KSM32 and DMP3 recording woes. Help?

P

PSM

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Monday I received my new KSM32 and DMP3 from Musician's Friend. I bought them to record an acoustic and vocal demo with my buddy, so I spent all night every night this week messing with them to try to get good acoustic tones. The problem is that no matter what I do, I can't get a non-whoofy tone without having to throw a lot of EQ on it. The good news is that the signal is so clean and noise-free that I can EQ it as much as I want without diminishing the quality of the signal, but it's bothering me.

With all the reviews I read and recommendations I got for this mic, I'm rather disappointed with what I'm hearing. It's anything but bright and the mid-range sounds super muddy and "whoofy" dry. I'm playing through a Taylor 210 and running the DMP3 through a Delta 44 and into Sonar. I've spent countless hours testing mic placement with anywhere from right up on the sound hole to back 12 inches, placing it up by the twelfth fret at different distances and angles (facing the sound hole, facing the neck, etc), placing it up by my ear and different distances and angles, you name it. The tone of the guitar is not at all what I'm hearing coming through those speakers.

I'm gonna try to post up a few sound clips so you can hear what I'm talking about, but I'm running out of motivation to keep at it. The one other thing I'm gonna try is to throw a couple other "brighter" mics on there so I can blend the two, although I only have access to a Beta 87A and 57 currently.

I'd appreciate any comments or advice and will try to get some clips up ASAP.
 
Working on acoustic treatment in your room should help a bit.
The sound of a guitar depends on the Guitar, strings, player, microphone, placement, acoustic treatment and mixing. ( and all the other stuff I forgot to mention :P )
Your monitors may have too much colored sound in them, what monitors are you using?
 
FadingMusic said:
Working on acoustic treatment in your room should help a bit.
The sound of a guitar depends on the Guitar, strings, player, microphone, placement, acoustic treatment and mixing. ( and all the other stuff I forgot to mention :P )
Your monitors may have too much colored sound in them, what monitors are you using?
Click to expand...

I've got a bit of a 3/4 booth set up in my room. Just some heavy blankets and such hanging from near the ceiling in a fairly small, enclosed area and the mic facing the back of it (not the one open side of the square area). The problem I have is that the tone I'm getting sounds absolutely nothing like the guitar. I love my guitar tone and have a pretty strong ear in this area. The reason I went with these items is because I was told they are very clean (they don't color the sound much), so I was hoping that would mean capturing the tone I am hearing. A lot of people talk about getting different mics or preamps to give the sound warmth, character, etc, but I just want what I'm hearing, haha. I put a LOT of time into my tone so I'm just trying to capture that, hence the clean items. I'm using Samson Resolv 50a monitors (don't have the money to upgrade yet), but I've been testing the tone on a bunch of different speakers (car stereo speakers that I know very well, my surround sound speakers, etc).

It's beginning to make me wonder just how much EQ people typically put on acoustic guitar recordings. I was always under the impression that with the right equipment, you could go pretty dry with your recording and still capture the tone you're hearing, but I suppose that was a poor assumption (at least without a super professional budget).
 
I think most of the people just want to record what they hear.
You cannot achieve this easily, not even in big studios.

The only thing you can do is "try" to capture the sound as close as possible and make some minor corrections with EQ.
It's all physics for the most part that makes out most of the sound you hear.

It may sounds good "there" but it can sound horrible "here"
I'm not a pro on this, but I think it's a acoustic problem.
 
1 Make sure you have the KSM around the right way

2 Get out of the booth and try recording in an open space. Take it outdoors if you need to
 
Woofy might just be proximity effect. Try being a little further away from the mic. Within that last 6" of proximity, things can get weird and inconsistent. i.e. boosted low end. Proximity to an untreated wall can also boost low end sounds. And untreated rooms in general. And other things to look out for.
 
Samples would help. Non-whoofy? Is the low cut / bass roll off / hpf switch on? (mic or preamp)

Beyond that a metal pop filter might help keep your high end sheen. Where a nylon one is supposed to dampen some of the high end. Same with fake fur wind screens (high end reduction). Lots of ways to adjust the sound in an application specific way without having to get other mic(s) into the mix or different preamp(s) and other things.
 
Thanks for the advice, guys. I've got some audio samples but I need a few more posts before I can post links to it.
 
I've attached 3 wave files for you to check out so you can see if you hear what I'm talking about.

- The first is a dry recording with the new equipment (KSM32 > DMP3 > Delta 44).

- The second is an EQ recording with the new equipment (KSM32 > DMP3 > Delta 44); I just threw a little EQ on there to brighten it up (bumped the mids/highs a few dB and left the low end alone).

- The third is a recording I did with my old USB mic straight into the computer. Totally dry recording; no EQ or anything, just like the first clip.

What I want you to listen to is not the sound quality - because obviously the USB mic is noisy as hell compared to the other setup - but rather the tone itself. All three recordings were done in the same room, same setup, same guitar, same micing technique; the only thing I changed was the mic/preamp/interface (and then the EQ on the EQ track, obviously). Although the quality is low and very noisy, I absolutely dig the tone of the USB mic. It's not perfect by any means, but it's got a much sweeter overall tone, while the others kind of sound like you're thumpin on a piece of dull wood comparatively, especially when you go back and listen to them again after hearing the USB mic. Give them a listen and let me know your thoughts. I'm not sure if it's a mic thing, a preamp thing, etc.

Any input would be appreciated.

