Have you ever used the pickup when recording acoustic guitar?

Armistice

Armistice

Son of Yoda
So, I know this comes up from time to time, and I used to do it but never really thought it added much as most "pickup to desk" sounds are fairly crap...

What I have discovered is that, instead of taking a line from the acoustic pickup straight to the desk, if I run it through my Class A tube amp in another room at low volume and route that back to the board via an LDC, when added to the two mics I have on the guitar (an AKG SDC and LDC at 12th and 5th frets respecitively) it fills a sonic hole that's been bugging me for years...

I take all the bass off the amp and have mid and highs at about 50% - on its own you can imagine what that sounds like, but added in, just a bit, to the other two channels, it gives a much more "present" sound in the high end which saves me reaching for the EQ on the miked channels and thus introducing further system noise...

And you'll have noticed I'm using an SDC and an LDC instead of the "normal" method of two SDCs, and that the LDC is up over the fretboard. Gets rid of all that excess bass I used to spend hours EQing out..

Bear in mind I do instrumental acoustic guitar-based music, so the acoustic guitar is much more audible in the mix than in your basic pop/rock song mix...

Worth a try if you're not happy with your recorded acoustic sound...

Cheers:D
 
Armistice said:
So, I know this comes up from time to time, and I used to do it but never really thought it added much as most "pickup to desk" sounds are fairly crap...

What I have discovered is that, instead of taking a line from the acoustic pickup straight to the desk, if I run it through my Class A tube amp in another room at low volume and route that back to the board via an LDC, when added to the two mics I have on the guitar (an AKG SDC and LDC at 12th and 5th frets respecitively) it fills a sonic hole that's been bugging me for years...

I take all the bass off the amp and have mid and highs at about 50% - on its own you can imagine what that sounds like, but added in, just a bit, to the other two channels, it gives a much more "present" sound in the high end which saves me reaching for the EQ on the miked channels and thus introducing further system noise...

And you'll have noticed I'm using an SDC and an LDC instead of the "normal" method of two SDCs, and that the LDC is up over the fretboard. Gets rid of all that excess bass I used to spend hours EQing out..

Bear in mind I do instrumental acoustic guitar-based music, so the acoustic guitar is much more audible in the mix than in your basic pop/rock song mix...

Worth a try if you're not happy with your recorded acoustic sound...

Cheers:D
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I have experimented with mixing in pickup sound, but not liked the results, but then again I more often do the pop/rock thing, and in that case I feel the trebles and percussive effect are the most important part of an acoustic guitar track (and these pieces are best reproduced by a condenser mic). But I can see how it could work in your setting. BTW - have you tried magnet sound hole pickups? They can sound truly wonderful in solo acoustic pieces.
 
I start with a mic'd sound and if for some reason I think that sound will benefit - I may try to mix in some pup sound (run through a pre-amp).

90% of the time I can make the mic'd sound work on it's own.
 
Armistice said:
What I have discovered is that, instead of taking a line from the acoustic pickup straight to the desk, if I run it through my Class A tube amp in another room at low volume and route that back to the board via an LDC, when added to the two mics I have on the guitar (an AKG SDC and LDC at 12th and 5th frets respecitively) it fills a sonic hole that's been bugging me for years...
Click to expand...
Samples or it didn't happen... :D -- kidding, of course, but it would be nice to hear something.

My son has a new Guild 12 string that he uses for Celtic music -- this weekend we recorded an original he has intended for a bagpipe lead (he also plays the pipes) which hasn't been written yet. The Guild sounds good and has a stock pickup which sadly sounds pretty crappy. We used XY SDCs (Oktava MC-012) + a mono pickup-to-board track down the middle with reduced gain to which we added reverb:

-- makes for a fuller sound.

I've done similar stuff before, but never tried amping/micing it -- I will now!
 
I always take a DI of the pickup when recording acoustic guitar. You never know when it might come in handy.

and thanks to a reamp box, it's always very cool for doing something neat for an effect. run it through an amp or some stomp boxes. ever added overdrive to a strumming acoustic guitar? pretty cool.


cheers,
wade
 
rayc said:
What sort of pick up are you using for this little tweak?
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Just the one in the guitar - which is a Maton AP5 pickup in a Maton Messiah guitar - didn't mention it because I know none of the boardies will be familiar with Australian acoustic guitars.

I hate, with a passion, the sound of amplified piezo pickups and have oftern run a line into the desk when recording, just in case, but always ditched it.

This sound on its own is more like a trebly electric sound than an acoustic, once you take the bass out of it - bass is never a problem with acoustic guitar recordings, so I just ditched it here as far as I could.

I don't add much in, but it's definitely worth a try.

And as far as sample go, I'm so "old school" that I not only don't have anything to make MP3 files with, if I could be bothered, apart from iTunes, but I have nowhere to post them... sorry! I record on a Yam AW4416 not a PC, so such things aren't so simple...
 
Sometimes I run the acoustic pickup through a small electric amp and also mic the acoustic.Sometiems slap a delay on the amp'd signal.
 
mrface2112 said:
I always take a DI of the pickup when recording acoustic guitar. You never know when it might come in handy.

and thanks to a reamp box, it's always very cool for doing something neat for an effect. run it through an amp or some stomp boxes. ever added overdrive to a strumming acoustic guitar? pretty cool.


cheers,
wade
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I think you have the right answer. Last week it came in pretty handy too because I was recording someone playing acoustic in a second floor balcony when a janitor on the first floor decided to drag a garbage can by in the middle of the performance. The condensors picked that up real good :) but I was able to bounce over to the D/I track when that happened and that saved the song.

To the OP, the {"pickup to desk" sounds are fairly crap...} is because of an impedance mismatch and using a D/I box will fix that.
 
Armistice said:
Never thought of that... I'll give it a try sometime. Thanks.

I still hate the sound of amplified piezo pickups I hear on people's live albums/DVDs though!
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Armistice, if you want, I can host a clip for you for a week or two, as I'm kind of curious to hear this too. Shoot me a PM.

I ALMOST never use the piezo pickup on my Martin, although I'm glad it's there as an option. It can't compare with the sound of a couple good mics, but on occasion there is something about the "piezo" tone that works for a particular part. True, I can't recall when the last time that was, lol, but given the choice I'll always take an acoustic wiith a pickup.
 
I always mic the acoustic with two mics, one at bridge and at 12th fret.

I also always run the guitar out into the desk and record it as well. You never know when you might need it. I usually dont end up using it a lot.

As already mentioned however, when adding distortion or weird effects to the guitar signal I always use the track that had the direct out from the guitar.



Mike
 
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