ABSTRACT
This chapter explores some general principles of miking that apply to all situations. The polar pattern of a mic affects how much leakage and ambience it picks up. An omni mic picks up more ambience and leakage than a directional mic when both are the same distance from an instrument. Classical music is always recorded at a distance so that the mics will pick up reverb from the concert hall. In a boundary mic, the diaphragm is very close to the reflecting surface so that there is no delay in the reflected sound. Some mics have off-axis coloration, a dull or colored effect on sound sources that are not directly in front of the mic. Stereo mic techniques capture the sound of a musical group as a whole, using only two or three microphones. To make a stereo recording, one can use one of these basic techniques namely coincident pair, spaced pair, near-coincident pair and baffled pair.
