When making a hammer dulcimer recording, the first thing to remember is that it is a hammer dulcimer recording. Yes, this seems like an obvious “no duh” type of statement, but this is important point because the way the album is produced changes drastically.
Dulcimer stays prominent
This means that the dulcimer should be the most prominent instrument in the mix. When people buy a hammer dulcimer CD, they want to listen to a hammer dulcimer, not your other instrumentation. Thus, I feel that it should remain front and center. I can only think of a reason to pan if you have more than one dulcimer.
Record in stereo
To see my suggestions for how to do this, read this article.
Hammer Dulcimers are not recorded often
Many producers/engineers have little to no experience with recording the hammer dulcimer, and it is a different approach than with other instruments. In the music production industry, most ears have been trained to record the more common instruments such as the guitar, piano, violin, cello, etc. And, not surprising, most music recording gear is designed to do well with recording these instruments. Thus, finding the right ears and equipment to produce a hammer dulcimer recording is a challenge.
Personally, I like an unprocessed sound. When listening, I want it to be as if you’re sitting next to it. Sound simple? Actually, it’s not. Recording equipment translates sounds so many different ways, getting it to sound “real” is tough!
Don’t over-compress!
I’ll start with common mistakes that professional engineers make with the hammer dulcimer. First mistake: over-compression. Since the hammer dulcimer is a percussive instrument, when it is recorded it is extremely easy to have hits which attack your ears. This is not always an indication of a poor performance, but is often the nature of the instrument. It’s very simple for engineers to solve this issue by over-compressing the interpretive life out of the recording. Some compression will result in a more polished feel, but hammer dulcimers simply do not sound realistic when over-compressed. Be careful!
Analog is your friend
The second biggest mistake of engineers is to automatically record and mix completely digital. But digital tends to be harsh. Combine that with a percussive stringed instrument, and you get an overbearing attack (which is why engineers will over compress) The way to solve the issue of the attack is analog equipment. From my experience, recording with top-tier analog pre-amp and mixing with an analog reverb (to add a realistic smoothness) will solve 80% of the attack issues. The other 20% can be solved with the mixing board and compression. To prove this point and for comparison purposes, listen to Stillness (pure-digital) to Desire for Departure (analog/digital combination) and you tell me which is a smoother, more realistic sound.
Control the reverb
The third big production mistake is too much reverb. Commonly, reverb is added to smooth out the attacks since they were unaware of how to record the dulcimer to begin with or other alternative ways to enhance the smoothness. While this is understandable, too much reverb still sounds bad, processed, and unrealistic. The hammer dulcimer provides enough natural reverb by itself that it needs little to no reverb added to it. In my opinion, the only need for reverb is to add a consistency, smoothness, and polish to your mix.
How to Record and Mix the Hammer Dulcimer