CAD Equitek E100 Condenser Microphone

The e100 is an interesting little beast. With a street price of around $250, its definitely in the low range for large diaphragm condensers. It has some quirks to it, but I was able to get some good sounds out of this guy. Its a supercardiod condenser microphone... it's got handy switches on the front for power, bass rolloff, and 10db Pad. It powers from phantom or the included rechargeable batteries and is all in all a pretty durable mic that will stand up to a decent amount of abuse.

It has a pretty unique sound with a boost in its frequency response just above 5kHz that rolls off at the top of its frequency response at 18kHz. This gives the mic a little quirky sound like the mids have a hole in them. Used effectively, this can create some really cool sounds with the right cymbal/overhead situation. I've also gotten some great sounds on an acoustic guitar from this mic -- particularly getting lots of the detail of string noise and picking noise. Again, in this situation, it's not going to be right for every acoustic guitar situation you run into, but in certain situations, it's golden.

As a vocal mic, combined with the right combo of eq'ing and compression, this microphone is a powerful hitter at its price range. In most cases, I had to dial in the mids around 2-3kHz to really bring the voice to the front. Using this mic to record backup vocals when the lead was recorded with a more traditional sounding condenser yeilded some great results with little to no eq, the tracks just slipping right where I would put them in relation to the lead.

All in all, this is a pretty decent mic for a low end condenser. The important part is that you realize its strengths and weaknesses and compensate for them as needed. On an acoustic guitar, I often coupled this with anouther mic to catch the boomy low mids. For drum overheads, id make sure there was a room mic somewhere to get some of the washy middles. If you need to, you can pull off using this as your main large diaphragm condenser, as long as you're willing to do some creative doctoring now and then. In my experience, *most* large diaphragm condensers in this price range have some similar level of quirkiness. If you can spring for the extra couple hundred dollars, you can get a totally solid mic like the AT4050 (review coming soon), but if its not in the budget, this mic will do you pretty well.

Mastering - Why you can't skip it.

Ok, this is a topic I've been meaning to tackle for awhile. When you're recording yourself or your friends in your home studio, or even if you're at a little more professional level than that, the question always comes up -- what is this mastering thing? and why can't we just do this ourselves?

Mastering a project you engineered/mixed/etc yourself is the biggest mistake that most home recording folks make. Now if you're just recording for yourself or something to give to friends and family, thats one thing. But so many of us recording at home are getting CD's pressed and selling them to fans and crossing our fingers that we'll be able to make a living at this someday. If you're in the latter camp, you shouldn't be skipping or DIY'ing the mastering process.

Mastering is the final set of steps that a mix goes through before being sent to production (manufacturing, etc). A mastering engineer will usually apply a variety of EQ's and possibly some compression to the main stereo mixes. The mastering process originated because of the demands of vinyl... the dynamic and frequency range of a recording directly affects the way the record is cut, and how much play time is available on the disc (if you ever find old 12" singles that record companies used to send to radio stations you'll see that they usually spin at 33 1/3 rpm and one three minute song will take up almost the whole 12"... this is because they cut it at an exceptionally higher quality than they did for the consumer disc). Thus, a whole field of expertise developed where a mastering engineer would shape the sound to maximize quality while fitting withint the constraints of the physical medium.

Ok, but most of us aren't pressing vinyl anymore, so whats the big deal? Philip Newel explains the role of the mastering engineer quite well in his excellent book, Project Studios: A More Professional Approach. "Good mastering engineers can be thought of in the same was as good publishing sub-editors. Their skill and judgements are sharpened by the sheer volume and variety of material which passes through their hands: they get a good feel for what is right, and what is balanced.... If you pass the critical tests of their eyes and ears, you can be pretty sure that you will not be letting yourself down when the end product is available for public consumption. They are critics who are working for you."

The message here is that the important part is to have a fresh set of ears at the end of the project... a fresh perspective to sit down and tweak out the frequencies that you've grown accustomed to and to tune in the little wholes in the mix you've been missing. That big sound you've been looking for but can't quite dial in like you'd like? A good mastering engineer can find that for you, and without compressing the hell out of your mix.

Which brings me to another point. You love the way things start to sound when you throw that L1 or L2 limiter on the mains in your sequencer. Even if you just put it on super lightly, it just seems to dial everything in and tighten the sound up. BE VERY CAREFUL. You are probably hiding problems in the mix. The mixing process is a process of giving each instrument its own space and then blending those spaces together. Its about contouring tracks and adjusting how they exist relative to each other. If you focus on your tracks, rather than tweaking the mains, you'll come out with a much stronger, more solid mix. THEN hand it over to a mastering engineer and let them add some compression to the mains, if its needed.

One last thing, while I'm thinking of it. When you're looking for a mastering engineer, listen to CD's of bands who've recorded locally who's music is similar to your project and check out where they got their albums mastered. Pick someone local and sit in on the session. You'll learn alot even if you just sit in the corner and don't speak up. It's worth the money you'll spend just to hear your project through another set of ears, speakers, and perspective. If you're going to spend upwards of a thousand or more pressing the thing, its worth the few hundred extra to do it right.