[Harp-L] acoustic harp sound quality / when recording and mixing

["Alexander Savelyev" <Alexander.Savelyev@xxxxxxxx>]

hi everybody, 

when recording the harmonica, the resulted - acoustic - sound can be
bright, dark, open, narrow, fat, meaty, etc. it depends on the source
instrument, player's tone, recording set-up, music style,
recording/mixing technique, etc. 

     - for acoustic harmonica i personally like the meaty sound with
some balanced portion of low and high freq's, which rather pleases the
ear than distracts and makes the listening experience painful like in
case of the overly bright, narrow and distant sound, which one would
definitely get when recording the harmonica with the condenser
microphone at some distance of Â-1 foot, and with application of some
kind of reverb afterwards.  

     - if recorded through the dynamic mic, the harmonica can also
sound narrow, though with close miking it will sound fat and meaty due
to the approximation effect, but it won't be that breathy as when
recording with the condenser mic. 

     - another problem is the dynamic range - low and high level of
sound of the harmonica - very often when mixed with other instruments
like bass, drums, guitars, etc., the harmonica is buried in the mix. if
the level of the harp track is increased in order to stand out a bit,
than the peaks would make it painful to listen to the harmonica. 

so my question to everyone would be: what recording/mixing technique
and/or set-up do you guys use to come up with the firm, rich, meaty and
breathing acoustical sound for harmonica and at the same time keeping
the mix balanced and transparent? for  (the sound close to Toot's,
Norton's and alike)? 


I use a number of tricks to achieve that sound, but I'm wondering what
you guys are doing if you ever need to? 

Thanks, 


Alex


 





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