Fictional timbre—Close microphones and warped perspectives

Abstract

Recording engineers, particularly in pop and rock genres, have a long tradition of placing microphones exceptionally close to the sound sources they wish to record. Not a gesture towards realism, close microphone techniques are born of practical needs for sound isolation in sometimes cramped recording spaces, production pressures to defer signal processing decisions until the mixdown session, and creative desires to variously avoid, enhance, and/or exaggerate sonic features of the instrument in search of a sound that is ‘‘better than the real thing.’’