Recording vocals and acoustic guitar

[lancelot0888]

Hi Guys! I have few questions and hopefully you can answer them.

What is the best way to record vocals and acoustic guitar? Should I record it separately?

Let's say I'm going to record the acoustic guitar first, should I record the full song guitar part or should I record it Verse by Verse (Like, record the verse first - pause - record the second verse - pause - then the chorus etc. etc.)?

Thanks!

 

[BroKen_H]

Yes, preferably record separately. This allows you several advantages: You can overdub a mistake easier. You don't get the bleed in the mikes of the other part, etc.
AFA how to record. That's on you. Record how you feel comfortable. Remember when you record in parts that it takes a bit of extra to make it sound natural when you stuff it all back into the same track...

 

[DM60]

My suggestion would record both parts together first to get a scratch track (if you are well versed with the song it may not be needed, my songs are never that mature at this stage). Then come back and re-record separately each part (this gives you a lot more flexibility in treating the sound and edits). Do this recording with a click track. For the acoustic, I would record the rhythm part twice for panning (you choose how much or how little based on what you want) to get a nice fat sound. Copying the track doesn't work nearly as well as double tracking.

If you record the scratch track, it will help you with getting the singing in synch with the guitar. Once you have a good feeling on the guitar recorded, then you can lay in the vocals and then do the punch ins and outs as required.

That is how I do it and seems to work pretty well.

 

[grimtraveller]

What is the best way to record vocals and acoustic guitar? Should I record it separately?

That's dependent on a couple of things. Firstly, is it only going to be vocals and acoustic guitar ? If so, then I think you can go either way. If there's other instruments to come, especially if there's bass/double bass and drums/percussion, then I think that although you could record guitar and vocals simultaneously, you'd have a much easier time of mixing doing them separately. Having done both, they both have their merits.

Let's say I'm going to record the acoustic guitar first, should I record the full song guitar part or should I record it Verse by Verse (Like, record the verse first - pause - record the second verse - pause - then the chorus etc. etc.)?

Again, it depends on the song. If you're doing something like "Desolation row" where the rhythm guitar is pretty constant throughout the 11 minutes of the song then you may as well do it all in one go. To be honest, if I'm just recording acoustic guitar to a click, then I'll do it all in one go, no matter how complex the song. But if I'm playing with a drummer or percussionist and it's a long song then I might do it in sections. But it wouldn't be a verse at a time and a chorus at a time. It would be up to where there's a major change. But it depends, because I might just as easily do the whole lot in one go.

 

[BroKen_H]

The main advantage of playing both together is that sometimes you can get a better performance from doing both as if live...just to add to both sides of the coin.

 

[witzendoz]

If you really have to do it at the same time, and some people do to get the performance, it is a big advantage to use fig8 Mic patterns. The reduction in spill is much better then normal cardioid. You still will have to keep both guitar and vocal takes as there will still be some spill but the mixing side is much easier.

Alan.

 

[Brian Miller]

Many singing guitarists have rarely if ever sung without a guitar in their hand. For these guys, the guitar is a comfort zone and if you tried to record their vocals as an overdub, you would get a shaky performance. If given the choice between a great, confident performance and clean, perfectly separate recordings, I'll take the great performance every time.

Listen to Death Cab For Cutie's "I Will Follow You into the Dark." If you're not familiar with the story, Ben Gibbard was recording vocals for a song when the engineers needed to take a break to work on something in the control room. He was told to take a break, but instead, he picked up a guitar and started practicing a different song he was working on that he hadn't even shared with the band yet - "I Will Follow You into the Dark." The engineer (Chris Walla) heard the song through the monitors and told Ben to start over, then just hit record. That one take became their mega hit song round the world. It was recorded with a single vocal mic, which is why the acoustic is so quiet on the track. Walla heard magic and rather than taking hours to set up the perfect recording situation, he captured the moment.

All that being said, if you're only recording yourself, you should practice playing and singing separately to get more comfortable, because you will get cleaner recordings with which to study and learn the art of mixing.

 

[Tom Paul]

What is the best way to record vocals and acoustic guitar? Should I record it separately?

I like to record them separately so that I have more control when mixing. I just haven't been happy when I track them together. However, some people play and sing together better than tracking things separately. It's how they are used to rehearsing and performing and it's more natural to them.
.

 

[wmalan]

I just started going to doing both guitar and vocal for the scratch track for the previously mentioned reasons: Your strumming/picking will better match how you'll be doing it in a live situation. As will your voice cadence to the guitar. I found I was doing odd guitar strums that threw off my vocal rhythm. But that's just me.

 

[Btyre2013]

using 2 fig 8 mics gets the best separation between voice and guitar, you can use the null of a fig8 mic to your advantage, recording it section by section can actually create better results, it's a good idea to do this if it's not working when you try and get it in one take, some classical pieces for example can have some extremely challenging sections so sometimes I do it like section A then section B, e.t.c. but I always avoid copy and pasting entire sections, it's probably fine in pop music but not classical.