Without a Bunch of Expensive Gear
Hi all! I’ve been fiddling off and on with nTrack for about a year, and I finally registered a few weeks ago and decided I wanted to really try to have some fun with it.
My wife, kids, and I are all a bunch of extremely amateur players (myself being the MOST amateur), but we have fun playing together. For the past five years, we’ve been doing a homemade CD at Christmas time to send to the extended family. Until this year, we’ve always just plugged a cheesy little computer mic into the mic jack on my laptop and put it close to whatever instrument was being played at the time. I’m sure you all cringe and the thought, but it worked for our purposes.
Ever since I bought a used electric guitar and bass about a year ago, I’ve been trying to slowly improve the quality of our recordings. They will never be studio quality, but I’m trying to improve at least one notch on the quality scale.
So, I now have a PC with nTrack on it, a Behringer Eurorack UB1204 Pro mixer, a Behringer XM1800S mic 3-pack, a DigiTech RP200 guitar effects pedal, and a Peavey KB3 amp. I’m doing OK with the direct recording for the electric guitar and bass, but I’m looking for advice on recording acoustic/classical guitar. Last night I put one of the mics on a stand and set it up next to my wife playing her classical guitar. The mic was no more than 6-8 inches from the sound hole on the guitar. I had the fader on the mixer channel up to about 0db and the gain about halfway up. It seemed to record fine except for the low notes which sounded kind of fuzzy or distorted. It wasn’t due to clipping–the levels never got that high. I fiddled around with different EQ and compressor settings in nTrack, but the distortion is still painfully obvious at times.
So, my problem is this: I’m not going to invest in any more gear at this time, but I need to find a way to improve the quality when I record acoustic/classical guitar so that the low notes don’t sound bad.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Hi ddecjc
Recording acoustic guitar is one of the hardest things to get right imo.
The mics you have are pretty low end dynamics. Usually for recording an acoustic guitar a condenser mic works best, but I’ve had reasonable results with a humble SM58.
The recorded sound of an acoustic guitar is hugely dependent on the mic placement and position. Surprisingly so. I suggest you have someone play the guitar while you move the mic around (listening on headphones)… until you find a sweet spot. It may not be where you suspect.
…and also surprising is that you probably won’t get best results pointing the mic at the sound hole. It usually sounds too boomy. A good starting point is to try pointing the mic at the 12th fret instead.
Some thoughts to start with.
HTH
Mark
Thanks, Mark. I appreciate the tips. I realize that my gear isn’t the greatest, but I don’t have the budget for anything else at this time. I will definitely try playing with the mic placement to see if I can come up with some improvements.
Thanks again!
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| Thanks, Mark. I appreciate the tips. I realize that my gear isn’t the greatest, but I don’t have the budget for anything else at this time. I will definitely try playing with the mic placement to see if I can come up with some improvements. |
You’re right to not get too hung up on the gear. Use what you’ve got… push it to it’s limits, and only then consider upgrading. Plenty of great songs have been recorded with “less than great” gear.
Have fun. Let us know how you get on .
Mark
A few months back, I helped doing live sound with a friend’s son’s band. There were 2 acoustic guitars. The only mics available were cheapo dynamic mics and I set them up pretty much as Mark A described above. I was suprised at how well those cheapo mics reproduced the acoustic guitars with no feedback or distortion or low end booming.
| Quote (Doug W @ Nov. 05 2005,12:10) |
| A few months back, I helped doing live sound with a friend's son's band. There were 2 acoustic guitars. The only mics available were cheapo dynamic mics and I set them up pretty much as Mark A described above. I was suprised at how well those cheapo mics reproduced the acoustic guitars with no feedback or distortion or low end booming. |
Thanks. I hope to be able to do some experimenting tonight!
yeah, do some gooling on acoustic guitar mic positioning. i remember seeing alot of photo and illustration examples. if you’ve been pointing the mic directly at the sound hole, don’t. try positioning it more “across” the sound hole… some people like pointing it more towards the 12th fret.
edit: just saw someone else suggested this… hehe. must read more carefully.
| Quote (ddecjc @ Nov. 05 2005,07:02) |
| Hi all! I've been fiddling off and on with nTrack for about a year, and I finally registered a few weeks ago and decided I wanted to really try to have some fun with it. My wife, kids, and I are all a bunch of extremely amateur players (myself being the MOST amateur), but we have fun playing together. For the past five years, we've been doing a homemade CD at Christmas time to send to the extended family. Until this year, we've always just plugged a cheesy little computer mic into the mic jack on my laptop and put it close to whatever instrument was being played at the time. I'm sure you all cringe and the thought, but it worked for our purposes. Ever since I bought a used electric guitar and bass about a year ago, I've been trying to slowly improve the quality of our recordings. They will never be studio quality, but I'm trying to improve at least one notch on the quality scale. So, I now have a PC with nTrack on it, a Behringer Eurorack UB1204 Pro mixer, a Behringer XM1800S mic 3-pack, a DigiTech RP200 guitar effects pedal, and a Peavey KB3 amp. I'm doing OK with the direct recording for the electric guitar and bass, but I'm looking for advice on recording acoustic/classical guitar. Last night I put one of the mics on a stand and set it up next to my wife playing her classical guitar. The mic was no more than 6-8 inches from the sound hole on the guitar. I had the fader on the mixer channel up to about 0db and the gain about halfway up. It seemed to record fine except for the low notes which sounded kind of fuzzy or distorted. It wasn't due to clipping--the levels never got that high. I fiddled around with different EQ and compressor settings in nTrack, but the distortion is still painfully obvious at times. So, my problem is this: I'm not going to invest in any more gear at this time, but I need to find a way to improve the quality when I record acoustic/classical guitar so that the low notes don't sound bad. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated! Thanks! |
Don't feel bad about your gear, as you shouldn't. That is a world more then what some people have. You're doing good!
My personal solution when I can't get a good mic sound is I sit at my desk and get my gf to do all the work
This means I sit there and get her to move the mic on different angles from what I'm recording (so it goes from off axis to on axis) and then also just moving the stand around back and forth left and right. I have the instrument playing of course, and I sit and listen on some headphones.It's almost magical to hear how much the sound changes just from moving the microphone around and listening at the same time
Positioning is everything in this game… especially with something as complex as an acoutic guitar. Don’t be afraid to use more than one mic, move them around, and just experiment. Take the ball off the mic and see how the sound differs. Try different stereo techniques like XY, ORTF, or spaced pair. There are a lot of things to try.
Thanks, everyone. I will keep experimenting, but initial results are much better with mic on 12th fret.
Over the shoulder can be cool too.
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| Over the shoulder can be cool too. |
Good one Willy. (although it always sounds rubbish when I do it!).
Has anyone tried “over the shoulder” with a dynamic mic? Would it be sensitive enough?
Mark
Hi guys,
Thanks to All for the trick about positioning the microphone at the 12th fret . I had actually the same problem as ddecjc and I never realized how it sounds better this way. Great stuff indead.*
Cheers
| Quote (Mark A @ Nov. 06 2005,00:54) | ||
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Good one Willy. (although it always sounds rubbish when I do it!). Has anyone tried “over the shoulder” with a dynamic mic? Would it be sensitive enough? Mark |
I think I’ve done that. I can’t remember if it was a dynamic or a C1000. Sounded pretty good… was even better as you could set it to capture the guitarist singing and the guitar