baffle for vox and acoustic guitar recording

CoolCat

Well-known member
Anyone know what this "baffle" is or looks like?

"What I used on his vocals — and what I used on Johnny Cash, Patti Paige, Marty Robbins and many others — was a [Neumann] U47 microphone with a power pack,” Johnston explains. "It was the old one and nothing was better. I put a baffle over the top of Dylan's guitar so he could play while he sang, and I also used some EQ on his voice, but I never tried to change his sound.

Been reading about the Blonde on Blonde album and the Quonset Hut studio sessions.

I looked for pictures but never saw anything of a baffle.

leaving me ...er....baffled?
:D
 
Likewise baffled. Lots of pix of Dylan in studio, but none that I can see show anything that might be considered to be a baffle.
 
Using my own brand of fractured logic..

On the top of the guitar, clue #1. What is on the top of the guitar? A sound hole.

A baffle is something that you place in front of a hollow, a designed barrier.

I'm guessing an acoustic sound hole cover. Looks like a shallow rubber cup. The diameter of the sound hole.
 
I went back through the pix of Dylan in a studio and checked out the guitars. None that I could see had a sound hole baffle. I'm thinking that a sound hole baffle is not going to achieve much in the way of separating voice from guitar. For a start, it faces away from the person. What would be needed is something between the top (not the face) of the guitar and the singer.

The main purpose of sound hole baffles is to control feedback from the guitar in amplified concerts.
 
his quote is "over the top of Dylans guitar"....

I would think it was a common practice back then? Johnston came from Columbia New York Studios right? So when they bought the studios ,the dudes came to Nashville from NYC and Dylan followed.

I havent found any pictures of any acoustic guitar baffles on anyone?
 
A baffle. You put the guitar in the box. Then hands through the holes . I don't know what the foot pedal does. Distortion?

bnp_260.jpg
 
Seems it would have been easier to just remove the strings from his guitar to reduce the guitar sounds bleeding into the vocal mic.
 
It sure sounds like it would be a good idea for recording someone who was singing while playing and though I could imagine some way to create such a thing, i admit i never saw something in any studio pix.
 
It was probably nothing more than say...a piece of foam or similar, placed horizontally between the vocal mic and the guitar.
Imagine one of the currently popular "vocal shields"...just flat, turned horizontal and suspended between the vocal mic and guitar.

TBH...I am surprised none of the "vocal shiled" manufacturers haven't seen that light bulb go on, and simply manufactured a flat vocal shield, that you still mount on a stand, and just tilt it down or at whatever angle you desire, and have it sit between the vocal mic and the guitar.
DUH!...did I just give away a new product idea for free? :facepalm: I better contact the US Patent Office first thing! :D

If you have one of the vocal shields...it would be very easy to rig a larger piece of foam, or even a piece of cardboard with some foam or felt over it (use your imagination)...and attach it to the vocal shield, and there you go...just tilt the vocal shield mount to your desired position and set it in-between the vocal mic and the top of the guitar. You could probably even get it set so that you could have both a vocal mic and guitar mic...and the shield in-between then, without obstructing the playing of the guitar. It would be a "tight" rig...but certainly achieve a good amount of separation between the two mics.
 
yes all that lead me to watching Figure 8 pattern mics to using the null space for the same effect.
tilt the mic.

but its odd I cant find a picture of anyone using a baffle like this. I wonder how effective was this baffle?

you would think theres some picture of someone sticking a foam piece or even cardboard etc...inbetween the vocal and guitar?
 
Seems like it would be much easier to just find a couple of microphones with appropriate polar patterns and arrange them such that they pick up or reject the vocal/guitar as needed :) A couple of figure-8 ribbons did a remarkable job of this for me recently.

I think Miro is right though, probably just some sort of acoustically absorbent material between the guitar and vocal mic to separate them a bit. Although I think that LazerBeak's contraption would be infinitely more effective :D
 
So where can I buy one?
Thank you for the belly laugh. It lasted all day long.
My wife loved it too.
For sure, distortion. :-)
 
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