Is one mic all you need to get your band on the map?

Back in September 2010 I picked-up a pair of sE Electronics 4400a large diaphragm condenser microphones, I have been so impressed with them that it got me thinking, could you record a live band or a complete project just using this one microphone? With this in mind I started project 4400a, the aim was to put together a recording package covering all that you would need for around £1000 - Computer not included in this budget!


‘Budget’ can mean cheap as chips or super expensive depending on how much your budget is, and when looking at setting up your own recording set-up it is important to set your budget and try and stick to it, other wise things tend to go up and up! With this in mind and having been there myself I decided to put together a set-up that I wish I had when starting out.

From experience I decided that a budget of about a £1000 would be a good target. Now, this may seem a lot to some or cheap to others BUT, from experience getting the cheapest thing you can find just ends up being false economy, before you know it your desire for quality will surpass your set-up and you end up just buying more kit.

With this in mind I have focused around two key areas, the audio interface/preamps and the microphone, the set-up is based around recording up to 2 inputs at a time. So, what audio interface would I go for if it were my cash on the table? I would highly recommend the Apogee Duet for around £340 if you’re Mac based, if not then the RME Babyface is another excellent option for either Mac or PC. Both are great sounding interfaces with two clean pre-amps, 2 line in and 2 audio outs plus a headphone socket on the front, both are quality bits of kit that will last a long time. Microphone wise it would have to be the sE Electronics 4400a for around £450. This mic is a brilliant all round workhorse with enough configuration options to suit any application. It has 4 polar patterns, Cardioid, Hypercardioid, Figure of 8 and Omni, 2 bass cuts at 60Hz and 120Hz & 2 pads at 10 and 20dB. Sure, it’s not a 'cheap' cheap option but you will be using this mic in ten years time, It’s built to last and more importantly it sounds great.

What software you chose to use is up to you, if you’re on a Mac then GarageBand will get you going just fine, or you can grab Logic Express for about £150. For a PC then there are plenty of ‘lite’ versions of the big named DAW’s (digital audio workstation) about for about £100, Cubase, Abelton are just a couple, and of course ProTools 9 is now available and for the 1st time your not tied down to 'ProTools' hardware! ProTools 9 starts just under £500.

So, what does this mic sound like?

Drums -

Here I am recording the drum kit with just one sE 4400a straight into a Apogee Duet, processed just using Logic Pro's own plugins.

Bass -




One sE 4400a on the bass cab, processed using Waves CLA Signature Bass plugin, this added a little more gain to the tone.

Guitar -




One sE 4400a on the Marshall 4x12, processed using Waves CLA Signature Guitar and effects plugin.

Make sure to checkout http://www.youtube.com/MrStickMonkey for more videos and sound files are available at http://www.soundcloud.com/maplewood-studio


Take it easy!

Paul 'Stick' Annis

Sound proofing vrs Acoustic treatment….

Many of you out there who watch my YouTube videos have been contacting me asking about how I soundproofed my studio rooms when the truth is, I haven’t! Soundproofed or acoustically treated? It’s a common area of confusion that has loads of articles written about it so I thought I would add my bit and go over how I approached Maplewood Studios live and control rooms.

So, whats the difference between soundproofing and acoustic treatment?

A soundproof room - a room that contains all sound/noise within it and prevents external noise from entering it.

An acoustically treated room – a room that has been treated with acoustic panels to create a ‘neutral sounding’ room controlling the frequencies within, the room is also subject to external noises.

The easiest way to think of acoustic treatment is to stand in a room and clap your hands, more than likely you will hear a slap back kind of reverb, the sound waves generated by you clapping hitting the walls and ceiling and bouncing back to your ears. Now, close the curtains and do it again, it will sound slightly different, less lively. if you can hang a duvet on a wall and try it this way it will sound different again, it should sound even less lively or reflective and so on. Acoustically treating a space for recording is all about getting the room to sound natural with not to much reverb or room reflection as this lets you add a reverb of choice in the mix but you also don't want it to sound 'dead' or no reflections as this can sound just as bad as a room that is to lively. The difficulty with acoustic treatment is that all frequencies react differently, the foam or panelling you see on walls and ceilings controls the mid to high end of the frequency range while low frequencies are a lot harder to control, here you use bass traps in corners to trap these long sound waves. Bass frequencies travel the furthest and can go through a lot of materials, whenever you hear a house party you never hear the top end, all you hear is the low frequencies of bass drums etc etc.

To sound proof a room is a very hard task indeed. The easiest way to think about it is to imagine the sound inside the room as water, water will leak from any gap big or small, there is no getting away from it and this is exactly what sound waves inside the room will do. The most efficient way to build a sound proof room is to build a room within a room including a floating floor, the way in and out of the room will be your weak point and of course you will need ventilation in your ‘air tight’ room, this again creates another weak point. There are plenty of designs and advice on how to build a soundproof room online, just get googling. Of course, once you have built your sound proof room you will still need to ‘acoustically’ treat it!

So, I hope this helps define the difference between the two.

At Maplewood Studio I have converted two rooms within my home to pro recording environments, both are just acoustically treated. My live room used a combination of foam acoustic tiles on the ceiling and a band running round the middle of the walls to control the mid to high end of the room while the bottom end is looked after with 6' foam bass traps in all four corners and then Ghost Acoustic gobo stands in front of these. The floor is oak laminate which give me further flexibility by adding rugs if required. This room is slightly more dead sounding than the control room, thisl room uses the Ghost Acoustic panels throughout and is a more neutral sounding room. The idea behind this is that for mixing and mastering you should try and have as neutral sounding room as possible so your mix's are accurate, ie if the room exaggerated the low end your mix's may be lacking low end in a average environment, etc.

I hope you find this useful and if you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

Take it easy!

Stick