Help with mic'ing/recording acoustic guitar

You would do better IMHO to make a 'booth' out of 1.25" plastic waste pipe and cover with old carpet, duvets and /or blankets. A decent size made in ply is going to be firkin' heavy.

Dave.

I agree with Dave, [MENTION=89697]ecc83[/MENTION] 100%. Keep in mind you don't want to block everything. The pic below is so simple to do and you can add "Tee" in on the top rail to throw a quilt over the top if needed. You can build smaller ones for just vocals or to place behind your mics. Keep one side open and you can use elect zip ties from Lowes or any hardware store as the hinges.

You can build one for under $30.00. When not in use, remove blankets, fold flat, lean against the wall or slide under bed. When you move, simple to take with ya. ;-)

View attachment 100801

Ok. PVC tubing and zip ties - will do.

As far as what material(s) the "blankets" should be, I've noticed from experience that what appears to be very substantial, quite dense, heavy material will turn out to be virtually transparent to sound frequencies. I'll have to experiment along those lines. And I'll have to put this off 'till next month's budget allows.
 
Ok. PVC tubing and zip ties - will do.

As far as what material(s) the "blankets" should be, I've noticed from experience that what appears to be very substantial, quite dense, heavy material will turn out to be virtually transparent to sound frequencies. I'll have to experiment along those lines. And I'll have to put this off 'till next month's budget allows.

ANYTHING you can move will be 'virtually transparent' to sound waves! You are not going to build any serious kind of soundproof structure (unless it is an airtight BSH on rubber suspension).
The best you can hope to do is kill some of the reflections.

Dave.
 
Experiment # 2.. or is it # 3..? Oh, well.

I set up my towel-wrapped box. I placed my AT2020 inside, facing inwards - the rear of the mic pointing directly out towards my acoustic guitar. I positioned the guitar where the mic was at the point where the neck meets the body - parallel to the neck.

To my ears, I got a better overall sound - not as muddy. Then I normalized and added an FX chain: JS: RBJ 12-Band EQ w/HPF / VST: ReaEQ (Cockos).

I fiddled with the ReaEQ until I got what, to my ears, was a smoother strumming sound. Then I tweaked the RBJ 12-Band a little. All this got rid of all the muddiness and brought out the mids without actually boosting them much.

What I hear with this setup sounds pretty much like what I hear from the guitar itself - I'm surprised I got this close to it. I'd like to get this sound while recording dry, but I don't know how, other than trying different mics, and I can't afford to start a collection.. yet.

The track volume knob reads 0.00dB and it's level meter hovers around -21dBs - peaking just above -18. I could have added a touch more gain. Plenty of headphone volume. Just above the item in track display, next to the little vol knob, the volume reads [+14.6dB] .mp3

I'm attaching an .mp3 with a short section you can loop. Please advise.

Here's what the FX Chain looks like:

6jQMm8J.png
 

Attachments

  • Acoustic Test I.mp3
    194.7 KB · Views: 6
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I'm going to work on my strumming technique. I usually strum up and down, but this is creating twice the signal and more unwanted noise (and noises, e.g. thin pick slap). I'm going to practice down strokes in the loud parts with up/down in softer parts. I'll make a musician/engineer/mic-placer/screen-builder out of me yet - with your help :D
 
ANYTHING you can move will be 'virtually transparent' to sound waves! You are not going to build any serious kind of soundproof structure (unless it is an airtight BSH on rubber suspension).
The best you can hope to do is kill some of the reflections.

Dave.

A heavy blanket isn't transparent to sound waves, it's more like translucent. Some will be absorbed, some reflected incoherently, some reflected coherently and some will pass.
 
As an aside:

While I've been test recording, one little setting in my Win10 system has been annoying me. After 1 minute, my screen would go black. Now, in my usual "don't RTFM" mode, I tried setting the sleep timer.. didn't change. I knew there was a setting in there somewhere, just couldn't find it. I actually looked at the Screen Lock settings and didn't see it. That's where it is - in the Screen Lock settings. It's in a small group of additional settings at the bottom of the PAGE and I couldn't see them because they were below my SCREEN's displayed view. I had to scroll down, which is something I never thought to do the 128 other times I looked there for the setting I needed.

Ha!

Well, there it was, nearly at the very bottom of the page. It sets the time before your screen goes to screen saver. My screen saver was a black screen - so I got a black screen when it timed out at 1 minute. I reset it to 9999 minutes; also set my computer and monitor to stay awake always.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled program
FatherlyBeautifulBlobfish-max-1mb.gif
 
The numbers that (I think) you're looking at are the scale for the meter itself and have nothing to do with the fader setting. They are not the same markings that you see in that hardware pic. The fader setting is indicated by the number at the top (in the OP photo, it says 0db), and the pop up when you hover over or move the fader, and in the I/O window where you can type it in. It goes from -inf to +12, I think, by default, but is not marked as a scale beside the fader.

