How do you make your acoustic guitar "shine"?

[swarfrat]

I'll disagree with those blaming body design. Body design can certainly shape midrange and below, but most sparkle is directly radiated off the strings. I've got a baritone jumbo, which by some of the advice here you'd think would be lifeless as a wet dishrag. With new strings, it's plenty sparkly, and if I'm doing any of the other things talked about, the top end neeeds to be controlled. The quarter pick on brand new strings actually sounds like a very aggressive exciter setting. I've done both, and in an otherwise fine take that just needs more shimmer, the exciter works well.

 

[b00n]

I'll disagree with those blaming body design. Body design can certainly shape midrange and below, but most sparkle is directly radiated off the strings.

If you reduce midrange and below, you get ... more high end. ;-)

I've got a baritone jumbo, which by some of the advice here you'd think would be lifeless as a wet dishrag. With new strings, it's plenty sparkly, and if I'm doing any of the other things talked about, the top end neeeds to be controlled. The quarter pick on brand new strings actually sounds like a very aggressive exciter setting. I've done both, and in an otherwise fine take that just needs more shimmer, the exciter works well.

Yes. Baritones often are surprisingly bright and aggressive, which is counterintuitive at first.
It comes with the longer neck and the resulting higher string tension.
Different beast alltogether.

 

[Track Rat]

Well, my D-41 sounds completely different than my Breedlove. Both Dreadnaughts but different as night and day. And my 000-18 completely different than my Taylor GA-XXV. The 000-18 being a Grand Concert size body and the Taylor a Grand Auditorium. I suppose your mileage my vary.

 

[slug]

acoustic shine

Recently got a pair of Oktava Mk-012's (cardioid) to take care of my acoustic guitar recording needs. The problem is that the recorded guitar sounds pretty dull. I don't get the "shine" that I want (like the opening chord in "Walking After You" by Foo Fighters).

I have tried several different miking positions today, and ended up with something close to XY as the best result, with one mic pointing to the 10th fret, and the other pointing towards the end of the fretboard, from about a foot and a half away. The strings aren't new, but far from being tired. To get the "shine" I wanted, I had to boost the frequencies around 10 kHz by about 13 db (!) (I cut the low frequencies also).

Would anyone care to help out a novice?


Best regards,

-paw

try this, it works great for harmonies, no reason why it wouldn't work for an acoustic guitar:
make a copy of the acoustic on another track
hi-pass everything under 4k
add a hi-shelf at 11 k ( boost it 10db)
compress it alot ( 10 db of gain)
blend the track with with the original track,
as I said this adds shine to harmonies ,so it might work for an acoustic too

 

[swarfrat]

Essentially that's pretty similar to what an exciter does, except it clips and low passes the hpf signal instead of just compressing. (And in doing so adds synthesized hatmonics). It really is bordering on magic how well it works.

 

[slug]

I have to agree with you there, I like to put a sonic maximizer between my CD player and stereo, I have always called it the magic box. try it let it play a few minutes then bypass the maximizer and it sounds like there is a blanket over the speaker

 

[Farview]

I have to agree with you there, I like to put a sonic maximizer between my CD player and stereo, I have always called it the magic box. try it let it play a few minutes then bypass the maximizer and it sounds like there is a blanket over the speaker

Some of the BBE's have a filter in bypass that makes it sound extra dull. Actually bypass it and compare that with the bypass button

Besides, the frequencies that those things accentuate are ones that we become numb to after a short while. Taking them away will make things sound dull, even when they really aren't.

 

[dobro]