Acoustic instruments all recorded with Sennheiser 421

[wretchasketch]

I recorded this yesterday, and I’m fairly pleased with the capture. You guys can rip it up, if you want to, though

McKinley (Instrumental)

I will go back in and add some tasteful background and fills at some point, just so it doesn't sound like a sonic cut out collage.

Recorded one at a time:
1927 Gibson TB 3 banjo all original pot with the factory calfskin head and New five string neck (originally a tenor banjo)
1897 model Washburn parlor guitar (Made between 1900 and 1935)
1914 Gibson A4 Mandolin
1960 Dobro resonator guitar
Fairly new Blueridge br-60t tenor guitar (Two rhythm tracks panned hard left and hard right)
Chinese manufactured Carlo Robelli 3/4 bass fiddle

All recorded into a Sennheiser 421 dynamic mic and a discontinued sound devices usb preamp interfaced with 2nd party 64bit windows drivers on a Dell Inspiron laptop in Reaper DAW. No effects at all in the DAW...just set levels and pan on everything. Chopped off the peaks, added reverb and normalized in Goldwave

 

[keith.rogers]

Sounds good to me. 421 is a nice mic from everything I've read. Somewhere on my list

I actually think a dynamic mic often works better for acoustic guitar in this style of music, but, really, a good mic is a good mic. Differences are subtle and usually at the edges/limits IME. Some just make your life easier, too.

 

[jimmys69]

I agree. Sounds pretty damn good. Personally I would go with an ambient mic in the room with the banjo as well just to give it some life but shit dood. That was really cool!

 

[TripleM]

I thought the banjo sounded excellent.

The acoustic guitar backbeat accents sounded OK. A bit muffled and *really* wide. I'd pull them a bit.

Mando also sounded excellent.

I'd pull just a little low end from the bass. It's a bit indistinct.

The lead acoustic on the right, again, sounded excellent.

 

[wretchasketch]

The shortcomings with the rhythm section (bass and tenor guitar) have a lot to do with my playing, the room...and to a lesser degree the instruments themselves. I used to put bass on my recordings with “Trilogy”, but decided to just get a bass and start playing it. There are losses and gains for me going that route.