Rebecca demonstrates a step by step method to help you learn to play high notes easily. That's not to say an sm57 will not make a flute sound good, but you may not be able to capture very hard articulations and note attacks as well as a good condensor mic.Today’s 'How to' video is all about how to play high notes on the flute. Any half decent condensor microphone will be able to pick up these sharp transients better than most dynamic mics, such as the sm57 mentioned above. No interface is going to have a big effect on the recording quality of there is a deficiency in any of these far more important items.įor your harpsichord example, microphone selection has an enormous effect on the ability to capture transients - like the snap of a snare drum, or the pluck of a harpsichord string. The microphone selection and placement, and 3. Any high frequency rolloff from an interface will be well above the highest frequency that a flute (or even a piccolo) will produce.īy far, the biggest factors in how a recording will sound are 1. A high pass filter blocks low frequencies, and allows high frequencies to 'pass'.Īll audio interfaces have both a high pass filter and a low pass filter to remove frequencies outside of the range of human hearing, and outside of the range of the sampling rate the recording device is set to.

It's easy to add reverb in post-production but impossible to take it away - so your goal is to record as clean of an initial signal as possible, and play with it later.Īs a recording engineer, I can assure you that audio interfaces do not have a high pass filter that affects the upper frequencies. The downside of reverb-filled hall is that fast passages get muddy. Be aware that SM-57/58 are directional, play into the middle of the mic, not into the side.Īs much as I enjoy playing an acoustically live hall like a church, it's better to record in a 'dead' room (your coat closet, or a library). Come closer for more breath, farther for less. If you like it a bit more breathy, place it directly in front of your face. If you're looking for a cleaner tone, place the mic off-center so it's center faces your G key (about mid-way through the flute).

My preferences are for a Shure SM-57 microphone behind a vocal pop screen, about a foot from my face. The main problem with recording flutes is the over-abundance of high frequencies ('whistly' or 'fluty' tone) and losing richness on the lower frequencies.

How to clean an artley flute