Post by: rjd2 on January 28, 2006, 10:58:29 AM
i havent been able to get an acoustic guitar sound i like. it always ends up sounding like a bad demo, mostly like the mic is right up the guitars ass or something. how do i get even close to the sound on nick drake records? i have tried the below, on 6-string martin and classical guitar:
1)-all my favorite bummy flea market, realistic dynamic mics, through an rca ba-31, 1176 at 4-1 ratio-protools.
2)-MG70----610 preamp----protools.
3)-royer 121-----rca ba-31 or 610 preamps-----protools.
all of these i have tried from 6" to 3 feet back, aimed at the soundhole of the guitar. #1 has gotten me the closest, but still not near where i want to be. what am i doing wrong? or do nice, rich acoustic guitar sounds that arent too bright come from eq/reverb/mixing? thanks alot for your help.
Post by: scottoliphant on January 28, 2006, 11:31:10 AM
Post by: giraffe on January 28, 2006, 02:27:46 PM
Post by: SirDonut on January 28, 2006, 02:54:36 PM
Nick Drake certainly wasn't playing a cheap/laminate guitar on 'pink moon.'
Post by: Klokkern on January 28, 2006, 03:18:51 PM
This has always given me good results, the better the guitar the better sound...
Regards,
larsK
Post by: rjd2 on January 28, 2006, 07:40:03 PM
Post by: freshvictims on January 28, 2006, 08:44:16 PM
Hope that's helpful and not too obvious!
Post by: smorgdonkey on January 29, 2006, 12:01:07 AM
Don't process while recording...do that afterwards.
Post by: vernier on January 29, 2006, 02:36:43 AM
Four Walls Been Gettin' You Down
Post by: jonathan jetter on January 29, 2006, 02:44:23 AM
if the resulting sound is too thin, i'll add another mic on the body, behind the bridge, and mix it in behind the main mic.
for different sounds i've tried other things. XY from a distance is cool. more "real." less "pop."
Post by: Brett Mixter Rader on January 29, 2006, 05:12:29 AM
The thing I´ve found about large Martin guitars is that they sound glorious on their own but can be hard to squeeze into a full mix. If the arrangement is sparse, then try the above with the other mic in cardioid pointing towards the 12th fret (careful of phase issues - use the 3 to 1 rule) you can decide which mic (or use both) to use at mix time. A cool trick if you double the guitar is to use 1 mic from each.
Post by: rjd2 on January 29, 2006, 10:39:55 AM
Post by: tom eaton on January 29, 2006, 10:57:01 AM
The coolest thing we did on this particular session was put a green bullet right alongside the 635 and blend it way under... crunchy, and really cool sounding. This was for a dark bluegrass record, so the guitar will be pretty featured. I record acoustics pretty much every day, and I was totally impressed with the 635 used that way. I use some Beyer 101 (also omni dynamic) mics for acoustic on occasion, but the 635 was far better on this guitar.
-tom
Post by: Joe Black on January 29, 2006, 11:14:29 AM
I find the richness of Drakes recordings lie in his voice, melodies and playing style (weird tunings and fingers), not in his guitar 'sound'. In fact I think the lack of richness of his guitar tone amplifies the haunting qualities of his voice. I think you'll be hard pressed to get to that sound with a Martin Dreadnaught, or even a Martin small body. All of my Martins, big and small, have a....um....richness to their tone I've never experienced from a Guild of any description, though I love the old Guild small bodied varieties for thier unique sounds.
Maybe a single mic on the dreadnaught up the neck might be a way to go or some of the other techniques suggested in combination with the player concentrating his pick or finger attack near the bridge for a tighter more focused string sound, staying away from the open woodiness found when playing near the neck.
Best of luck!
Post by: maxdimario on January 31, 2006, 06:25:30 AM
the old martins can cut it (mahogany is better for rhythm).
martins seem to have a lot more bass than you need for recording, so you have to be careful about the mics etc.
