Neumann is known for its classic and modern microphones. Their U 87 microphone is pretty much every artist, producer, and engineer’s personal favorite. The company now produces a new set of headphones which is the NDH 20. It is a closed-back headphones specifically for studio monitoring, editing, and mixing.
It has 38mm Neodymium magnetic transducer and frequency response at 5Hz to 30kHz. It utilizes 3.5mm TRS jack, 6.3mm adaptor, spiralled 1.5-3m and straight 3m cables. At 390g, they are heavy enough to sit well on your head, although some extra padding might have been nice on the metal headband.
Read more about this here: https://www.musictech.net/reviews/studio-recording-gear/neumann-ndh-20/
Home Recording Equipment
In The Studio: Dynamic EQ For Vocals
The New York parallel compression drum mix technique is where you send a drum mix to a stereo bus and then apply compression to the bus and feed that signal back into the two mixes. It can be very subtle or obvious depending on the amount and character of the compression, and how the compressed signal is fed to the stereo bus.
However, at low volume, you get both preserved transients and the loudness from the compression thus, you’ll get a different result from compressing the tracks. Moreover, when the song gets louder, the effect of the compression on the bus is less prominent because the uncompressed tracks swell up and dominate the mix.
Read more about this here: https://www.prosoundweb.com/channels/recording/in_the_studio_dynamic_eq_for_vocals/
5 Unexpected Ways to Use Reverb in a Mix
Reverb is used to add depth and a sense of acoustic space to a sound source. We apply it to an instrument or a voice to give a sense of dimension. However, it must be used appropriately or else it may sound weird. So here are some unexpected ways to use reverb.
There are a couple of great techniques for stereo-izing a mono source using reverb. One is to create two mono reverb sends (rather than a stereo reverb). From there we can differentiate the reverbs by changing their internal settings, or even using different reverbs entirely.
Read more about this here: https://theproaudiofiles.com/5-unexpected-ways-to-use-reverb-in-a-mix/
The new DPA 2028 Vocal Microphone promises to reproduce the “full, natural sound of the artist’s voice”
DPA Microphones’ 2028 Vocal Microphone is a model that the brand claims allows the artist’s voice to shine. It is designed for stage, broadcast and pro A/V applications. It features a supercardioid polar pattern as well as new a shock-mount, pop filter and fixed-position capsule.
With all of these, the artists are able to focus on their vocals. Hence, there’s no need for engineers to spend their time covering up sonic artefacts. The 2028 Vocal Microphone is available for $700 and it has three variants: wired XLR with handle and two wireless configurations, one with the SL1 adapter (for Shure, Sony, and Lectrosonics) and the other with the SE2 (for Sennheiser).
Read more about this here: https://www.musictech.net/news/gear/dpa-2028-vocal-microphone/
9 Tips for Using Reverb with Drums
You want your drums to sound bigger but it sounds narrow, dry, and small during recording. Therefore, you send it to a concert-hall reverb. However, that is a wrong move because now you have are small, narrow drums surrounded by a lot of incongruous reverb. So here are the different tricks to try and apply all over the kit.
Reverberating drums can lead to a cloudy, washy mix and we don’t want that. We want to have depth, thickness, presence, and a sense of space—all with reverb. The first tip is to try adding a reverb directly on the drum bus before your compressor.
Read more about this here: https://www.izotope.com/en/blog/mixing/9-tips-for-using-reverb-with-drums.html