Introduction

If you are looking for state-of-the-art audio quality with your Pro Tools system, you should consider the chain of equipment required to capture the audio. Obviously you need to use high-quality studio microphones, and I can highly recommend the Neumann M147 and M149 for vocals and acoustic guitar, the AKG C12 VR and C414 for electric guitar, acoustic piano and general use, the Beyer MC740 and MC834 for saxes, flutes, violins and percussion instruments, the Shure SM57 and SM58 for just about anything, and the Beyer M130/M160 as a mid/side stereo configuration for small groups of instruments or to capture ambience. This is not a book about microphones and recording techniques, so this is just a brief mention of the microphones I regularly use in my project studio. There are lots of models from Sennheiser, Electrovoice and many other companies which will deliver excellent results in the studio, and most engineers have their own preferences when it comes to which microphone to use for which purpose. One thing that all professional engineers will agree on is that you need to use the best microphone preamplifiers you can get hold of and these should feed directly into the highest quality analogue-to-digital converters you can afford. If you are recording vocals, for instance, you may wish to include the following in the recording chain: an equalizer to adjust the timbral quality, a compressor to smooth out any unexpected level swings, a gate to prevent unwanted noise being recorded in the absence...