Post by: Ronny on January 31, 2006, 10:14:24 AM
| maxdimario wrote on Tue, 31 January 2006 06:25 |
The martins you buy now are dull in the mids and have a peaky high end. the old martins can cut it (mahogany is better for rhythm). martins seem to have a lot more bass than you need for recording, so you have to be careful about the mics etc. |
I guess this applies to all 12 million Martins and 212 models made since the 1800's hey, Max.
Fact of the matter is that the tone on any acoustic guitar changes with the position of the mic and where the ear of the listener resides. If the guitar is boomy, stick a fret mic on there, and cut the hole mic track down and you'll compensate for the boom with the fret mic, as it will only capture the highs with serious lack of low end. I'd put the fret mic as close as you can get though, because the SPL from the hole mic is going to make that track significantly hotter. On mixdown the fret mic track fader will have to be higher than the hole mic 99% of the time. For guitarists that have a problem not hearing the sound they want, a great trick that works for me is an LC placed on a large boom and over the shoulder of the guitarists strumming hand, at ear height, cardioid pattern capsule facing down and placed just in front of the plane of the front panel on the guitar and added to the fret and hole mic for 3 tracks. This will pickup the guitar from the players perspective, what he normally hears. I started doing this long ago with picky orchestra soloists that would complain about not capturing their tone. Dawned on me one day to just stick another mic near their ear and nipped that problem in the bud, but found that it worked even better on acoustic guitar for adding a natural sound. You can even add the bridge transducer if it's decent and have 4 tracks on the one acoustic guitar performance, but typically micing the hole, 12th fret and over the shoulder, works on any guitar with any performer.
On mixdown I typically pan the hole track slightly L or R of center and the fret mic opposite, eq and blend the gains so that they are equal volume in L and R. The over the shoulder mic is than mixed in "center panned", to add natural ambience and the formants from the performers perspective. Depending on the mix balance whether the hole track goes on the L or R, I tend to balance the lows and highs across the L and R axis, if there's a bass guitar on the L side slightly off center or a low synth panned L, I'll stick the hole track from the guitar on the R side and the fret track on the L.
Most of the time I use a dynamic mic on the hole. Lately I like the Audix OM-6 as it has high SPL and goes up almost as high in frequency response as a large condenser at 19kHz. Small condenser on the 12th fret like a KM184 and a U87 or Rode NTK tube for the over the shoulder mic. I typically place the hole mic close but on 45 degree axis, so that it's not directly in front of the hole, but facing it and as close as I can get it and still have the performer playing comfortably. Fret mic as close as I can get without artist bumping it and the over the shoulder about 5 inches in front of the vertical plane of the front panel of the guitar with capsule facing down about 2 feet above the hole.
If you understand what I'm relating rjd2 and you mirror my 3 mic technique, I'll guarantee you that you'll get a good sound, providing the guitar is decent to begin with.
Max this is the technique that I mentioned to you, where the guitarists have commented that the recording sounded better than the live sound.
Post by: smj on January 31, 2006, 12:22:13 PM
Sean Meredith-Jones
Post by: bushwick on January 31, 2006, 05:39:22 PM
josh
Post by: maxdimario on January 31, 2006, 06:03:28 PM
| Quote: |
If you understand what I'm relating rjd2 and you mirror my 3 mic technique, I'll guarantee you that you'll get a good sound, providing the guitar is decent to begin with. Max this is the technique that I mentioned to you, where the guitarists have commented that the recording sounded better than the live sound. |
this may very well be, as you are using the mics to make the sound happen.
Most martins, after Martin put a truss rod in the neck, sound too bassy and soft or stiff for a one mic recording, if you want to mix them with drums etc.in my experience.
Early martins have a more complex and present midrange.
When people think of martin they think dreadnaught.
dreadnaught guitars were ok when microphones had a lot of bass roll-off, in the early days of broadcast.
Martin actually didn't approve of the design initially as it is inherently unbalanced.
The smaller martin guitars are more balanced and will work with one or two mics.
guild is dryer but more balanced sounding.
Gibson guitars built before 1970 can do the job well without need for eq.
anyway bassy and soft sounding guitars work better live, or at the music store, than on record... unless you use special mic'ing etc as ronny does.
I don't like Taylors or the boutique guitars most of the time because they are too cute sounding, and they don't stand up too well.
there are some exceptions of course.
