For my first post, I will talk about the three most common recording techniques in the music world. I will break down each one of them separately, so you can their advantages and disadvantages when it comes to mixing your music. 

Let us start with the first one...

Close Microphone 

As the names suggested, this mic is positioned close to the source in order to capture the sound directly from the instrument without any reverberation. This mic (certainly one of my favorites) results in a dry and close sound. It helps to capture the definition and details of the instrument. 

For example, let's say that someone is talking to you from a distance. Of course, you will not be able to hear him probably, because that person is far away from you. You can only hear so little of his voice mixed with the place echo. But, if you get close to him (standing right in front of him), you will hear and understand his words clearly, because you're standing close to him. 

This is exactly what the close mic tend to do. The result is a clear sound, but unfortunately, there's a disadvantage to this. The sound will be dry as well, making it sound almost unrealistic. You don't want that. As far as mixing go, you try to achieve the most realistic sound you can make when it comes to mixing an orchestra. This is why using close mic alone is not enough to fool the listener. Plus, the mic being too close to the source will also result in recording the noises that the musician will make when playing the instrument.

Note: There's another mic position called Spot Mic. It is positioned as close as possible to the instrument in order to give you the most driest and direct sound out of the source.  

Now that we've tried to capture the sound directly from the source, how about capturing the sound that the surrounding area make.

Surround Microphone

This technique is also known by another name, Ambient mic. The first mic position captures the sound directly from the source, but this mic is placed far away from the source. More likely, above the source. The ambient mic captures only the sound of the room which we call it the reverb. Pretty helpful, if you want to feed your Rs and Ls speakers for true surround information. It helps to increase the amount of stereo spread and room sound. So for out mentioned example above, you can imagine the ambient mic like a person listening to another person's echo in a large hall. 

The last mic technique is...

Room Microphone

This mic, also know as distant mic, is a mixture between the instrument and the room sound. It is placed in a short distance from the source. Roughly, the same size of the instrument. This mic is very good when recording ensembles (a group of the same instrument), preserving the natural tonal balance of the sound. Why this technique is beautiful, its because not only it captures the source sound, but also the room sound. It mixes them together to produce that natural, live feeling of the recording. But this is only good, if the room's acoustic is good. Otherwise, the result will be bad. You will then have to use absorpers and diffusers, which I will talk about later.

There you go. Now, that you know all about the essential mic positions, I will let you hear a real recording done using these mics.

Recording Samples of a Grand Piano. 

Close Mic

http://bit.ly/2gWrojk

Room Mic

http://bit.ly/2gWARXN

Surround Mic

http://bit.ly/2gWz4lD

This Grand Piano was recorded at Sony Pictures Studios by CineSamples. 

Mixed Mic

http://bit.ly/2gWsPhE

This is a combination of all the three mics producing a natural, beautiful and professional quality sound.