[MUSIC] The simplest way to record anything is with single point-source recording. And that just means that you're using one microphone to pick up whatever it is that you're recording. These days, there is a lot of single point-source recording going on Using our smartphones. You can make amazing recordings with things. I have to say I use this all the time for recording rehearsals, for practicing, and I'm able to email the parts to everybody right away. So it makes it really useful and I'm often amazed at how good it sounds. Of course, I'm not expecting it to sound great so that might filter my enthusiasm a little bit, but It can sound pretty descent. The first thing to keep in mind is where is the mic located? And for your device you want to figure that out, and then use that to figure out exactly how to point this microphone so that you get the best results. Now, keep in mind with all smartphones there's a very steep high pass filter Which means that the low frequencies, the low end, the bass notes, are being rolled off very dramatically. And on this particular device, it's at about 250 hertz, which is within the realm of what we might be recording on guitar, and certainly bass. The reason they do this is to cut down on wind noise, and cut down and popping of peace and things like that so its a useful thing. But there's something to keep in mind it's going to be probably a little bit harder to get really great recording of an acoustic base or something like that with a smartphone because of that low frequency roll off. Now, there are external mics available, and those can be much more full free frequencies. There's a couple different types, actually there's many different types. But the all either go in analog which means that they just go into the same jack that your headphones go into. Or, they'll go in to the digital port. And those microphones actually have an analog to digital converter. Built in, or there's a device that they go through to get the sound from the analog domain in the the digital domain. Some of these can be pretty good, and they can increase the fidelity of what you're trying to do if you're recording to a device like this. Some of them are also stereo and they're in a fixed X-Y pattern, so you can actually do some stereo recording onto a device like this. Otherwise, if you're just recording in general, You're going to get a mono recording. So placement is very important. If I'm recording in this microphone for instance, a lot of times I'll put this on a cup or I'll put this on a glass. If I'm recording video too it's very easy to kind of put it up and lean it up against something. You do want to be conscious of the reflections that that might be giving you if You're putting it on the same music stand or something that's made out of glass. Just be aware that that may affect the audio quality. So trial and error is a really important thing. There's also our stereo digital recorders, with much better microphones, that are just made to make stereo digital recordings. These for single source recording can really be a step up. If you've outgrown your phone, you might want to check into these. Then of course there are laptops. A lot of them have internal microphones. On my laptop the microphone is on the left hand side. Right next to the speaker and a lot of laptops actually have microphones right next the camera, if there's a camera there. You can usually find out by looking online at where the microphone is and then you can experiment by doing some recording and kind of rubbing around the different spots where you think the microphone might be. And you'll definitely hear it When you find the right spot. When you're recording into a laptop, I'm much bigger proponent of using an external mike. Because laptops sometimes are little more problematic to record into. Because it's hard to kind of get right up into them, it's a little a harder to point laptops than it is to point smart phones. There's also other problems like fan noise. A lot of laptops have fans in them and you can actually hear the operating noise of the fan. So if you can get an external microphone, and sometimes you can find, again, a stereo microphone. Or you can even get an interface and have a device that you can use multiple microphones. That's really kind of where you're headed if you're going to do this more and more professionally is headed towards getting an interface that has multiple microphone inputs. Mic placement is key when you're doing single source recording. How close you are to the microphone is very important, and that is going to determine how much of the ambient sound that you get from the environment. How wet or dry it is? And we're going to talk a lot more about that in a lesson coming up, but I encourage you to use simplicity in your favor. One of the great things about having these devices at our disposal is that you can get a lot of practice done with them. You can try things again and again and listen back and go in and work the hard parts and get better and better at what you're doing. So keep simplicity in your favor. Now when you're done recording something, you can also, in almost all smartphones, go in and trim the audio itself, take off the beginning before you started. Take off the ending after that, and just keep the song itself. So you can actually trim these things up to where you just keep the song itself, and then use that. So even if you have other ways to record, single point source recording on a device like a phone can be super useful. So I encourage you to keep it simple and have some fun.
