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Category Archives: Microphones


Bigger, Wider Sounds: Try Stereo Miking

If you haven’t experimented yet with mid-side stereo miking, you’ll be in for a treat when you do. Here’s why:

  • Record background singers with gorgeous stereo imaging
  • Capture a guitar amp with stereo room sound
  • Run synths and drum machines through a PA or amp, and obtain the vibe of recording electronic instruments in an acoustic space
  • Capture full stereo with choirs, plays, podcasts, seminars…you name it

Even better, mid-side stereo miking collapses perfectly to mono, and Studio One Professional bends over backward to make the recording process easy.

Wait—Is This Déjà Vu?

The post Mid-Side Processing with Artist covered mid-side processing for Studio One Artist, and Mid-Side Processing Made Easy did the same for Studio One Professional. However, these were only about processing mid and sides audio extracted from an already recorded stereo track.

This post is about recording with mid-side miking, and monitoring the result as it’s being recorded. This lets you achieve optimum mic placement by hearing the results of changes in mic positioning, in real time. You don’t have to record the audio first, and then play it back to see if you got it right. And on playback, there’s no need to extract the mid and sides, because you already recorded them as separate tracks.

Mid-Side Recording? I’m Already Intimidated!

You needn’t be. You might have heard about mid-side recording requiring math, phase changes, encoding, decoding, a degree in physics, etc. Nope! As I said, Studio One Professional makes it easy.

There are many ways to record in stereo. The most common is X/Y miking, where one directional mic points toward the left, and one toward the right. But this technique is not ideal. Directional mics color sound coming in from outside the pickup pattern, and the two signals don’t play nice when collapsed to mono.

Mid-side miking uses a mic with a cardioid pickup pattern to capture the center of a stereo sound, and a mic with a bi-directional (aka figure-8) pickup pattern to capture the left and right sides. Ribbon mics inherently have a figure-8 pickup pattern, but there are also multi-pattern condenser mics that can be switched to a figure-8 pickup pattern. With this pickup pattern, the mic’s front and back pick up sound, while the sides don’t pick up any sound.

Fig. 1 shows how you’d set up the two mics for mid-side stereo recording. Pretend you’re a guitar amp looking at the mics. The top, figure-8 mic is mounted upside down because the diaphragms of the two mics need to be as close together as possible. The figure-8 mic’s side faces you. Its front faces to the left, and its rear faces to the right. Meanwhile, the cardioid mic is pointing at you.

Figure 1: Mid-side miking setup. (Mic images courtesy Sweetwater Publishing)

The Studio One Connection

You need two tracks and mixer channels, one for the cardioid (mid) mic and one for the figure-8 (sides) mic. Record the two mics like you would any other mics. However, this is where many people get lost—it’s counterintuitive that the single mic cable coming from the figure-8 mic can turn into right and left channels in Studio One. Fortunately, Studio One knows how to do this.

Figure 2: Studio One FX Chain for mid-side recording.

Fig.2 shows audio being recorded. Pan the Cardioid mic to center for your mid (center) audio. For the Sides mic, set the track input to mono, but set the track mode to stereo (important!). This combination allows recording in mono, but playing back in stereo.

A Splitter in Channel Split mode splits the mono audio into two paths. All the Mixtool plugin does is invert the right channel path’s polarity. Now the left and right channels are out-of-phase, so there’s a wide stereo spread. At the mixer, set the Sides channel’s Pan mode to Dual Pan. Pan the controls hard left and right. Now we have the Splitter’s left channel audio panned to the left, and the right channel’s audio panned to the right.

You might think “wait a second…if the left and right channels are out-of-phase, then if they play back in mono, they’ll cancel.” Exactly! And that’s why mid-side miking offers superb mono compatibility. When the sides cancel, you’re left with the mono audio from the cardioid mic, which also picks up sounds that are in front of the mic to the left and right.  So, you’re not losing the audio that ends up being stereo—just the stereo imaging. And of course, mono audio has no problem being played back in mono.

Now, Here’s the Really Cool Part

You don’t have to understand how all this works, just create the setup described above. The Sides channel varies the level of the stereo image, and the Mid channel varies the mono center. So, you can make the stereo image wider by raising the level of the Sides channel, and lowering the level of the Mid channel. Or, lower the Sides channel for a narrower image. Or, process the two separately, and gain the advantages of mid-side stereo processing.

Go ahead—bathe your ears with stereo recording instead of mono. As long as you have one mic with a directional pickup pattern, one mic with a figure-8 pickup pattern, and two mic stands, you’re good to go. And there’s a bonus: if you start getting involved with Atmos mixing, having stereo audio gives you more fun options than mono.

