Recording Acoustic guitar

Mr T

New member
I have tried Di'ing my Yamaha APX 4-a guitar but everytime I turn the bass eq control above a fifth of the way up the guitar the monitor speakers start buzzing. The monitor speakers are Yamaha msp5's and I have a Beringher Eurodesk. I'm recording to a pc using Sonar 3. Is this something to do with the gain setting on the desk? Also do you think I should compress it slightly whilst recording? If so have what are roughly the best compression settings to use? I have a Beringher composer Pro MDX 2200.
 
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sounds like it might be a component in the bass eq control on your guitar might have gone kablooey if your not overloading the inputs on your mixer.
just an idea. get a tech to check your guitar.
 
Sounds like you're adding more bass than the speakers can handle... there is an amount of excusion that any woofer can do happily... it seems that you're asking your speakers to go out farther than they're happy going... which means you either need a High Pass Filter between the guitar and the recorder, or different speakers.

Best of luck.
 
That's the other thing I was gonna say, forget acoutstic guitar DI. Ok for live, but studio needs mic, even a dynamic, even a cheap one.
 
lascalaboy said:
Why shouldn't you DI an acoustic? If it's got a way better pickup than you do a mic.. won't it sound better?
No. From my experience by using a pickup you don't really capture the sound of the guitar, but more the sound of the strings. If you get what I mean.
 
well the new guitar my parents are getting me I chose based primarily on the pugged in sound... so I guess if that's what I like, then it'll be ok di'd..?
 
Use 'em both. Record with the DI and put a mic at the twelfth fret. Mix and blend to taste (or throw the DI out and get two sdc's)
 
lascalaboy said:
well the new guitar my parents are getting me I chose based primarily on the pugged in sound... so I guess if that's what I like, then it'll be ok di'd..?
That's probably not the best reason to pick a guitar.
If you really want to DI it I'd be leaning toward buying a normal (not semi) acoustic guitar that you really like the sound of acoustic and save up for a decent pickup.
 
Big Kenny said:
Use 'em both. Record with the DI and put a mic at the twelfth fret. Mix and blend to taste (or throw the DI out and get two sdc's)
I agree. I have a regular acoustic guitar that I bought for $60.00, and purchased a sound hole pick up for it. Acoustically, it sounds amazing, proving it's not always price that determines a good guitar, but when I record di with the pick up, it sounds like I applied too much chorus and it's dry. So what I did was to record it both di and with a dynamic mic above my shoulder at ear level, and wow, what a difference that made.
 
I don't think my message was all that clear. I meant to say that when I play back the di'd guitar, the dry mix sounds like I added too much chorus. Also, the mic is over my left shoulder (I'm a lefty), in line with my ear and with the bridge, so the mic picks up what I hear.
 
Acoustic

Yeah, I completed recording a whole acoustic album with the band that i am in... We used a tiny bit of DI but went %95 through the NT2 we were using. Come out brilliant... using plain DI is just toney and amatuer

Jake
 
It depends alot on the type of track your laying to.
I just recorded some solo fingerstyle guitar stuff that didn't sound so good stereo mic'd with sm81s. I found that one sm81 pointed at the 12th fret slightly turned toward the sound hole 1 foot back, mixed with the fishman pickup in my talor was exactly the sound that I was looking for.

In mixes where there are other instruments present the pickup sounds like ass.

Also, I found a good reference cd by a fingerstlye player around here that I bought at a coffee shop.. I really liked his sound so after tracking, I compared the two and mixed the pickup and mic until I got close to his sound.

Then I reverbed it up.
 
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