3 Essential Rules For Recording Natural Acousitic Sound

EVERY ACOUSTIC INSTRUMENT HAS ITS OWN VOICE…

Acoustic sound and thus, recording natural acoustic sound, is never completely standardized. As Your Heaven Audio founder, Steve Schwartz, has experienced in his own music: “One of the things I’ve noticed as a player is that very often, I’m driven to create something based on the natural acoustic sound of my instrument. I have often sat down at drum kits that are sort of hodge-podges, and I just start tapping lightly around, doing this and that, and at some point or another the instrument itself tells me what to play.” Choosing an acoustic mic for recording that’s as true to your instrument’s natural sound as possible is the key to producing pure music, as it was intended at inception.

The beauty of acoustic music lies in its fluidity and unpredictability.

Photograph by Your Heaven Audio

“There are certain combinations—oh, if I hit the cymbal two times and this tom-tom once and then the snare, that makes a nice sound—and it’s not a conscious effort like that, it’s just noodling around. All of a sudden I find that this combination sounds nice on this instrument. So at that point, in terms of recording, what you want to do is capture that sound.”

The beauty of acoustic music lies in its fluidity and unpredictability. Good musicians can take even a lower-quality instrument and create music that works with its natural voice. But being in the room with an instrument is one thing—how can you capture that same experience in your recordings?

Steve shared his rules for capturing clear, natural acoustic sound:

1) Know Your Environment

Not everybody has access to studio space with high-end acoustic mic systems for recording completely pristine, uninterrupted sound. Cost can be a barrier, as well as time and convenience—or you might be trying to record live. In any case, minimizing ambient noise is only one piece of the puzzle.

Pay attention to the acoustics of the space, and how your sound reverberates within it, keeping in mind, you’ll need to choose and mix your ampification and/or acoustic recording gear accordingly. The space you’re in can cause undesirable effects, but it can also add dimension to your sound which you may want to preserve. Wherever you record, you can capture sound you’ll feel proud to share.

The Anstendig Institute provides an oldie but goodie in-depth primer on concert hall acoustics: CLICK HERE TO READ

2) Know Your Mic

Now that you have your space, you need to know what kind of acoustic mic will capture your best sound. You can use a standard instrument pickup to isolate tracks, but most musicians agree, acoustic pickups don’t come close to the quality of studio-recorded sound. The Your Heaven Audio CloseUp® System is engineered to record only the natural sound of acoustic instruments, resisting ambient noise and feedback in any environment. Understanding what sound your mic is capturing, and how it interacts with the space you’re in, will give you the control you need to achieve a perfect take.

3) Enhance, Don’t Compress

So you got your take—now what? You want to enhance your recording so the full spectrum of your instrument’s voice can be experienced. Many audio engineers will achieve this through compression, or amplifying the entire track so that the lower frequencies can be heard along with the louder, higher frequencies—but this approach can actually detract from your sound.

Steve explains:

“The human ear has evolved to hear sound at roughly 2K-4K cycles per second, but not every frequency is heard at the same volume. We are more sensitive to higher frequencies, or those around 4K cycles per second—they take less energy to hear, and sound louder. We can turn them up, but at some point the human ear can only process so much, and the extra volume makes no difference.

Conversely, the lower frequencies around 2K cycles per second take more energy for us to hear, and need to be turned up much louder. Compression takes all those frequencies and turns them all the way up, so the higher ones reach their maximum volume and the lower ones have a chance to catch up.

The problem with compression is that it flattens sound. At high volumes, dynamics go out the window, and quieter and louder segments of a track will only sound loud with slightly different tone qualities. The natural voice and experience of hearing acoustic music live is lost. Instead, a good audio engineer reduces excess levels of high frequencies, and finds the natural levels where a particular track sounds its best. The goal is to amplify the subtleties of acoustic sound and create an experience as close as possible to the real thing.”

For more on the physics of hearing CLICK HERE.

Your Best Sound

Whether string, percussion, or any other kind of acoustic music, recording your best sound is a matter of respecting and amplifying the unique qualities of each session. Great music is not about achieving a standard average—it’s about creating a one-of-a-kind experience with your own unique instrument.