Fiddle and guitar

S

spuntotheratboy

New member
Hello all,

I want to record a fiddle and guitar duo playing live (that is, at the same time, not in front of an audience) traditional music: Old-time, Irish and Swedish mostly.

The instruments are great, both rich and bright, the players are good (the fiddle player is me so take that with a pinch of salt if you like) so there will be some expressive dynamic and tonal variation.

The room is untreated but not awful: a largish, irregularly-shaped combined kitchen and living room with a pitched ceiling, wood floor, plasterboard walls, tiles at one end and sofa at the other, wooden dining table and so on.

The interface is a Focusrite Scarlett 6i6 — only two of those inputs send phantom, so as far as I can see I'm limited to two condenser mics at a time. I could probably borrow a DI box for now, actually, or even buy one, but a decent mic pre-amp is a distant dream.

Mics available: I have two crappy SM58 copies, and that's it for dynamic mics (for the moment: I plan to get a couple of SM57s when I can afford them). I have an Audio-Technica clip-on goose-neck condenser which I've used on the fiddle live for many years — it's a great mic. I've got some more kit arriving soon: a matched pair of Behringer C2 small-diaphragm condensers, and an Audio-Technica 2050 large-diaphragm condenser which is switchable cardioid-8-omni.

The guitar has a reasonably good internal pick-up with a 1/4" TS out.

Does anyone have any advice on how to get the best out of what I have available? My original thought was to spot with the C2s and have the 2050 between us in figure 8, but I don't have enough phantom for that... although DI box?

I've been a musician for 44 years, I've recorded in studios all over the world and worked with some great producers and engineers, but I haven't done any recording myself since I had a cassette four-track in the nineties, and that was only ever a sketchbook so I never put any thought into sonics. Any advice gratefully received!

Thanks,
Ben
 
Before buying any more gear (note a DI box would have to supply phantom, not all do that), just work with what you've got.
AT clip-on mic on fiddle to 6i6 (phantom input)
C2 in front of guitar to 6i6 (phantom input)
Guitar di to 6i6 (instrument input)
Face toward each other but several feet apart, so the condensors' nulls are pointing at the other person (however you use the clip on, adjust your position) to get less bleed.

Alternately, put one of the 58s on the guitar, and use the 2050 in figure 8 or omni between you to pick up the room/overall sound.
 
I have found the C2 to be surprisingly good. I've posted clips of various successes I've had with it in the past.

I'd start out as simply as possible: one c2 above the fiddle, the other pointing at the guitar. Do as Mike above suggests, and face each other to minimise the bleed.

If that doesn't work, then you can try out other combinations.
 
This is great stuff, thank you both. In the end I guess the solution is just to play around and see what works, but it's nice to have a couple of starting points.

Cheers!
 
I think if you can't get it with a stereo pair a few feet out in front of the two of you, it's probably not worth the trouble. Which is to say that if it sounds good then record it and if it doesn't there's nothing you can do with more mics except make it sound even weirder.

My big concern would be the reflections from the floor between the musicians and the mics. Sometimes putting the mics on the floor accomplishes the same thing and can work surprisingly well, but putting something to absorb at least the higher mids on up works too.
 
Because fiddles can be pretty loud (or soft) is why I suggested recording each instrument with a close mic set up, giving some leeway to adjust relative volumes (and EQ) when mixing.
 
Floor — interesting! I'll give it some thought, thanks. I have a rug! Generally I like the idea of spot mics and a stereo pair, I think ortf might be most appropriate for a duo. Clearly a lot depends on the room, more than for tracking a single instrument, so I guess I just have to try stuff and see what works best! Thank you all very much for your advice.
 
spuntotheratboy said:
Floor — interesting!
Click to expand...
The idea is that if you can't get the mic far enough from the surface so that the first reflections stop being a problem, you get it as close to that surface as possible and then it's again not a problem. Pretty common advice for people trying to mic drums in rooms with low ceilings where the overheads get phasey and washy so you move them up to be basically at the ceiling. It kind of makes it into a boundary mic, but really just basically makes the delay short enough that the phase cancellation is pushed to frequencies beyond our audible range. Works for floors and walls too.

A rug might help a bit absorbing very high frequencies, but it's always the upper mids that are the real problem. Something like a couch would be better. Like play at the couch and put the mic(s) on the other side. An actual gobo or broadband absorber would of course be best.

Course it's really only an issue if it's an issue, and if you're going to lean on the individual mics and just use the distant mics for ambience, it's less likely to be an issue.
 
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