"Paper Bird" Original Score by Brady Smith (2025)

Microphones Used:
Piano: 2 AKG C414s
Violin: AKG C451 Pencil Condenser
Viola: AKG C451 Pencil Condenser
String Bass: Neumann U87

My Roles: Microphone placement engineer, Co-session engineer, Co-mixing engineer, Pianist for the recording

Description: I accepted this opportunity as a favor for my friend Brady; to help him record his first ever film score. Everything from the music to finding performers to booking and running the session to allotting time for mixing, was all put together within the timespan of about a week. I was the sole engineer for the first half of the session, placing microphones, patching, and adjusting gain on preamps and console faders. My friend Bradley took over once it was time for me to play as the pianist in the recording.

Areas for Improvement: The pencil condenser microphones caused the most issues during the mixing process. I realize now I should have placed them directly above the string instruments instead of in front pointed at them, as the sound we got was a bit nasal-y. Also, the pencil condensers produced their own background hiss for some reason. We had to hide that sound by fading the violin and viola in and out when they were playing.