Which mic to record my acoustic guitar (untreated room)

M

Marco Ferragina

New member
Hi all, I'm new here at home recording :)

I'm trying to build a small home recording studio (really small :) ) just for hobby and the pleasure to learn and get better on my guitar

I've a Martin DCPA4 Rosewood a Rode NT1 connected directly to an old Native Instruments Audio Kontrol 1

I know that the NT1 is not the right mic for acoustic guitar and I don't like it on high frequencies indeed. I've room for improvement in mic position and post recording signal processing and I will experiment in this days but anyway I'm considering buying a more suitable microphone. My recording room is small and untreated (and I can't improve on this)

I'm considering the Rode nt5 or with a wider budget the Shure sm81 (that seems warmer to my ears, listening to online recording samples). My question is: Shure sm81 is worth buying considering my untreated room?

This is a recording using only the Rode NT1. The recording is totally unprocessed (I know the mic position is wrong, and the bass frequencies are "booming")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glv5horrEq8

This is a recording with mixed NT1 and internal guitar piezo microphone, with bass cutted on the NT1 channel ad little bit of reverb added to the mix
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjlyArytYCc

I think is much better but still I'm not satisfied with it

I'm opened for all kind of suggestions, but I don't want to spend more than the price of sm81 (about 350-380 €)

Thanks alot :)
 
This may be heresy, but I have approached the problem of my untreated room (high ceilings, wood floor, 150-year-old house) with a de-verb plugin. Now, this is for spoken voiceover, not music, but the SPL De-Verb plugin, applied very conservatively, has the effect of reducing the reflections without really changing my voice. Another way of treating your room on a shoestring is the Kayotica Eyeball (Acoustic Treatment Home Studio | Vocal Recording Noise Reduction | Kaotica Eyeball | Kaotica Eyeball).

I realize that I'm really not addressing your question directly, but you might be able to make the NT1 sound a bit better this way.
 
You can easily get a good guitar sound from an NT1, the problem is probably the room first of all then the mic position. If the sound is boomy then the mic is probably too close and facing directly into the sound hole. Try placing the mic around the 12th fret and angled towards the sound hole. Moving the mic further away will improve the guitar sound but if the room sounds bad then unfortunately you are now picking up more bad room.

No mic can fix poor positioning and defiantly not fix a bad room.

Alan.
 
Marco Ferragina said:
Thanks for the replies. So is not worth buying another mic if the room do not sound good? A small diafram one will not help anyway?
Click to expand...

Before spending any money why not try recording in a different room of the house, and experiment with mic positions. You should get good results with the mic you have.

Alan.
 
If the room is bad enough to make a certain mic sound less than good, then it's pretty silly to spend money on a coloured mic that will attempt, and probably fail, to tame the room. You posted a clip with the mic in the wrong position - why? Can we hear it with the mic in the best position?

If a room sounds wonderful, then you simply have more access to mic techniques that will use the room to enhance the sound. If the room is poor, then you use different techniques that remove the unpleasant characteristics.

Your guitar I assume sounds nice to the ear? Then it will record ok once you find the right position for it, and the mic, in the space.

Treat the problem first.

I don't know what stage your build is at, but what is the point in investing time and money in building something that's so compromised a decent mic can't find a suitable position? It's akin to buying a rotten car, and then spending time trying to improve the engine, when the thing the engine is attached to is the real problem.



The NT1 is not the worlds greatest mic, but I don't subscribe to the oft repeated comment that it's poor. It's a tool. You have to know it and understand it and then it works pretty well in most cases.

My recording room is small and untreated (and I can't improve on this)
Click to expand...

This I find difficult to believe - considering the usual easy temporary fixes, and the many products on offer. Spend your money on something that will help - and that probably isn't another mic - which may well make it worse!
 
I posted that clip because is what I had at time of writing. When I posted this here I had already learned that the mic position was wrong but anyway I posted it to just show to you my "knowledge level" and get better suggestions :) I'm just a beginner and I'm trying to learn how to improve the final result. You are very helpful and so I know that probably I can get good enough results with my NT1.

Thanks again
 
JefferySmith said:
This may be heresy, but I have approached the problem of my untreated room (high ceilings, wood floor, 150-year-old house) with a de-verb plugin.
Click to expand...

my mate tried that on drums,he sent me clips untreated and treated ... not saying it was perfect but it made quite a difference :)
 
I got a pair of Oktava MK-012 for less than €300. I recorded acoustic grand piano with great success. Also, sounded good on acoustic drums paired up with SM57s snare and toms /Sm58 and sE X1 and D112 on kick drum. I always recorded with them as a spaced pair (tried coincident pair but was harder than I though to place them without a stereo bar, now I got one but have not yet tried it).

The drums and piano was a success even from the first recordings I could get a usable sound in an untreated room fairly easy. When I tried this method on acoustic guitars it failed. I got a great neck track but ended up ditching the bridge track. Luckily enough I always record an extra performance. So I used the neck position double tracked. The mic was placed somewhere between the 12 and 15th fret. slightly lower than the neck and facing away about 30 degrees to perpendicular from the sound hole to avoid the 'wind' of the sound hole.

The SM57/SM58 works too especially for strumming but it requires more preamp gain. Also, It has more body and less detail than the condenser. But sometimes works.
 
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