Acoustic Guitar Techniques

[centurymantra]

Being relatively new to the world of recording engineering, I'm certainly no expert, but I have been doing a bit of recording with acoustic instruments lately. I was recording one particular guitar/player and fiddling around with finding the 'sweet spot' which they were insisting was down near the body. I was a little leary of that notion but ended up with a very cool sound using a SDC (an AKG C60) pointed down the bridge from the 4th or 5th fret a foot or so out with a second mic, oddly enough a dynamic (Beyer M88), the same distance out at the middle portion of the body pointing toward the general region of the soundhole. Sounds pretty great mixed together. M88 was going through a Sebatron pre and the AKG through a Sytek.

[joeshambro]

i have great results using 2 AKG C414 in mid-side at 12th fret.

[inverseroom]

Alice on the 12th fret. Done.

Yep. But I must add that I just got the stereo Alice and it's twice as good. Seriously, for a one-mic stereo solution on acoustic, it kills. If anybody wants to hear this in a song, drop me a PM...

I run it through the VLA for a bit of compression too.

[luckybastard]

What is "alice"?

[inverseroom]

What is "alice"?

http://scotthelmke.com/alice-mic.html

By our own Scodiddly.

[luckybastard]

does he sell these?

[inverseroom]

Yeah he does, email him! I believe he's in the middle of a move at the moment but I'm sure he'll answer your email. It's a great mic, a nice bright SDC that kills on acoustic.

[the velour fog]

hmmm...alice could be the answer to my problems. i definetely like it based on the sound samples.

[Bill @ Irie Lab]

Howdy,

My acoustic guitar treatment for acoustic Stones or Neil Yong 70's feel (freaked-out folk, etc.).

Dynamic mic (I use a Nady, cus I bought a bunch of them cheap and can leave the rig setup) -> XLR to 1/4 adapter -> ultra-gain overdrive stopbox (the type that's too out of control to use on an electric and therefore sits in a closet) -> line input of mixer.

12th fret of fingerboard aimed toward sound hole. Set gain on box so it breaks into distortion during loudest passages.

I like that gives an artist a middle ground between the Martin and the Marshall.

Thougt I throw that in; it's fun and player thinks you're a genius (Well, sometimes anyway!)

Aloha and cheers,

Bill

[NewAndImprov]

For an acoustic and voice together I often use a figure 8 for the vocal. It keeps the guitar out of the vocal nicely. Then I have some options with compression, EQ and even effects.

How do you place the mic so that it captures the voice and not the guitar? I have a session coming up where I'll be recording guitar and voice simultaneously, and was thinking about picking up one of the Shiny Box ribbon mic's, because I have a gut feeling that it'll work well on this vocalist.

I did some recording this summer with a fingerstyle guitarist using metal fingerpicks, on a fairly nice newer Martin. The signal chain was:

Neumann TLM 103 about 18 inches off the neck/body joint, into an Amek/Neve 9098

Beyer M260 at the lower front corner of the guitar, a few inches off the top of the guitar, through an NCA N72.

The Neumann got a really nice, bright, clear attack from the strings, and the Beyer filled in the lows and mids, the 2 cxomplemented each other nicely.

[JohnDavisNYC]

as for the person who asked about my XY ish thing... the mics start XY and then move a little find the right spot... might have to have the vocal mic a little further up the neck if the singer sings that direction comfortably... but it's basically vertical XY, but different mics and adjusting them each a bit (maybe moving the vocal one a little higher and out of the way, but still trying to keep the other instrument in the null of the vocal mic and vice versa.

hope that helps. i suck at explaining stuff.

john

[moosapotamus]

Lot's of cool recipies in this thread.

Of course, great mic + great guitar = great sounding guitar track

But, I think the challenge is coaxing good sounds out of mediocre guitars. I've tried recorded a crappy 12-string with a decent large-diaphram mic and the result was a great recording of a crappy sounding guitar. That wasn't exactly what we were really going for at the time. But, fortunately, that 12-string track got buried in a rock mix. Anyway...

I think different guitars resonate in physically different places. Some of those places sound good, some don't. So, I find multiple mics necessary for getting a good sound from a cheapo guitar. I also like using a set of headphones as a mic, strapped around the guitar's body above the neck. I find that can sometimes bring in some of the low end fullness that's typically lacking in a mediocre guitar.

~ Charlie

[Red Rockets Glare]

Howdy,

My acoustic guitar treatment for acoustic Stones or Neil Yong 70's feel (freaked-out folk, etc.).

Dynamic mic (I use a Nady, cus I bought a bunch of them cheap and can leave the rig setup) -> XLR to 1/4 adapter -> ultra-gain overdrive stopbox (the type that's too out of control to use on an electric and therefore sits in a closet) -> line input of mixer.

12th fret of fingerboard aimed toward sound hole. Set gain on box so it breaks into distortion during loudest passages.

I like that gives an artist a middle ground between the Martin and the Marshall.

Thougt I throw that in; it's fun and player thinks you're a genius (Well, sometimes anyway!)

Aloha and cheers,

Bill

let's hear it!

[KennyLusk]

Alice on the 12th fret. Done.

Yep. But I must add that I just got the stereo Alice and it's twice as good. Seriously, for a one-mic stereo solution on acoustic, it kills. If anybody wants to hear this in a song, drop me a PM...

I run it through the VLA for a bit of compression too.

I'll second that. I have the single capsule version of the Alice and for single mic techniques on acoustic my Martin absolutely LOVES that mic.

Same thing with the VLA compression. Just a slight touch for added color and it's a dream, with gobs of presence.

I love that mic so much I used it exclusively on a simple AC Guitar/ quiet Vox tune and used it on the Vox as well.