Quote from: pompatus on Jan 09, 2018, 11:03AMThanks, for the responses, guys. It has been quite a learning experience, and I've certainly got some things to focus on.
In regard to mic/phone placement, I've been keeping my phone on the music stand so that I can get video as well, but what is considered appropriate mic placement to achieve decent quality sound?
"Decent quality sound..."
I continue to be amazed at how we shine a lot of light on how much effort it takes to develop OUR skill sets (be it as trombonists or painters or sprinters or what-have-you) and fail to recognize the effort for OTHER skill sets, especially for those like recording engineers. There are substantial reasons why guys like Robert Fine are still revered in the industry.
I had a friend who, at one time, worked for Columbia, recording the Philly. We would be listening to something, and it would be far from what we'd have expected live. He'd name a couple offending frequencies, then adjust his equalizer, and get it MUCH more reasonable in one shot.
A recording is only a model of the "real thing." Think of it more like a drawing. We all have seen drawings ranging from our first stick figures to works of masters like DaVinci or Picasso. If the goal is to recognize that the draw-er saw a human being, a stick figure with head and appropriate number of arms and legs is a reasonable model. The more sophisticated the vision, the higher the level of artistry. But in all cases, it requires a suspension of disbelief to mistake the model for the live 3-D situation.
Many of the small-device recordings are a lot like the stick figures. As long as we can hear the intonation, articulation, and phrasing, it's a good enough model.
But if your focus is on tone quality, chances are a fault in tone quality will get in the way of listening to those underlying elements. Unfortunately, tone quality starts getting into the higher levels of artistry. Microphone distance, type, angle to horn centerline, and especially the room used all make big differences. And you may still not get your "real" sound. Good chance you'll get tone that won't distract you from listening to the underlying elements, but the sound behind the bell WILL be different from the sound in front, and you just can't be in both places. AND no matter how "good" the recording, it will STILL be a model. Just as the current setup makes your tone less pleasing than you think it should sound, a better setup could make it sound better in ways that a real listener in a real room would not identfiy as being equal.
There are some excellent recordists on this forum. There are entire fora devoted to recording, and there are even MORE experienced recordists and sound engineers there (along with interested parties with lots of opinions and little experience... much to be taken with many grains of salt....) If you want to get as close to your sound as possible, I recommend checking out those fora, then getting someone whose ears you trust to help you dial in your setup.
If, on the other hand, you want to improve your playing, I recommend simply getting your phone far enough away from you that you do NOT "break up" on the microphone and focus on other elements than sound quality. Recording great sound requires the same kind of time commitment that PRODUCING great sound takes. You get to choose where you make the time commmitment.