Help with mic'ing/recording acoustic guitar

I didn't get a chance today, but tomorrow I expect to have another go at Experiment # 6 :

Strumming acoustic guitar with a hard pick; sitting on area rug with legs crossed under; mic on floor about 24-inches in front and facing me - pointed generally at 12th fret

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Previously, in Experiment # 5, I was sitting on a stool about 18-inches high with the mic on a table about 21-inches high. There was a painted block wall in front, about 30-inches behind the mic; the area rug beneath; and the rest of the room is painted block wall and uncovered vinyl flooring. I'll hang a heavy hospital blanket about 20-inches behind the mic - between it and the block wall.

Just the set-up for recording.. :eek:
 
spantini said:
I didn't get a chance today, but tomorrow I expect to have another go at Experiment # 6 :

Strumming acoustic guitar with a hard pick; sitting on area rug with legs crossed under; mic on floor about 24-inches in front and facing me - pointed generally at 12th fret

_____________________________

Previously, in Experiment # 5, I was sitting on a stool about 18-inches high with the mic on a table about 21-inches high. There was a painted block wall in front, about 30-inches behind the mic; the area rug beneath; and the rest of the room is painted block wall and uncovered vinyl flooring. I'll hang a heavy hospital blanket about 20-inches behind the mic - between it and the block wall.

Just the set-up for recording.. :eek:
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I think that's too far away, and being on the floor it's going to have a very close early reflection off the floor itself hitting it a millisecond (or so) after the initial sound wave. The mic sound be even with your guitar neck, angled slightly towards the soundhole, but pointed at the the 12th fret. Try 6-12" away. And record more than 15 seconds, play for a minute or two, then move something, and try that position for a minute.
 
mjbphotos said:
...being on the floor it's going to have a very close early reflection off the floor itself hitting it a millisecond (or so) after the initial sound wave.
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Naw, man. The rule of thumb is about 1ms per foot, and if the mic is resting on the ground, it's more like an inch, so like less than a tenth of your estimate. That is short enough that any interference will only bother the bats.

It's pretty common advice when recording drums under a low ceiling where reflections might cause phase problems to put the overheads as close as possible to the ceiling because, again, that puts the lowest notch in the comb filter up out of normal hearing range. It's likewise pretty common to put a mic on the floor out front of a drum kit. In fact, it's a pretty common - if somewhat unorthodox - technique in a lot of situations. Heck, I might even try to point the mic AT the floor. Especially with something like a 57, where this could put the diaphragm even closer to the floor and almost make it into a boundary mic.

You can do these things with other surfaces like walls too. If you can't get far enough away, then get as close as possible.


Edit - More importantly, though, spantini is actually doing this. Like actually just going in there and trying things and learning from empirical evidence and I think we'd ought to encourage it. Maybe it'll just suck. Maybe it'll be the best thing ever. Most likely it'll be something to keep in mind in certain situations, but they're building experience in any case. Too many people will post a question on a forum and then wait a week for the flame war to die down and maybe they'll get a bit better handle on the theory, but they won't actually know anything in the practical sense.
 
spantini said:
I didn't get a chance today, but tomorrow I expect to have another go at Experiment # 6 :

Strumming acoustic guitar with a hard pick; sitting on area rug with legs crossed under; mic on floor about 24-inches in front and facing me - pointed generally at 12th fret ...
Click to expand...
I don't know how close 'on the floor means, but if you can get the capsule close to 'zero i.e. laying on it's side, you can approach the benefits of a PZM mic. -An in phase boundary lift. (That's usually a hard boundary though.
I've tried a pair mounted flat on a wall behind kits a few times. (SD omnis worked pretty well Cardioids not so much- pointing down and in may have been why.)
A quick link.
Q. PZM and Boundary mics — what's the difference? |

Perhaps of more significance is the reduction in comb-filtering effects. If you consider a mic placed above a reflective surface like a wooden floor, the mic will 'hear' both the direct sound from the source and a reflected version of it, as it bounces off the floor and back into the mic. The extra distance travelled to the floor and back will delay that reflected sound relative to the direct sound and hence cause some coloration because of the comb-filtering effects. Placing the microphone flush with the reflective boundary ensures that those reflections can no longer interfere with the direct sound, and the sound quality improves as a result.
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Close' but not on the surface would tend to make a near by reflection's effect rather louder (thick carpet could help in that case.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
Agree about actally trying things. There's no substitute for experience.
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And, with the infinite camera capacity that everyone has now you can smudge every setup and keep a visual record to boot! Stick a couple of tape measures to boards as references.

