Denver Recording Studio

Audio engineering utilizes an array of specialized equipment and to get professional results you need to fully understand the gear you are using when recording. MIcrophones in particular each have unique properties that make it especially important to make wise choices when choosing what mic to use for different instruments. Each microphone has is own frequency response, what that means is that they dont pick up frequencies evenly across the entire spectrum which for the human ear is 20Hz to 20,000Hz. When you buy a mic it will come with a chart illustrating the frequency response for that particular mic. Some mics will have bumps and dips at various spots across the frequency spectrum. For example, we all know that a shure SM57 is a classic choice for electric guitar amps this is because it has a nice little bump in the mid range. That means it has a slight boost right where the electric guitar lives as well as a little drop off in the low frequencies  and extreme highs. Here is a  frequency responce chart for an SM 57 to illustrate my point.

Lets look at one more mic for comparison to illustrate my point.  A Classic mic for bass  or kick drum is the AKG D112. This is so because is has a nice bump in the low frequency  range right around 100 Hz and another around 3kHz. Then there is a drop off above 10 kHz, all this makes it a great choice for Bass or Kick drum, maybe even a floor tom as well or baritone vocal.  Here is the frequency response chart for the D112:

So theres an introduction to microphone frequency responce, I would advice all of you home recordist and professionals alike to throuroughly research the response charts for all your mics so that youll know which is a good bet for any given situation with minimal experimentation and wasting of time, both yours and your clients. till next week thanks for reading - Guitar Junkie