Instant Rebate! Get a PX-1 or a pair of PM-2s for $99.95 in the USA until November 29th 2021!

PX-1, PM-2, Black Friday Deal on Microphones

Click here to find a dealer!

Instant Rebate! Now through the November 29th 2021, get the PX-1 or a pair of PM-2s for $99.95 at participating dealers.

Start recording today with the PX-1 or a pair of PM-2s. The PX-1 large-diaphragm cardioid condenser microphone is an ideal solution for recording vocals, guitar, podcasts, and much more! Learn more about the PX-1 here. The PM-2 stereo mic set provides 2 matched, pro-quality, small-diaphragm condenser mics with XY mounting bar. Ideal for drum overheads, ensembles, etc. Learn more about the PM-2 set here.

This is an instant rebate, live at the point of purchase. No forms to fill out.

Alina Smith: 2000’s Teen


Alina Smith is a songwriter, a producer, and one half of LYRE, who has written and produced records for traditional acts such as Fall Out Boy, ITZY, Red Velvet, Betty Who, Kirstin Maldonado (Pentatonix), as well as for today’s top digital creators like Kenzie Ziegler, Lexi Jayde, Niki and Gabi.

She has accumulated hundreds of millions of streams on songs she’s been a part of and earned several #1 singles. Alina’s work has been profiled in Forbes Magazine, Billboard Magazine, American Songwriter, 1883 Magazine, and more. She’s also well-known in the sound design space with LYRE’s Splice sample pack called “Perfect Pop.”


Here’s what you need to know, straight from Alina:

So I started recording myself singing pretty early on, I wanna say… 2005. I had a dynamic mic I plugged directly into the audio input of my prehistoric laptop and I had absolutely zero training in anything related to production. Then, a few years later I upgraded to an M-Box and a $100 MXL mic which is, funny enough, the setup that I got my first songwriting cut on. From then on, I kept progressing and learning, which I still do to this day, although I do have a pretty large bag of tricks at this point that I can dip into when I record different singers in different genres.

A few years ago I switched from Pro Tools to Ableton Live for instrumental production, but I was struggling with the vocal production side of things in there because at the time Ableton didn’t have playlisting, so recording and comping vocals was super time-consuming and clunky.

I decided to test-run Studio One and fell in love with it immediately! With the ease of setting my own key commands, I was able to choose the commands I was used to and not have to learn a whole new set. Sprinkle in the Melodyne and VocAlign via ARA integration, and I knew that I finally found my soulmate vocal production DAW!

With a PreSonus Sphere membership, I’ve discovered a lot of new plug-in effects I really love, like the Analog Effects Collection. The Analog Delay is chef’s kiss!

I’ve really come to enjoy the PreSonus PX-1 mic, which I use for on-location recording quite a bit. With the right “in-the-box” vocal chain, I can make it sound bright and crispy and much pricier than it actually is!

It’s been a really hectic year for me! At the top of 2021, I set the intention of not holding back in any area of my life or career and for the rest of the year it translated into me pursuing several things all at once. I ended up organizing and hosting an online music convention, called the Modern Music Expo, which you can watch a replay of here:

I also released an EP called 2000’s Teen, which is my first body of work as an artist! And, seeing as my main job is writing and producing music for other artists with mg production team LYRE, I also did a ton of that, my favorite being “Mafia in the Morning” by ITZY, which came out this spring.

I’m already working on my next release: filming a music video and planning the drop. Writing and producing for various projects and making production tutorials for YouTube and TikTok. But mostly, I’m just trying to relax and enjoy fall, which is my favorite time of the year. It’s so important for artists to replenish their batteries, so that’s what I’m doing!


Let’s welcome Alina into the family as a Featured Artist on PreSonus Sphere!

She is sharing ten of her custom Vocal FX Presets for all PreSonus Sphere members to access and enjoy:


Join PreSonus Sphere today to check out Alina Smith’s exclusive Presets and more by other PreSonus artists!

Only $14.95 per month for Studio One Professional, Notion, and so much more.

Get $30/€30 instant rebates on the PD-70 Dynamic Mic

Now through the end of Nov. 2021, — save $30/€30  on the PD-70 dynamic microphone at participating dealers!

Whether you’re starting your first podcast, telling your YouTube subscribers about the latest trends, or running a program for your local volunteer radio station from your living room, you need a microphone that will bring your voice to your listener with clarity and warmth. The PD-70 is built to capture the spoken word cleanly and clearly while eliminating mechanical noise and breathiness that can get between you and your audience. Thanks to superior off-axis rejection, you can set up your broadcast studio in just about any space—and unwanted reverberance, electrical hum, and the random car driving by will be left behind, leaving only the pristine, natural sound of your voice.

