What can I do with what I have?

S

Spawndn72

New member
Several years ago I bought a set of mics to record my daughter's drum set. She no longer plays and all this stuff is collecting dust but now I am interested in recording acoustic guitar and vocals and wondering what I can do with what I already have:

Focusrite scarlett 18i20

Two Audix ADX51's, one Audix D6 and one Audix I5 mic.

I have read that the ADX51's can be used to mic the guitar and the I5 is ok for vocals, but I wanted your opinion of these before I put a lot of work and time into trying to get something that was made for drums to work for my guitar and vocal application.
 
Spawndn72 said:
Several years ago I bought a set of mics to record my daughter's drum set. She no longer plays and all this stuff is collecting dust but now I am interested in recording acoustic guitar and vocals and wondering what I can do with what I already have:

Focusrite scarlett 18i20

Two Audix ADX51's, one Audix D6 and one Audix I5 mic.

I have read that the ADX51's can be used to mic the guitar and the I5 is ok for vocals, but I wanted your opinion of these before I put a lot of work and time into trying to get something that was made for drums to work for my guitar and vocal application.
Click to expand...

Never used them but the capacitor ADX15s should be fine for acoustic guitar (stereo?) The I5 is indeed a GP dynamic cardiod of the SM whatsit stamp and should serve well for vocals. The D6 is of very low sensitivity and so not much use except for drums. (bagpipes?)

The 18i20 was well thought of and it might take the new F'rite Genll software upgrade?

All the usual caveats apply re room control? Duvets and all that swaddlin'

Dave.
 
Spawndn72 said:
...but I wanted your opinion of these before I put a lot of work and time into trying to get something that was made for drums to work for my guitar and vocal application.
Click to expand...


Often, that is the best thing you can do...put in a lot of work and time...before you find out if something works for you or not.
I never look at that as a waste of time/money/effort...I look at it as a learning experience, which you can never buy. :)

Make it a challenge...to see just how far you can go with what you've got.
 
Spawndn72 said:
I wanted your opinion of these before I put a lot of work and time into trying to get something that was made for drums to work for my guitar and vocal application.
Click to expand...
I'm of the opinion that, while there are mics that are definitely better employed in specific situations, a microphone is still a microphone. I don't believe that there is any source that cannot be recorded by any mic. And in a way, only you can determine that.
I experiment, in my cheapskate way, with the little I have. I've used an SM58 for vocals, acoustic & electric guitars, bass guitar, double bass, snare and bass drum. They all sounded fine for the most part. But I'd have to think twice about using it on the double bass again. I have a better mic for that.
I've used a small diaphragm condenser mic on acoustic guitars, electric guitars, drum overheads, percussion and vocals. But I'd have to think really hard before using it on vocals again. I wasn't impressed.
A crummy cheap set of drum mics {one Superlux set, one Behringer set} I've used on bass guitar {the bass drum mic in either set} and found to be particularly nice for vocals if I want to avoid a bassy, thick sound.
I've even used the AKG C1000 to mic my bass amp from a distance and I liked the bright sound.
See the pattern ? I just experiment with what I have. I don't really care what the rights and wrongs are. Because to me, a mic is a mic. I've even used a headphone as a mic ! It wasn't great {it was OK for a tambourine} but for a trashy guitar sound, it was just the ticket. So, put in the work and trust your own ears.
 
A microphone doesn't know or care what it's capturing, more or less. Some mics need more careful attention or protection from sudden air blasts. Ribbon mics especially, large condensers with thin diaphragm skins perhaps. The inside of a kick drum is a hostile enviornment that way. A lot of moving coil dynamic mics are rugged enough to withstand the abuse from being inside a kick drum. It's not a good place for certain mics.

Very small changes in mic placement can have a substantial effect on the sound in many cases. That's kind of critical to the process. The exact mic you have? Not so much. You can learn the art of mic placement with what you have. Learning how mics work and what the different properties are is helpful. Polar patterns, proximity effect, off axis response - there's a bit of a learning curve. It can help to make more effective decisions on mic placement.

Shure designed a mic called the SM 91. It's a half cardioid electret condenser boundary microphone. Looks like it would be comfortable sitting on a conference table. It was actually designed for that purpose - recording conferences. One day someone in a recording studio decided to put one in a kick drum. They liked the results. Somehow it ended up being popular for that purpose. Shure changed the design slightly, called it the Beta 91A and now Shure describes it as a kick drum mic. It still looks like a conference mic, but I don't think they're too concerned about how you use it as long as they can sell mics.
 
The ADX51s can easily be used for recording acoustic guitar.

Audix put out a video showing some basic techiniques for recording guitar with that mic. You might try setting up and doing some recordings. Should work fine.
 
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