Tips on recording semi-acousic guitar

[Steal Sessions]

Tomorrow the guitar player of our 'project' is going to visit me at my place to record a few parts of a bunch of songs (intro's) using a semi-acoustic guitar. He wanted to know if he should bring his (old) RP1 effect machine for a decent line-signal to be recorded. Well, I was basically thinking I'd be recording the acoustic signal with (condensator?) mics and blending that with the signal from the element/pick-up inside the guitar. I do not know specs about the guitar and/or used element/pick-up. What would you recomend for recording that type of guitar, using mics/or not, using the elements/or not, blending mic & pickup lateron in the mix or use only one source for recording. I need it to blend nicely with a very heavy rock tune that starts right after the intro.

My gear:

-Sonar 2.2, 2.2GHz, 512 MB mem, Delta1010LT, M-Audio DualMP3, Phonic (I know..) 4 ch. mic mixer and many many cables. Also a drum-mic set with 3 condensormics (el-cheapo, Collins).

I think I'll set him up in the room I have that sould be pretty 'dead' due to carpeting, wood in/on the walls ect. We'll plug his element into the RP1 and allow him to set up a decent sound he likes (via my crappy monitor speakers using the RP1 stuff at a minimum, volume & eq only) and blends nicely with the stuff it has to fit to. Also I'll setup a small condensor mic (one of my Collins-8 piece mic-drumset) to pick up the acoustic stuff inside the room. He can play with the clicktrack and his guitar sound on a headphone (but quite soft, since the mic might pick it up, and he's supposed to play that intro alone). These are really small parts he's to play, but I want a decent sound and a decent performance.. I'm pretty sick with editing the other stuff we've recorded, so this intro-stuff has to be right as it is. Having the right ideas about the setup might help doing just that .

Thanks guys/lads.

[Rokket]

Originally Posted by Steal Sessions

Tomorrow the guitar player of our 'project' is going to visit me at my place to record a few parts of a bunch of songs (intro's) using a semi-acoustic guitar. He wanted to know if he should bring his (old) RP1 effect machine for a decent line-signal to be recorded. Well, I was basically thinking I'd be recording the acoustic signal with (condensator?) mics and blending that with the signal from the element/pick-up inside the guitar. I do not know specs about the guitar and/or used element/pick-up. What would you recomend for recording that type of guitar, using mics/or not, using the elements/or not, blending mic & pickup lateron in the mix or use only one source for recording. I need it to blend nicely with a very heavy rock tune that starts right after the intro.

My gear:

-Sonar 2.2, 2.2GHz, 512 MB mem, Delta1010LT, M-Audio DualMP3, Phonic (I know..) 4 ch. mic mixer and many many cables. Also a drum-mic set with 3 condensormics (el-cheapo, Collins).

I think I'll set him up in the room I have that sould be pretty 'dead' due to carpeting, wood in/on the walls ect. We'll plug his element into the RP1 and allow him to set up a decent sound he likes (via my crappy monitor speakers using the RP1 stuff at a minimum, volume & eq only) and blends nicely with the stuff it has to fit to. Also I'll setup a small condensor mic (one of my Collins-8 piece mic-drumset) to pick up the acoustic stuff inside the room. He can play with the clicktrack and his guitar sound on a headphone (but quite soft, since the mic might pick it up, and he's supposed to play that intro alone). These are really small parts he's to play, but I want a decent sound and a decent performance.. I'm pretty sick with editing the other stuff we've recorded, so this intro-stuff has to be right as it is. Having the right ideas about the setup might help doing just that .

Thanks guys/lads.

Go with your first insticts and record it mic'd up first, maybe with 2 mics and record it DI'd. Personally, I would avoid using the RP1. They can get a bit noisy.
Experiment with mic placement and do a few dry runs. If you can place two mics, try one at the 12th fret pointed at a slight angle to the sound hole, and one over his fretting hand shoulder at just slightly below ear level.
Then DI it and see what it sounds like.

[Steal Sessions]

Originally Posted by Rokket

Go with your first insticts and record it mic'd up first, maybe with 2 mics and record it DI'd. Personally, I would avoid using the RP1. They can get a bit noisy.
Experiment with mic placement and do a few dry runs. If you can place two mics, try one at the 12th fret pointed at a slight angle to the sound hole, and one over his fretting hand shoulder at just slightly below ear level.
Then DI it and see what it sounds like.

Check. That RP1 idea was just for the impedance matching, allthough I guess plugging the element-pick-up directly in my DMP3 jack-direct input would be the 'cleanest' way to go. 100kOhms input impedance should be fine with a semi-acoustic pick-up I guess. The 2-microphone idea I've read about before.. Just like mic-ing an acoustic guitar I guess. Not a bad idea for the stereo image and such I guess. I'll try it and post what I got lateron. Thanks.

[Steal Sessions]

Originally Posted by Rokket

Personally, I would avoid using the RP1. They can get a bit noisy.

Ah, another question on this one, if I may? There are also a few solo's I've to record while using electric guitar. The question is that since we cannot record a full stack (allthough the rest of the recording is done with a full stack, but this would be only a solo, easier to blend I guess) which methode to use then. I was thinking the RP1 again, but maybe would it be wise to record it directly into the DAW and use an amp modeller & speaker sim to add eq, distortion and tube feel. Which one of these would get us the best results? Any other idea's?

[mattamatta]

Use a smaller amp =D

No reason you have to use a full stack, especially recording, and especially a solo, as it will probably need to fit into less sonic space to work.

Or an amp modeler would work if you have no other suitable amps to mic.

[Steal Sessions]

You are not going to believe this! Yesterday we recorded the required intro-thingies on semi- acoustic guitar (sound-wise it really went well, using 2 condensor mics, playing around with positions, making sure the 3:1 rule was applied.. souds great). The funny part is that I could hear something rattle a bit somewhere in/from that guitar so we did an closer inspection. Just for the background: our guitar player does not own this guitar, he only lend it from a friend of his.. He practised a bit on it during the last week (but not enough, considering the results ) but he didn't notice that ratling sound. After inspectation and playing around a bit we recovered something from the inside of the guitar, it hung fixed between the wiring inside the guitar, but still managed to ratle quite a bit:



Amazing huh? This guitar is at least 2 years owned by this friend.. He never noticed...

Funny buisiness this recording stuff is indeed..