Dave.
 
ashcat_lt said:
Edit - More importantly, though, spantini is actually doing this. Like actually just going in there and trying things and learning from empirical evidence and I think we'd ought to encourage it. Maybe it'll just suck. Maybe it'll be the best thing ever. Most likely it'll be something to keep in mind in certain situations, but they're building experience in any case. Too many people will post a question on a forum and then wait a week for the flame war to die down and maybe they'll get a bit better handle on the theory, but they won't actually know anything in the practical sense.
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Your words of wisdom could be applied to anyone, in any situation in their life. A person who does not make mistakes, is a person content with trying nothing at all. A person who does nothing at all, is a person who will settle for anything and wait for someone to do it for them. ;) Bold font in quote added by Mack.
 
Topic: Just not my day

At 8:30 AM today, I set up for Experiment # 6 (this is starting to sound like old British sci-fi stuff). As soon as I hit the record button, a grounds maintenance guy fires up his gas trimmer and begins trimming all around my place. I chill and wait him out.

Trimmer guy is gone. Good. I hit the record button... my neighbor begins talking very loud on his telephone - can hear through block wall. He almost never does this.. maybe once a year. Today's that day. I chill.

All is quiet. I hit the record button. My acoustic has a string buzz - all of a sudden. The B string buzzes when a D note is fingered (D-Chord). No other string buzzes. The B string only buzzes on that note in the D-Chord I want to play.

My guitar came with medium strings. I replaced them with light and adjusted the action. Best I could get with lights was the A string buzzing at the bridge. A slight piece of paper under the string at the nut fixed that.

With this new buzz, I'll need a heavier B string at the very least - but I really should replace the lot, so I'll get a full medium set and tweak the neck back a little to it's original position.

This will definitely produce a fuller sound, which will probably sound better on your end - muddy to me, though.

So.. new strings later today, play a dozen songs to break them in, then resume Experiment # 6 [echo; echo; echo..] tomorrow morning.
 
spantini said:
Topic: Just not my day

At 8:30 AM today, I set up for Experiment # 6 (this is starting to sound like old British sci-fi stuff). As soon as I hit the record button, a grounds maintenance guy fires up his gas trimmer and begins trimming all around my place. I chill and wait him out.

Trimmer guy is gone. Good. I hit the record button... my neighbor begins talking very loud on his ...

So.. new strings later today, play a dozen songs to break them in, then resume Experiment # 6 [echo; echo; echo..] tomorrow morning.
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It's a conspiracies I tell'ya!

:)
 
mixsit said:
It's a conspiracies I tell'ya!

:)
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;) It is! It is!

I just finished putting on a new set of Martin Acoustic SP Phosphor Bronze Medium's. I played them out for about 20 minutes until they began holding their tuning, then put it away to rest until tomorrow when X-6 [echo ; echo ; echo] begins.

No buzzing, and I didn't even have to adjust the neck - it's fine.

These strings are a lot warmer than the D'addario Lights, for sure.

I did test out the mic position I planned to use - on the (area rug covered) floor about 24-inches in front of me. My right knee sticks up right between the guitar and the mic, so I'd have to move the mic to my right and nearer the sound hole. It's very uncomfortable, but I'm determined to at least hear what this will sound like. Maybe I'll use it somewhere down the line on another project, as ashcat mentioned earlier.
 
spantini said:
Maybe I'll use it somewhere down the line on another project, as ashcat mentioned earlier.
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FYI. The board is set up to recognize the "@" symbol when used to identify another member. So if you wanted to let ashcat_lt know you referenced him, you would use @ashcat_lt . This does two things. It turns it into a hyper link back to the persons profile page and also lets him know who referenced him. It is quite often used on old threads to let the person know, someone had commented on it, with out having to go through other processes. It is also great for alerting a member who is not following a thread, that they may be able to provide some incite/advice to a question. "I don't know the answer, but maybe we can get @spantini to chime in as he went through this 2 weeks ago".

If you look at your user control panel under "My Profile", you will see the area you would click on called "Mentions". (See Pic Below). This will show you who mentioned you and where thread is located. You simply click on the link and it will take you there.

