How to
Record
the Cajon
at Home
Recording
Studio?
Author: Baba.L.Prasad. He is the owner and chief Sound/Mix
and Mastering Engineer at Digi Sound Studio. He also teaches
Sound Engineering and Music Production courses. For more
details, visit www.digisoundacademy.com
Well, most of you would like to record the Columbian
percussion Instrument known as the Cajon at your home
studio setup. While it is a very interesting instrument
to record, it is essential that you first understand the
character and the natural sound of the instrument. Given
that your room is acoustically treated or semi-teated,
you can get great amazing results. The player sits on
the Cajon like a stool, and with bare hands, plays the
instrument on the front of the panel. It produces a wide
range of sounds based on where it is struck. At the back,
there is a bass port or an air hole for the low-end sound,
just like a speaker. When played by an artist, it produces
a great tone and often sounds like an entire drum kit.
Microphone placement for Cajon:
There are many ways to mic the instrument and this method
will help you achieve a good natural tone from it. I use
two mics to record the Cajon, one I place at the center of
the panel where it is played and the other around 5 inches
away from the bass port or air hole to capture the low end
of the instrument. A pair of dynamic or condenser mics
will do. Set the gain level to less than -10db in order to have
more headroom for mixing. I use the Shure SM57 on the
front since it has a snare-like texture and at the back, a
Sennheiser MD421 to capture the low kick-like character.
Setting the EQ on the Front panel mic:
First, set the High pass filter to remove the bottom end
rumble in your room, around 100Hz – 120Hz, so that it
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cuts through ther mix in your song. Add a slight boost
around 5Khz-7Khz to give you a nice high crisp tone.
Setting the EQ on the bass port mic:
Now, set the High pass filter around 70Hz- 90Hz to
remove the unwanted rumble and then boost around
2-3 dB at around 100Hz or 110Hz. This will give you a
large bottom end and will sound solid in your mix.
Setting the Compression on the Front panel mic:
Set the threshold depending on your source material and
have a gentle compression with a 2:1 ratio. Make sure that
you have a gain reduction of not more than -3db and do not
squash too much of it. Leave the attack and release at a
medium setting so that it sounds natural. Do not use heavy
compression on this as it can sound very flat and mechanical.
Setting the Compression on the bass port mic:
Set the Threshold depending on your source with 2:1 or
3:1 ratio. Adjust the threshold so that your gain reduction
will be around -3 to -6dB. Get a blend of both, the front and
back mics and balance according to your source sound.
Remember to always tweak and make adjustments to your
mix with all your tracks enabled in order to get a more
detailed context of the sound. To add a little ambience to your
Cajon, just add a little plate reverb to the front microphone.
I hope these tips help you in your home sttudio recordings.