Latest think on recording acoustic

maxman65

Member
Next experiment :
1. Close miked
2. Cut lower frequencies
3. Zero compression
4. New nickel bronze strings
5. Double tracked
6 . Panned at 10 and 2 o'clock for playback .

Any thoughts?
 
You can't do a prescription like this. It depends on so many things.
What do you want the end product to sound like?
Close miked could be good, but some guitars and songs would sound better with mics further away, if the room is positive.
I can think of quite a few songs where the lower frequencies are the vital ones?
Compression? I might add a touch if it needs it?
Nickel bronze? That's up to the guitarist, surely?
Ever tried do double track Spanish, finger style or finger picking? Double tracking would be a tricky thing to do unless you wanted two guitars.
10/2 might be good - so could 9/3 be, and depending on what you are trying to do, full left and right can be a great effect if you want a really wide guitar.

Rules are good, and so is breaking them when breaking them sounds better.
 
I guess I'm needing to hear clarity and depth and presence . It's really the core track . it's a simple down tempo muted strum pattern bit it holds the chord progression around which everything hangs . Hard panning seems to create too much separation for this . It's more an attempt to thicken the sound without losing definition in the process
 
I guess we really need to hear it to get any idea of what mic technique would flatter rather than hinder. I'm actually a great lover of acoustics being mono, but blended with a couple of mics, so for me, I'd probably record mono - with a fretboard mic and a body mic, blended together to sound like one perfect one - I hate strumming that has width, because real strumming tends to have vertical movement in real life, not left to right. So mono source with stereo reverb. I'm with you on separation but even 10/2 panning still gives some stereo field artefacts that can then fight with the reverb. Of course, just one mic in exactly the right place might be worth pursuing too?
 
I guess I'm needing to hear clarity and depth and presence . It's really the core track . it's a simple down tempo muted strum pattern bit it holds the chord progression around which everything hangs . Hard panning seems to create too much separation for this . It's more an attempt to thicken the sound without losing definition in the process

Without hearing it as has been mentioned, we are just shooting in the dark. I will say if you want thickness it's better to record the same part twice using different mic positions as the slight differences in timbre and the performance will give that bigness and you can eq each slightly differently to bring out different overtones and timbre. It's really more of an arrangement issue
 
Perhaps not 100% related to your post, but I have nothing but good things to say about using the Orange Acoustic Pre... fantastic sounding preamp. I've also incorporated the Hotone Audio OMNI AC pedal to make the instrument sound more grand auditorium, Hummingbird, nylon, etc. A fun pedal to have.
 
Back
Top