I think that acoustic sounds need to be a little on the dry sound to work well, but it has to be a complex dry.. like fine whiskey
Post by: smorgdonkey on January 31, 2006, 10:28:27 PM
| bushwick wrote on Tue, 31 January 2006 15:39 |
The best recorded acoustic sounds I have gotten have come from guitars that don't have a ton of bottom end - regardless of whether I use one or more mics. josh |
I tend to get a mic position set in which the bottom isn't too prominent and then I either low shelf a good cut or high pass from somewhere 'down there'...so there'll be room for bass and kick and blah blah...almost something in common!!
Post by: Vertigo on February 01, 2006, 10:20:12 PM
| Quote: |
If you understand what I'm relating rjd2 and you mirror my 3 mic technique, I'll guarantee you that you'll get a good sound, providing the guitar is decent to begin with. |
Someone posted this technique about a year ago and man - I haven't had trouble recording an acoustic since. I also usually add the DI in behind these three (if the guitar has pickups), and then pan the tracks a good bit to get a stereo spread, keeping the bassier soundhole mic (I use a D-19c) in the middle. This keeps the most low end energy from the guitar coming through both speakers evenly which makes it easy to pan the other tracks the way I want while still retaining a feeling of balance in the stereo field.
Great technique - it helped me a lot.
-Lance
Post by: Ronny on February 01, 2006, 11:11:34 PM
| Vertigo wrote on Wed, 01 February 2006 22:20 | ||
Someone posted this technique about a year ago and man - I haven't had trouble recording an acoustic since. I also usually add the DI in behind these three (if the guitar has pickups), and then pan the tracks a good bit to get a stereo spread, keeping the bassier soundhole mic (I use a D-19c) in the middle. This keeps the most low end energy from the guitar coming through both speakers evenly which makes it easy to pan the other tracks the way I want while still retaining a feeling of balance in the stereo field. Great technique - it helped me a lot. -Lance |
Glad that its been working for you. I haven't had any complaints in the 25 years or so that I've been doing it and it typically blows the mind of the guitarist, first time he hears his guitar played back, when tracked that way. If the guitar has a pickup or bridge transducer that sounds decent, I'll sometimes place it in the center with the over the shoulder mic and rather than use any verb or delay, I'll set my ambient blend between the over mic and the pick up track down the center. There really are no rules and this gives you a whole lot to work with regarding stereo imaging from a normally mono sounding instrument. Even hard L and R on the fret and hole tracks works well on some material. I've also used all 4 tracks panned equally and leveled and had none dead center for some tunes. To me it sounds better than double tracking the acoustic 90% of the time, the extra time to set up the mics is made up by the time that it takes to double track a performance.
Post by: Eddie Matthews on February 02, 2006, 10:56:39 AM
Post by: Jørn Bonne on February 04, 2006, 09:13:41 AM
J
Post by: hargerst on February 04, 2006, 10:59:43 AM
| J
Post by: Vertigo on February 05, 2006, 04:08:49 AM
The Extreme Isolation headphones help eliminate click bleed as well. -Lance Post by: Joe Crawford on February 09, 2006, 11:01:41 AM However, at least from my limited experience, classical guitars are a dog of a different breed. Each one seems to require a totally different, unique set up. I had one in here last month where I must have tried a dozen different mic’s and placements. I finally wound up with the brightest cheap Chinese LDC I own (I think it was a free-be for buy’n something) at the 12th fret position, a TLM103 over the shoulder and an omni room mic about 6 feet away. I guess there are just no standards in this business, just starting points. Joe Crawford Stony Mountain Studio Shanks, WV 26761 Post by: maccool on February 09, 2006, 08:34:51 PM
Quite so, Joe. And a bit of magic in the placement helps. I was reading this thread while listening to Kottke's "Unbar" from his "Try and Stop Me" album, so I played it over a few times. It sounds so basic, but on closer listening there's a whole lot going on. I figure just one mic around the 12th fret, a bit of DI'd transducer, and maybe a room mic? Whatever, I'm most likely wrong, but it's magic. Post by: karlo on February 09, 2006, 08:35:47 PM
