#1 The Song

The song you are recording has the most tremendous impact on the recording of the song, obviously. This seams like it should fairly clear to everyone. It is not. I've never heard a boring song with exciting production. It doesn't work that way. So if you didn't hit a home run on the the song, you can forget about some microphone helping out. A more expensive microphone has NEVER improved a shitty song ever and never will! However, if you are song is a kick ass tune that you really stand behind and believe in, you may move on to the next door.

# The Musician

Are you dealing with badass musicians who can play extremely tightly? Do these musicians sound good? In other words, when they pick up an instrument can they squeeze more tone out of it than your average Joe. I've seen a lot of guitar players in my day who play on similar rigs. There are certain guys who can just pull out huge tones out of the guitar by the way they play. These guys make it easy to record. Of course, the opposite is true. Do you think a guitar player with a boring sound is going to be effected one way or another with a more expensive microphone? NO!! Exciting guitar playing is in the fingers. It's not in some mechanical device. This is why some guitarists are famous and most simply aren't. Some guitar players have balls and soul in their tone. For those guitar players who have no balls or soul, an expensive mic isn't going to do a damn thing for you.

# The Instrument

In a lot of ways, this sort of goes hand in hand with the musician. Bottom line, if the sound the musicians is creating in the room isn't happening, your done. A great drummer probably would never beat on a grossly out of tune snare drum, but assuming he did, it just wouldn't sound that good. There is a reason that the big boys tune a snare before each and every take. The same guitars for guitar players or any other musician. The are certain acoustics guitars that sound big and boomy, but they may not be right for a certain part of the song. Even a great player won't sound right with the wrong instrument. If an instrument is flat out wrong for the part, an expensive microphone won't do a bit of good. Now, the right microphone may be able to fix some of that, but that has nothing to do with price.

Back to our example, if we have a big boomy acoustic guitar that has too much bottom end for the part, a lof of engineers will reach for an SM 57 and back it off the guitar a little bit to avoid the proximity effect.

#The Performance

It's incredibly important to give your clients a place to record in where they feel comfortable. Getting the right performance is everything. What do you think an expensive microphone is going to do for someone who is nervous? What about someone who is too cold? What about someone who is just burned out from recording too long? Do you think an expensive microphone is going to help?