Dry Recording by user4515510 on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

EQ Recording by user4515510 on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

USB Mic Recording by user4515510 on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free
 
I like the USB mic sound, other than the noise, the others sound a little less alive...perhaps it is just a brightness thing...a little ambience would do wonders.
 
back up your ksm about one foot and then compare the results. Not sure if you mentioned mic placement but point less towards the sound hole for less bass. Maybe put it next to the bridge or 12th fret to get closer to the USB mic's tone. Mic Placement can make a big difference. Plus, the KSM probably has a more focussed polar pattern, resulting in more proximity effect. So just because you have it in the same place as the USB mic, doesn't mean it will capture the same sound. Of course there's other factors involved .. like your preamp, frequency response of the microphone, distortion.

Move it around, I think you'll find something you like. Get as close as you can to the sound during tracking. Your mixes will get easier and better.
 
Where's the "whoof"???

Sounds like a typical Taylor to me. Pretty bright, kinda "flat" sounding mids and not a lot of low-end tone.

When was the last time you put new strings on your guitar?

Part of what you're hearing is the difference between mic placement and where your ears are while you're playing. Which means when you're playing your ears are about 24-30 inches above and a little bit behind the soundhole. If you want to capture what you are hearing put the mic up about ear high and point the capsule at the floor, a little behind the bridge and parallel with the soundboard, a few inches in front of the plane created by the top of the guitar. Use headphones to dial in the best sounding spot and give it a shot. You'll have to turn up the gain on your preamp a bit. But that should sound a lot more like what you are used to hearing when playing.

But I'd stick with placing the mic about 12-18 inches from the guitar, pointed at either the neck joint or the twelth fret. If your room is quiet enough, try putiing the mic about 3 to 4 feet in front of the soundhole. But understand you're gonna get a lot more room in the recording and have to bump up the gain on the preamp, which introduces more noise into the recording.
 
Sounds about right to me for that chain. I used to run an AT4033a -> DMP3 -> Delta 44. The main problem I had was that a trombone would make the signal hot enough to clip at the soundcard. The DMP3 was "almost" cranked DOWN to it's minimum gain level to get things right. Making the VU meters on the device useless. (Do they even move?)

The DMP3 compared very similar to my preamps on my Korg MR-1000, which I ultimately bypassed with Sound Devices MM-1 preamps because there was a definite missing / reduced low end reach IMO. Otherwise toy with the distance and placement of the mic some. It certainly doesn't sound bad, and it appeared that you added high end to the EQ version. And a little mud in the lower mids. All sound hole, no strings.

You didn't make the raw track downloadable so I couldn't analyze in software. Basically you want the plotted spectrum to look like a horizontally flipped growth curve. If it looks like a saw blade, you've got some comb filtering going on, due to a reflective surface(s) or other room things. It's not going to be buttery smooth, but the closer the better IMO. Changing strings could adjust your sound relative to the mics. Or just recording at a different location / angle to the instrument. You could move it up the fret board a bit (away from the hole) to get a little more string sound without EQ.

That kind of dull sound is more of a preamp thing IMO. At least when I was shopping around and listening to preamp shootouts, versus mic ones. You might borrow other (more $ per channel) preamps and see if that is an adjustment you like.

Are you using balanced or unbalance cables from the DMP3 to the Delta 44? Stereo looking jack versus mono / instrument jack. 3x metal segments vs. 2x metal segments. I did that at first and making the change made a difference in the recorded sound. More clarity / better high end, or as best as I can remember 3+ years ago and very new to recording at the time. It wasn't much of a difference, but it was audibly different.
 
It's hard to know what to advise without knowing what sound you're going for. You also haven't mentioned exactly where you've shoved the mic.

Consider that you don't necessarily know what your guitar sounds like, because you're playing it and hearing it from above as others have mentioned.... what is sounds like to an audience is likely to be different.

I don't think it's one thing... probably a combination of several. Where's the mic? What sound are you trying to get?

I do notice that you're getting strings ringing on frets from what appears to be a piece played in open tuning. Action needs to be a touch higher, I'd say. It does sound a little flat, EQ-wise, but I've no idea what that guitar sounds like in real life.
 
I actually just came very close to achieving the dry tone I'm looking for. I've attached a link below. While it's not necessarily finished, it is very balanced across the board and since there isn't really anything missing frequency-wise, it leaves a lot of room for EQ. I will note that this is not the KSM32. I don't want to tell everyone what it is yet but I will say that it will probably surprise you. :D I will also say with near certainty that the KSM32 is not going to give me the tone I'm looking for. I'll be returning it and possibly upgrading my preamp to a Grace M101 at the same time.

Let me know your thoughts.

Mikes SM57 out front soundhole and Joes SM57 out front 12th fret by PewterScreaminMach on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free
 
If you ever go to a bluegrass festival 9 times out of 10 you will see SM57's and SM58's on almost everything except a standup bass.

A few guys, like Del McCoury Band, use a single large diaphram condensor and they swap positions to get in the sweet spot for solos.

That's how Bill Monroe did it, except he used ribbon mics back in the day.

That clip does sound a lot better than the KSM32 did, IMHO.
 
I'm kinda curious how you had the KSM32 setup. Like you realize it's a side-address mic, right??? Were you pointing the top of the mic at the guitar by any chance??? That might explain the thin sound of that clip.

The 57 clip sounds just a touch louder than the KSM clip too.
 
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