rjd2, it looks like you will need to re-examine the guitar, the playing style and the aforementioned techniques. don't forget and/or underestimate the fact there were no protools back in nick drake's day. there's something about the tape... however, martin i own sounds different with brand new and 10 day old strings. not to mention going over 30 day period without replacing them. you will need a small body, mahogany guitar to emulate strong, but non-flashy sound of his recordings. not to mention the playing style. martin 00-17 or guild m20 come to mind. Post by: floodstage on February 09, 2006, 10:17:12 PM Post by: Ronny on February 09, 2006, 11:25:19 PM
You won't have any phase problems if you set the hole and 12th fret mics close. Anytime phase enters the equation it's because the tracking eng isn't following the 3 to 1 rule. Post by: floodstage on February 10, 2006, 06:10:25 PM Guess here the mics were? X-Y. Pointed at bridge and 12th fret. Imagine that! Trying the 3 mic setup next session. Post by: RMoore on February 11, 2006, 05:19:21 AM Considering the time they were recorded I am sure that they just stuck a good mic on the guitar, run through good console preamp and to tape with no fuss or fretting (no pun intended)...I would bet you could have put ND in front of almost any mics & you'd still have gotten that ND sound. IMO the biggest part of the ND sound must have to do with his guitar and own playing style, not to mention alternate tunings which change the whole character of the sound.. You might like the UK guitar legend Bert Jansch - not sure how well he's known in the US (?) but he was a major influence on many UK folkies with an insane picking style. I think even some folk people on that side of the pond were into him like Niel Young & Joni Mitchell ...Page's acoustic work was very influenced by BJ I do believe and Zep even incorporated ideas from him - like from Black Water Side. Listen for yourself: http://tinyurl.com/d5vhl There's a killer essential IMO double album collection around on 1 x CD with the '65/ '66 albums 'Bert Jansch' & 'Jack Orion' Transatlantic / Demon TDEMCD14 Post by: Joe Black on February 12, 2006, 07:52:02 PM
Thanks for that. I'll be ordering from my local record store tomorrow. Post by: Buzz on March 30, 2006, 09:30:01 PM THANKS GUYS LAter Buzz Post by: wwittman on March 31, 2006, 11:27:54 PM But in pop or rock with other instruments, especially loud guitars or drums, around, I never use more than one mic. Anyone see the McCartney at Abbey Road special on tv a few weeks ago? Playing and singing in front of 2 U-47's (or 48's ) and the guitar sounded great. no careful positioning either... just standing in the general vicinity of a great mic in a great room with a really good guitar. All of MY favourite acoustic recordings have actually been with Gibsons, and most often with J-200's! Very bassy guitars (rumour has it that it was designed to be picked up by the vocal mic and still sound full enough) yet with the right EQ they always seem to shine. Listen to the Tommy overture. A near perfect acoustic sound. I typically put a large diaphragm vocal type condenser about 8" in front of the guitar pointed at somewhere betwen the neck and the hole. If it's boomy I lower it and point more at the high strings. Too clicky, I pull the mic up and point it down at the spot. But it rarely varies MUCH from that starting point. I'm very fond of the RCA Ba6a as well, but I've also had good luck with La2a's. Naturally compression isn't NECESSARY, just seems to help it find its place in the balance sometimes. These days I use the Gefell UM-900 a lot, but I've also used the U-47, Gefell UM-70's, KM-86's and even the occasional STC 4038 when I wanted a more transparent, less substantial sort of sound. Post by: maccool on April 01, 2006, 11:57:49 AM
The room is crucial. What's your room like? Post by: maxdimario on April 01, 2006, 04:59:33 PM
...but they have that gibson 'chime' to them that cuts through anyway. there's that midrange resonance to them as well, which martins seem to lack. Post by: Pete G on April 02, 2006, 04:02:34 AM Didn't I read recently that you had used a Brauner VM1 on acoustic guitar for Cindy Lauper? How would you rate that mic for acoustic guitars? cheers pg Post by: mattrussell on April 05, 2006, 11:22:26 AM someone a while back showed me two things...if you record acoustic guitar with the player using a click, make the click dark sounding in their headphones. really keeps the bleed down. also, try starting with just one mic and put on the gtr player's headphones and have them play. have your assist pot up the mic a fair amount and move the mic around until you find the sweet spot. do this with the mic on the boom stand. hold it in place and quickly lock it down. (use the stand like a boom pole). you'll get really close and after listening in the control room, you'll maybe need to do a slight adjustment. it usually gets me 90% there. Post by: wwittman on April 05, 2006, 10:47:27 PM
