Mic'ing Folk Singer with Guitar.....How Do I Get Separation?
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JohnDavisNYC
- ghost haunting audio students
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joel hamilton
- zen recordist
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I'm the drummer in a very acoustic funky/folk trio, I just recorded our singer using one mic, a ksm44, to a UA 2108 pre, I usually use the 2108 for tracking my drums but the great thing is that you have a lot of gain adjustment to play with, I dialed up the gain to about 40 ran that to a rnc in soopa nice mode to pro tools.
I put the mic at about 12th fret midway between guitar and mouth of our singer. This kept any sibilance at a minimum but stiil captured a great vocal and the right amount of fret/fingers and overall guitar sound.
The room is a semi live room...2 futons rugs,but harwood floors and lots of canvas paintings...anyway tthe recordings came out great. As mentioned in a previous postrelated to folk singers, our singer has a lot of experience balancing his sound and its great to take advantage of that.
After that i eq'd it slightly using the kickass free 3 band offered here in the gear forum and also tried out a bit of the free tape saturation on a seperate track panned hard left, it gave it a bit of grit that complimented the fairly clean ksm sound. it was really simple and very satisfying.
The cool thing was I know very well what he should sound like and he sounds the way he should, open, a bit of room verb and simple.
I put the mic at about 12th fret midway between guitar and mouth of our singer. This kept any sibilance at a minimum but stiil captured a great vocal and the right amount of fret/fingers and overall guitar sound.
The room is a semi live room...2 futons rugs,but harwood floors and lots of canvas paintings...anyway tthe recordings came out great. As mentioned in a previous postrelated to folk singers, our singer has a lot of experience balancing his sound and its great to take advantage of that.
After that i eq'd it slightly using the kickass free 3 band offered here in the gear forum and also tried out a bit of the free tape saturation on a seperate track panned hard left, it gave it a bit of grit that complimented the fairly clean ksm sound. it was really simple and very satisfying.
The cool thing was I know very well what he should sound like and he sounds the way he should, open, a bit of room verb and simple.
helpful info from Wilco YHF sessions
you might find this interesting
http://mixonline.com/recording/intervie ... index.html
http://mixonline.com/recording/intervie ... index.html
Heya Kona,
I've only listened to "My Path" so far, but I had to respond before moving to "Jacob's Song". OK, Grain-of-Salt: I'm listening through my eMac's headphone jack on my Sony 7502's, but dammit! Man that is so much more in the ballpark than you're giving yourself credit for. First, I can see why you're so high on this guy. Without sounding overly derivative, he reminds me of early Dylan in sprirt and sincerity and your recording definitely serves that. What I would do ( sorry - I know you're not asking for mixing advice and with my limited experience, I'm probably the last one who should give any! ) is carve out a little from the "mud"-range ( 300-500Hz ) on the guitar track. As for the vox/'git balance I think it's fine on this material. Nice work,
Armond
I've only listened to "My Path" so far, but I had to respond before moving to "Jacob's Song". OK, Grain-of-Salt: I'm listening through my eMac's headphone jack on my Sony 7502's, but dammit! Man that is so much more in the ballpark than you're giving yourself credit for. First, I can see why you're so high on this guy. Without sounding overly derivative, he reminds me of early Dylan in sprirt and sincerity and your recording definitely serves that. What I would do ( sorry - I know you're not asking for mixing advice and with my limited experience, I'm probably the last one who should give any! ) is carve out a little from the "mud"-range ( 300-500Hz ) on the guitar track. As for the vox/'git balance I think it's fine on this material. Nice work,
Armond
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konabuzz
- takin' a dinner break
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Hey, THANKS to all respondees.......
Arneal.....yeah, I've since gone back and done some minor tweaking, eq'ing very slightly, rolling off the mic rumble -- that sort of thing. Also, were I to re-record it I think I'd insert a compressor for the vocal over peaking that your hear occasionally -- wasn't hearing it at the time, but of course it appeared on tape. Thanks for the kind words re. the artist -- he would be the first to admit the Dylan connection, as he's probably Bob's #1 fan. I think he'll be going places.
In retrospect I fear this thread was much ado about nothing, as I'm generally pleased with the results, but I still go back to Dylan's debut on Columbia with John Hammond. I've ripped the songs and look at their waveforms, and they are stereo after all...hmmmm. If you mute the vocal, and just listen to the guitar track, you can just make out the vocal very faintly. This blows me away -- how did they get that HUGE separation? I suspect the oft-mentioned figure 8 ribbon was in play, maybe some playing with phase, too. Another thing that's interesting is the huge dynamic range -- the waveforms only peak around -6db....wow. Imagine that today?
Oh, by the way, I used the Hamptone Tube pre for these -- love that thing. I've got the JFET coming any day, now.
Arneal.....yeah, I've since gone back and done some minor tweaking, eq'ing very slightly, rolling off the mic rumble -- that sort of thing. Also, were I to re-record it I think I'd insert a compressor for the vocal over peaking that your hear occasionally -- wasn't hearing it at the time, but of course it appeared on tape. Thanks for the kind words re. the artist -- he would be the first to admit the Dylan connection, as he's probably Bob's #1 fan. I think he'll be going places.
In retrospect I fear this thread was much ado about nothing, as I'm generally pleased with the results, but I still go back to Dylan's debut on Columbia with John Hammond. I've ripped the songs and look at their waveforms, and they are stereo after all...hmmmm. If you mute the vocal, and just listen to the guitar track, you can just make out the vocal very faintly. This blows me away -- how did they get that HUGE separation? I suspect the oft-mentioned figure 8 ribbon was in play, maybe some playing with phase, too. Another thing that's interesting is the huge dynamic range -- the waveforms only peak around -6db....wow. Imagine that today?
Oh, by the way, I used the Hamptone Tube pre for these -- love that thing. I've got the JFET coming any day, now.
I agree that separation is overrated. What I'd do is spend time using several microphones to pick up the performer, whatever he/she is doing. Make sure each of these mics is in phase with the others, and take the time to find sweet spots. Hopefully you have a good sounding room.
You can also experiment during mixdown with phasing and multing, as others in the thread have said.
You can also experiment during mixdown with phasing and multing, as others in the thread have said.
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