Oakland, CA (May 9, 2022)—Swiss native Reto Peter has a collection of classic mics to choose from at his studio in his adopted hometown of Oakland, and often turns to his four large-diaphragm condensers from Audix to capture a variety of sources.
Peter, a music producer, audio engineer, composer, multi-instrumentalist, teacher and voting member of the Recording Academy, has worked in nearly every genre of music, including indie artists from his native Switzerland to breakthrough hip-hop act Flipsyde in his adopted hometown of Oakland—also home to Green Day (he earned a 2004 TEC Award for his work on their Grammy-winning album American Idiot).
“I like tracking with large-diaphragm mics in general, because I feel like they give me more to work with in the mixing process. I recently used the Audix A231 on three projects, all with male lead vocals. One, a Swiss punk band that came to Oakland, had group vocals. I really liked its sound with all three bands. That mic has some bottom! There’s a proximity effect as with any cardioid pattern, but that can be very cool for vocalists who step away from the mic,” says Peter.
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“The A231 captured a lot of raw material to work with, so the tracks really responded to my mixing decisions after the fact—and always in a pleasant way. If I added more top end, it didn’t sound harsh; it was just more of what I wanted to hear,” he adds.
Peter has put his two SCX25A mics to both expected and unexpected use. “On another project that was mainly acoustic guitar, I used the SCX25As as a spaced stereo pair; they gave me a very nice, round sonic picture of the guitar,” he says.
He has also used the SCX25A where an Audix D2 or D4 would more traditionally be employed. “I really like the SCX25A on toms. I’m not talking overheads, though I like them for that, too; I mean close-miking. With some inline pads added to prevent overloads, they’re perfect. They have the body but also the crack I want to hear. I’m a big fan of close-miking, so I’m looking forward to using the SCX25As a lot more in that application.”