I used the Vma (actually) on Cyndi's vocals, but mostly Gefell UM900's on the guitars. Post by: Pete G on April 06, 2006, 01:03:17 AM used the Vma (actually) on Cyndi's vocals, but mostly Gefell UM900's on the guitars. Thanks William, my mistake - you have the Gefell pointing at the lower front of the body - is this a regular positioning or just the most appropriate positioning for these particular circumstances? Post by: wwittman on April 07, 2006, 02:35:35 AM it does look like it's pointing down a bit in that photo, it's sort of coming in down at an angle at the guitar, but it's not really pointing at the lower part of the body specifically, it's just the angle in the photo. here's another of the same session (that's Jamie West-Oram) from Cyndi's last record. Post by: rphilbeck on April 07, 2006, 05:56:34 PM RON & HOWARD ALBERT have graced the acoustic guitar sounds of Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Steve Cropper, et al. The key? According to Ron? Hardware. “The ultimate acoustic guitar sound is a Martin D-45, preferably vintage, with bronze-wound strings. Put a Neumann U-87 into a shockmount and place it on a stand upside down, so the capsule is at the bottom — the secret is that you don’t get reflections off the metal body of the microphone that way. Set the mic on axis to the strings, as close as comfortable to the guitarist. Then, run it first through a Pultech PEQ-1A equalizer, because they have the ability to cut and boost in the same frequency range simultaneously. That’s what we do — cut and boost the highs and lows; the microphone honks the mids on its own. Then send it through a UREI 1176LN compressor. The setting will vary according to how hard the guitarist plays. “On vocals, one longtime trick of ours has been to use dynamic microphones, like a Shure SM-7, for rock vocals. Dynamics lower the proximity effect and they tend to sit in the mix better, whereas condensers tend to pop out.” Post by: wwittman on April 10, 2006, 01:15:40 AM If you think the soundwaves know whether the mic is pointing up or down... well, then your guitars are a LOT more unidirectional than mine. Post by: Ronny on April 10, 2006, 01:53:39 PM
I agree, but mainly with the part about boosting and cutting the same freq's. This makes little sense to me other than they are just being euphonic with the extra device in the chain. Post by: brett on April 15, 2006, 05:34:20 AM
brilliant!! I spent... I don't know how many hours tryng to record my freinds Taylor Rythm guitar. We never did get it right. If I had read this then It would have saved our sessions. We scrapped it all after 3 sessions and he ended up going to a full scale studio to do his project. I had offered to do his acoustic album for him but I had no idea how hard getting it would be. Trying to get his guitar to sound good through is low SPL ballad intros to his exploding rythm parts was a nightmare. This techniqe would have done wonders, but I only had one mic at the time. i have a couple now, RE20 and a C1, but I think a pair of km184 or similar and a T3 or a NTKtube will be coming soon. The NTKtube sounds very nice on vocals too, and the RE20 does low end so well. I am sure on the guitar hole it will do well. The C1 should do the over shoulder or room micing well too. I can't wait to try it. thanks, Brett Post by: grizzly joe on April 18, 2006, 10:11:02 PM hmm... Post by: Ronny on April 18, 2006, 10:42:43 PM
Topic was: acoustic guitar sound help, mine is shitty He needs to get his single tracking right first, otherwise he's just double tracking the same dull mic configuration. The 3 mic technique makes double tracking less important because instead of having 2 reapeat tracks slightly out of phase, you have 3 tracks to work the stereo image with, isolation of low, mid and high tones and also the over the shoulder mic is excellent for adding natural ambience and giving the recording a window from the performers perspective. The ambient mic when panned center, can replace the typical reverb that a single mic'd acoustic track may require, even if it's double tracked. He says his guitar sound is shitty, if he double