You also get Studio One Prime and the Studio Magic software suite—over $1000 worth of software!

Here’s a great review of the PD-70 from ThePodcastHost.com: “…a beautiful mic with great frequency response and sensitivity, capturing the chest tones and that broadcast sound with low noise and terrific clarity.”

Read the full review here.

The PD-70 has fast become PreSonus employees’ go-to mic to record vocals for our River City Sessions. Check it out in action on a male rock vocal with The Hitchhiker:

The fine print:

USA and Canadian customers can get their $30 off instantly at participating dealers.

European customers need to use the rebate form linked below. Qualifying territories include: Germany, UK, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Ireland, Hungary, France, Spain, Portugal, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia.

To find a dealer outside of the USA, click the links below!

 

Alfasoni
Amazon DE
Amazon ES
Amazon FR
Amazon GB
Amazon IT
Amazon NL
Amazon SE
Audio Visual Comm.
Bax
BiMotorDJ
Everest Music
GAK
Gear4Music
Global Mastering
Guitar Guitar
Hangszerplaza
HW Audio
Juno
Just Music
Klangfarbe
Knight Sound
Madrid Hifi
Mango Sound
Michenaud
Music Action
Music Bros
Music Maker
Music Matter
Music Store
Musicopolix
Musikhaus Kirstein
Musikhaus Korn
Musikhaus Thomann
Reynolds of Raphoe
Rockamusic
Scan
Session Music
Sonovente
Sounds Around
Stars Music
Tamsta
Woodbrass

New PreSonus Sphere Artist: Emily Wolfe’s “LA/NY” Playthrough

Here’s Emily using the Revelator io24 audio interface to perform her latest track, “LA/NY,” live from her home studio setup!

 

In conjunction with Studio One‘s Show Page, the pre-recorded backing tracks (drums/synthbass) and her live vocal and guitar audio signals can be professionally mixed and ready for livestreaming.

“LA/NY” is just one of many tracks from Outlierher latest record. She discusses more about the production of Outlier below.


Tell us a bit more about “LA/NY”

“LA/NY” is a new song off my latest album, Outlier. It is a bit of a different direction for me, because I wanted to put forth a killer pop tune that also shined a light on my love of a fuzzy guitar solo. 

Outlier is an album built on exquisite tension: like an endless push-and-pull between desire and resistance, determination and self-sabotage, the instinctive need to belong and the urge to strike out on your own. My songs were produced by Michael Shuman (Queens of the Stone Age and Mini Mansions) and it’s an album full of guitar-drenched sounds that’s wildly unpredictable and immediately magnetic.

What amp/pedals did you use for “LA/NY”?

It was all done within Studio One, using the PreSonus Ampire plug-in. Specifically, I used the Wild Drive, Demolition Drive, Equalizer and Delay pedals running into the Blackface Twin model amp paired with a 2×12 American Cabinet.

(NOTE: if you’re a PreSonus Sphere Member, you can download her exact Ampire Preset here)

How did you first discover PreSonus?

I first discovered PreSonus while working at a music shop in Austin, TX. They sold audio recording equipment from all different brands, but I noticed that PreSonus had the most intuitive software (Studio One Artist) included, as well as the best price point.

What was your first PreSonus product?

It was the Studio 1810c audio interface, but I have since upgraded to a Studio 1824c. I’ve got the FaderPort to the right of my computer keyboard. I also now have their Revelator io24 that you see me using in the video above, of course!

How long have you used Studio One?

About three years now.

What are your Top three favorite features about Studio One?

My favorite aspect of Studio One is how easy it is to use. The drag & drop aspect helps me work really quickly and efficiently. I also really love using Impact for drum sounds, Presence for sample-based instrument sounds, the Mai Tai polyphonic synthesizer, and Ampire for pedal FX and amp modeling.


We’re so stoked to welcome Emily into the family as a Featured Artist on PreSonus Sphere!

She is sharing eight of her custom Ampire Presets, along with a custom Vocal Preset and a Mai Tai synthesizer patch for all PreSonus Sphere members to access and enjoy.

 

Emily Wolfe: Featured PreSonus Sphere Artist


Join PreSonus Sphere today to check out Emily Wolfe’s exclusive Presets and from those by other featured artists!

Only $14.95 per month for Studio One Professional, Notion, and so much more.