Recording Engineer Sam Pura Has a Mic Robot, Because Robots Make Everything Better

I don’t know if you caught the “Making & Using Guitar Profiles” CreativeLive course from Panda Studios engineer Sam Pura, but it was crammed full of solid info in the same way that my burritos are stuffed too full of food and don’t roll properly. Admittedly its for the specific niche of us who are lucky enough to own a Kemper Profiling Amplifier, which is certainly no SM57 in terms of ubiquity. But if you have perchance dropped two grand on a high end piece of gear like that, I’m sure you’d like to master it.

CreativeLive have posted a couple of clips from the class, for your free perusement. These snippets were well snipped, because the theory involve theory that’s useful to any recording guitarist, Kemper or no. His “3dB” rule is certainly a good rule of thumb if you want to be sure you’re not overly EQ’ing your instrument, and his mic placement chart is a handy visualization, but I’m just enamored of the robot. Sam has built a remote-controlled arm that moves left and right, forwards and backwards, allowing him to hear minute changes in real time. I think this is genius.

How often have you had to take 5 minutes to stop the recording, slightly more the mic, and record again , only to realize the old position was better and you have to hope you’re able to put the mic exactly back? But to have the guitarist keep playing as the microphone slowly scans for the sweet spot, without the added cost of paying an assistant? I’d wager many would find that robot a good investment. Honestly, I’ve love to buy one. Well done, sir.