So what does the meter scale mean? It tells you how far down from as loud as your converters (or a fixed point render) can get. This IS different from what you're used to in analog. In analog, the meters are marked such that 0db is your nominal level - the average or optimal operating level. But those devices can usually get much louder, often 15 or 18db louder before significant distortion, and the meters are designed to show those levels.

Ultimately THAT is where the -18dbFS suggestion comes from. Most digital gear is designed to top out right around where the analog gear it's attached to would, so the +18dbVU at the top of your analog mixer's meter should be right about the same as the 0dbfs that you see on Reaper's meter. So, if you run that analog desk at its nominal level of 0dbVU and plug it into a unity gain input, Reaper's meter should hit right around -18dbFS just naturally.

All that said, with most interfaces nowadays there's a really wide sweet spot, and a little bit of experimentation to do. -18dbFS average IS usually a safe place to shoot for with most, but depending on everything else, it might not actually give you the best S/N. In some situations, increasing gain on your mic pre really just adds noise, and you might be better off recording lower levels and using silent digital gain after. In other cases, there's a constant noise source after the preamp so that increasing gain can get you further above it, and that might push your levels way past -18, but as long as you don't hit 0 it's cool. But then in some other cases, the analog mic ore will start to distort before the ADC, and you have to decide if you prefer that saturation or a bit more noise. If you're used to analog, you know about gain staging, and you know how to dial in for best S/N before distortion, and you should just keep doing that, but remember that your "tape" and "mixer" aren't going to add noise of their own, so you've really got a lot more room to work.


Edit - Shit! I was replying to the end of page 1 and then find out there's a whole page 2. Haven't read through it yet. Hope some of this is helpful, though.
 
There's more than 2 pages. There's 7 pages of this sh.. um, 7 pages. And thank you.
I think that depends on your settings and/or whether you're logged in. Basically, how many posts per page and how many ads. Logged in here, I only see 2 pages.
 
I think that depends on your settings and/or whether you're logged in. Basically, how many posts per page and how many ads. Logged in here, I only see 2 pages.

My settings are set to 10 post per page I guess as that is what I see below. Anyway. Your explanation above was dead on track! You should write it up in a new post and get one of the mods to stick it on top of the forum of their choosing!

EDIT: WOHOOO. My post just made page 8!

View attachment 100809
 
Experiment # 2.. or is it # 3..? Oh, well.

I set up my towel-wrapped box. I placed my AT2020 inside, facing inwards - the rear of the mic pointing directly out towards my acoustic guitar. I positioned the guitar where the mic was at the point where the neck meets the body - parallel to the neck.

To my ears, I got a better overall sound - not as muddy. Then I normalized and added an FX chain: JS: RBJ 12-Band EQ w/HPF / VST: ReaEQ (Cockos).

I fiddled with the ReaEQ until I got what, to my ears, was a smoother strumming sound. Then I tweaked the RBJ 12-Band a little. All this got rid of all the muddiness and brought out the mids without actually boosting them much.

What I hear with this setup sounds pretty much like what I hear from the guitar itself - I'm surprised I got this close to it. I'd like to get this sound while recording dry, but I don't know how, other than trying different mics, and I can't afford to start a collection.. yet.

The track volume knob reads 0.00dB and it's level meter hovers around -21dBs - peaking just above -18. I could have added a touch more gain. Plenty of headphone volume. Just above the item in track display, next to the little vol knob, the volume reads [+14.6dB] .mp3

I'm attaching an .mp3 with a short section you can loop. Please advise.

Here's what the FX Chain looks like:

View attachment 100805

Overall the sound is a little thin to my ears a with a lot of pick noise (thin pick, I can tell). You do realize that the AT2020 is a side-address mic, right?
 
Overall the sound is a little thin to my ears a with a lot of pick noise (thin pick, I can tell). You do realize that the AT2020 is a side-address mic, right?

I'd like a fuller sound but when I try EQing, the lower frequencies sound muddied to me. Maybe I should leave them alone and see how it flies.

I do realize it's a side-address. I'm new at this and was following the manual's directions to have the front facing the sound source - the first few times I recorded a test track. This last test track, I turned it backwards to see if it would have an effect on the noise floor. I believe it was negligible, but to my ear it seemed to have a better overall sound.

When I FX takes to my liking, it's always seemed bright to you listeners here. So, as I mentioned earlier, I'll leave some of the lows in the next test track.

I'm shooting for a really smooth (buttery?) strumming sound without pick noise.. like removing all or most of the attack. I'm going to experiment with Reaper's ReaXcomp.

I think switching to a medium pick would help, as well as increase guitar volume - more lows. I'm not used to mediums, they keep flying away as I have a very light grip.

Thanks for your input.
 
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You will never remove 100% of pic noise but there are several things you can do to reduce it.

