.

And implicit in this friendly (or not so friendly) advice is that these are really the only good choices. And this too often leads too many people to feeling like “well if this is the BEST, and yet it’s not really working for me, there must be something wrong with me, or with how I do things.”

If you’re a hockey, baseball, or cricket player you probably have your own choice of stick or glove bat, and then that’s still probably customized to your preferences. Every professional, or just serious player has gear that they’ve chosen to suit their unique preferences and then customized it even further to work for them. But when it comes to audio are you being given advice that says there’s only ONE right answer or solution ? In fact I believe you need to make more room for the idea that there are other ways.

Maybe the best advice you can get is actually how to place and use a microphone rather than which microphone is “best” for a given application. Is your bass drum the same as the people giving you that advice? Is your drummer the same? Is the rest of your recording, that that bass drum needs to go with, the same?

Recieved Wisdom?

There are thousands of microphones on the market in all price points. Is the SM57 really the only choice? Because if you go by advice on the internet that answer would be ‘yes’. Well it’s certainly not the right mic for me, so, just maybe, it’s not the right mic for you either. Even when it comes to supposed ‘Pro’ advice it’s important to remember that the whole thing is basically a system based on how that individual hears things.

I’ve talked before about how balance is everything (and I hope to have an article coming soon with examples of this point) and how I hear those balances versus how another engineer or producer does is the most important piece of that larger puzzle. And that ‘balance’ that I hear informs all of my other choices as well, almost unconsciously. My microphone choices, my plug-in choices, my stereo bus processing, even down to my choice of mastering engineer… these choices are all about how I hear the finished product in my head, and as such are all unique to me.

You could watch a video or read an article describing every choice I make, or every choice whichever mixer or engineer you admire makes, and your records will still never sound like mine or theirs because you’ll inevitably balance the way you hear, not the way I or they do. And so, as a logical extension of that, it follows that their choices of mics and plug-ins and so on, aren’t necessarily the best choices for you, no matter how brilliant they are.

Be Open to Suggestions But Trust Your Own Judgement

I’m not at all against going through an exercise, strictly as a learning process, of trying whatever advice you’re seeing. I certainly have tried a microphone or a plug-in on something because someone I respected recommended it or, better yet, because I heard someone use it and I liked what I heard. But, at least as often as not, I find that thing might not work for me nearly as well as it worked in someone else’s work. And that’s important to feel comfortable with. The snare mic police are not coming for me because I use a KM84 and not the sacred ‘State approved’ SM57. This is why professionals tend to know what they like and what works for them, but aren’t nervously or superstitiously wedded to them.

When I’m asked to work at a new studio I’ll review their mic list and find the things that I think will work for me on each instrument. I don’t come in insisting that I ‘must’ have only my favourite ‘best’ choices or I can’t do the session. It’s rare, in fact, that I can’t find enough choices on a good studio’s mic list to make my session work.

So I am suggesting that before you just buy into the advice as to what is the snare mic, or bass drum mic or stereo bus plug-in, you actually try as many options as you can for yourself. And then make your choices based on what you hear, on your records, and not based on what you’ve been told is the ‘best’, or what you have to use. Your taste and choices are ultimately as valid as anyone else’s and in truth are always going to be more valid for you.

What have you found which works for you? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Photo by Jacob Hodgson on Unsplash