tracks without rethinking mic placement, than he's going to have 2 shitty tracks. If the bridge transducer is good quality, adding it on a 4th track will give even more depth and gives a larger tonal pallette. It's also cleaner sounding than double tracking as there are no beat frequencies or phasing between the two guitars. There are no rules, these are just suggestions that have worked for me for a few decades, double tracking acoustic is fine, but I'd make sure that you have the guitar sounding good on the first take. Post by: IainDearg on April 20, 2006, 11:30:44 AM . This applies to solo guitar recording in particular. I've been recording Martins and Gibsons for nigh on 25 years as a musician (only 3 of which were professional ). This was by and large in studios in Londnon and only latterly in my own setup in Scotland. I tend not to fuss or obsess about the niceties (any more), but 3 fundementals are non-negotiable.1. A fine guitar. I use a Martin OM-18 these days (small body, mahogony. Lots of snap and oomph.) 2. An acceptable room. This means for me broadband absorption to tame room modes. 3 No phase issues. Any spaced mic techique has phase issues to my ears now. The so-called 3 to 1 rule is not good enough so it's X/Y or mid-side for me. X/Y is my go-to with SDCs - about 18" pointing at the dovetail joint. An additional important advantage of coincident mics is that the guitar image is not 20 foot wide on playback. These things are 3 foot wide? The above are inviolate and if I follow them I get realistic guitar recordings - not a splashy, muddy or mushy mess. Guitar set-up is more important than the age of strings (within reason). A guitar with a medioce set-up will have intonation problems to some degree, may be difficult to play cleanly, and may even fret-buzz to an unmusical degree. Tuning machines my even resonate on certain notes. Stuff like EQ, compression and reverb are a matter of taste and aesthetic during the mix. But while they are more often employed than not, it's with a light hand. As to the quality of mics and preamps; as important as they are, I assert that they are second-order considerations. So, to repeat: Guitar.. room.. coincident mics. Thanks and regards. Dave Post by: maccool on April 20, 2006, 04:42:56 PM
Dave, I'd put #2 at the top of the list. Otherwise, I agree; what you describe has turned out to be the go-to set up for myself playing, although mono and spaced pair mic placements work well and may be better for different players and/or different instruments. In skilled hands, even a mediocre guitar will sound good in a properly treated room. When thinking about room modes, don't forget the room-guitar modes like ceiling-to-soundboard; these I found more troublesome than the room's innate modes, and broadband absorption is indeed the answer, especially in a small room. Post by: IainDearg on April 21, 2006, 04:42:53 PM
That's interesting. I confess I hadn't considered this! Do you mean the room setting up a sympathetic resonance in the guitar? Sort of acoustic feedback? Or have I misunderstood? Off topic, but I'm reminded how curious it is to see folks auditioning expensive guitars in these 5 X 6 ft high-end rooms in guitar stores. With all the other guitars on the wall droning symphathetically away. And not a slab of rockwool or 703 to be seen. How can they tell?? Post by: maccool on April 21, 2006, 05:11:11 PM
Not "sort of", but "exactly"! When I'm seated and playing guitar, harmonics of A are deadly for me. I'm having to deal with this now myself, and must consider that the absorption needs to attenuate not just the reflective resonance of the room's modes, but also the more sensitive modal resonance of the room and the guitar. This is particularly so with respect to the vertical axial mode, since I can't move up and down to find a good spot. Post by: IainDearg on April 22, 2006, 11:41:31 AM Cheers Dave Post by: Jørn Bonne on April 24, 2006, 05:11:37 AM I knew the main problems were roughly between 100 and 200 hertz, so I went ahead and created a sweeping test tone in that area. I played back the test tone in cycle mode while moving around (on all fours!!) and checking different parts of the room, until I found a spot where it sounded even, with no peaks or dips. This is where I put up my mikes and recorded the guitar there using my usual distances. And sure enough, those resonances were gone with the wind. Guitar now sounded full and even with no boominess or other resonances. Cheers J Post by: IainDearg on April 24, 2006, 07:29:07 AM
|