1. Change the angle of your wrist when strumming.
2. Keep the pick buried between your fingers with just a wee bit sticking out.
3. Use a rubber pick. They are designed to reduce pick noise. The special elastomer material nearly eliminates pick noise, leaving you with clean warm tones.

This track was from a 11 year old kid at GC last June. No body paid much attention to him till he asked to play some guys strings. He had a rubber pick. I used my sm 57 and tascam dr 40 to catch the as* end of it. He just got up and walked out. I ask about every now and then. Nobody has seen him since. I don't know the name of the geetar but he was plugged into a marshal amp with a rack of stomp peddles. I ran it through reafir for noise removal and slapped a peak limiter on it. Should be around a -13 -14dbs with a -0.1,2,3 tp.

View attachment 100815
 
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Proper miking will help eliminate the pick noise too.
Your foam box thing is sucking all the mids out of the track (the guitar body). Others say your 'regular' guitar recording is too bright? Look to your monitoring chain/environment. Listen to some reference tracks to get an idea how others' acoustic guitars sound through it.
 
I'd like to post this before I respond to your posts.

Experiment # 4

Re-using the same .mp3 segment as before, I built a different FX chain, as seen below.

I added compression as suggested by a helpful article I found on SOS.com - all of these compression settings in ReaXcomp were suggested in the article as a starting point.

Soften Guitar Tracks |

This sounds heavier in the lows and has reduced pick noise, but not eliminated all of it. Use of a medium pick in the future may remove all traces of pick noise with these FX settings. Now, are these FX settings out of line? I'm going by my ear and your feedback - not by the numbers.

This probably sounds too bright to you too as I've only added a little of the lows back in.
fWKv0P9.png

93gWdTQ.png
 

Attachments

  • Acoustic Test II.mp3
    194.7 KB · Views: 4
Last edited:
You will never remove 100% of pic noise but there are several things you can do to reduce it.

1. Change the angle of your wrist when strumming.
2. Keep the pick buried between your fingers with just a wee bit sticking out.
3. Use a rubber pick. They are designed to reduce pick noise. The special elastomer material nearly eliminates pick noise, leaving you with clean warm tones.

This track was from a 11 year old kid at GC last June. No body paid much attention to him till he asked to play some guys strings. He had a rubber pick. I used my sm 57 and tascam dr 40 to catch the as* end of it. He just got up and walked out. I ask about every now and then. Nobody has seen him since. I don't know the name of the geetar but he was plugged into a marshal amp with a rack of stomp peddles. I ran it through reafir for noise removal and slapped a peak limiter on it. Should be around a -13 -14dbs with a -0.1,2,3 tp.

View attachment 100815


Using thin picks: In the past I have gripped the pick as you suggest, with just the tip sticking out. The tip always snapped off after a couple songs, so I let more stick out and deal with that noise. Now when I'm playing bass, I use a thin pick in the manner you suggest and it works well for a tight sound. Short plucks don't stress the pick and it lasts forever.

The 11-year old: That sounded like a good live mix. I heard resonance from the low strings and some good mids - without pick noise! Just attack. This sounds to me like a medium or hard pick. That might just be the answer to my situation on that. I think I have ONE medium around here somewhere.. or it's back to the store.

Years ago, our lead guitarist used a very small stone pick. He could do great imitations of Al Di Meola.
 
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Proper miking will help eliminate the pick noise too.
Your foam box thing is sucking all the mids out of the track (the guitar body). Others say your 'regular' guitar recording is too bright? Look to your monitoring chain/environment. Listen to some reference tracks to get an idea how others' acoustic guitars sound through it.

I have been listening to some (very good) stuff in these forums. The last .mp3 I attached, it was recorded dry and when I played it back dry it sounded almost identical to my acoustic as I hear it with my ears. That is the sound everyone comments to saying it is to bright. Well, that's how my guitar sounds with almost new strings (only about 10 songs played on them). I reckon I'll need to add some lower frequencies AS WELL AS different mic placements - mic placements first, I think. Right?

Adding lower frequencies (by placement or EQ) sounds muddier in my headphones. I'm using Tascam TH-200x phones and their not too shabby. I'm going to have to become accustomed to their sound. I don't believe their coloring it in any way - shouldn't be.
 
This sounds to me like a medium or hard pick. That might just be the answer to my situation on that. I think I have ONE medium around here somewhere.. or it's back to the store.

I don't know the thickness, but I do know it was rubber. Some guys also talked about filing them down and waxing um. I don't know, as I don't play, but I have mic'ed a few hundred or so of the ones that do.
 
When you mentioned rubber picks, I instantly recalled being in 4th grade using an autoharp, strumming with one of those large, pink school erasers. Good, full sound without noise.

I remember trying another method with thin picks: rotating them and using one of the two broader corners, but the pick would frequently get caught on a string. Sounded good, though.
 
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