 
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X-6 :

I sat on a Berber pile area rug (5x6), cross-legged, mic on my right knee. I placed a corner of a blanket on my knee to keep the mic from shifting. No deadening was used. The mic was at the 12th fret angled towards the sound hole. It was 6-inches away (I got it that close!), slighly below neck level and twisted upward a bit.

Using the track layout Small Full Meter, I recorded at -18 to -12 as best I could. New medium strings and a hard pick made it slightly awkward and my strumming is uneven. On playback, this sounds muddy to my ear, probably sounds good on your end. The .mp3 attachment sounds better in my headphones than the Reaper track. The high E and B medium strings don't ring out like I'm used to with lights and it was bugging me while I played.

This was recorded completely dry and was not normalized. All my previous attachments were normalized first. This is an .mp3 rendered from the original .wav in Reaper.

This is a song I wrote a little over 40 years ago - my first. I need to practice my strumming all over again with a harder pick. Not as much pick noise this time, but still there - a little.
 

Attachments

  • Saturday II © Vol Test VI.mp3
    3.2 MB · Views: 11
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The more I listen to X-6 over and over in my headphones, it just sounds boomy and muddied - like I'm playing under a wet blanket. Even small, simple EQ adjustments don't help a great deal. I can bring out the mids to clean it up, and cut some lows a bit to reduce that boominess, but it just doesn't sound right to me.

I know I'm not recording in an ideal environment, but still.. I got what I think are better results recording via built-in mics on my DP-03SD in this same room. That sounded like the guitar my ears were hearing. Something is coloring the signal to (or in) Reaper.. the mic, maybe..? I don't have FX on my tracks.

Well, I hope this one sounds better coming out of your monitors.
 
spantini said:
X-6 :

I sat on a Berber pile area rug (5x6), cross-legged, mic on my right knee. I placed a corner of a blanket on my knee to keep the mic from shifting. No deadening was used. The mic was at the 12th fret angled towards the sound hole. It was 6-inches away (I got it that close!), slighly below neck level and twisted upward a bit.
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Go on-line and do a google search for professional recording studios. Look at every picture they have listed for their track/recording room. I doubt you will find one single picture where they have carpet on the floor. The reason is carpet kills the mid to high end frequencies, sucks them right out of your recording.

spantini said:
The more I listen to X-6 over and over in my headphones, it just sounds boomy and muddied - like I'm playing under a wet blanket.
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Please see the above comment.

I did the best to add some mids and highs back into your recording. It is at a -14.5 LUFS with a -1dbTP like it was going to be distributed on Spotify. Now, before you listen to your file, go here and listen to @andrushkiwt. Just click on the SC link he has on the top post. He is a member here, records in a walk-in closet with a $79.00 condenser mic, plays the acoustic guitar, (his second time if I am not mistaken), mixes using headphones and has some of the best sounding audio in this very community, regarding his environment.

You may want to ask him some questions on what he does, to get the sound he gets. I am telling you Brother, it can be done but you must understand and follow the rules for recording! I know you are not in a good environment, but there are things you can do to make it better.

View attachment 100874
 
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Mack Caster said:
The reason is carpet kills the mid to high end frequencies, sucks them right out of your recording.
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You can keep saying that, but it's still going to be wrong. A rug might pull some of the high end out of the reflections from the floor, but especially in a situation like this where those reflections are going to be pretty short, that high end is just going to make a smeared, phasey mess anyway, and I'd argue you really should try to kill it as best possible.

I'm thinking you should go take another look at those studios when they're actually in use. It's pretty common to see area rugs placed strategically about to help take those quick reflections off the floor. There are a lot of good reasons why carpet should be avoided in a high-traffic commercial space, but "it kills your high end" is not actually one of them.
 
ashcat_lt said:
You can keep saying that, but it's still going to be wrong. A rug might pull some of the high end out of the reflections from the floor, but especially in a situation like this where those reflections are going to be pretty short, that high end is just going to make a smeared, phasey mess anyway, and I'd argue you really should try to kill it as best possible.

I'm thinking you should go take another look at those studios when they're actually in use. It's pretty common to see area rugs placed strategically about to help take those quick reflections off the floor. There are a lot of good reasons why carpet should be avoided in a high-traffic commercial space, but "it kills your high end" is not actually one of them.
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Ya, maybe under the drums or a desk, as far as the track room goes, maybe you can post some links to these professional studios showing carpet in their track rooms. That would end this debate once and for all!
 
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