First of all I want to thank you for that very detailed post. You definitely know exactly what you are talking about because after many many hours of tweaking EQ balances with endless test recordings I noticed that a few things you said that are which are completely unintuitive are what I stumbled across by accident and you are bang on! I am eager to try your EQ suggestions out because I am slightly off target from your suggestions, but not by far! For e:g I aggressively LPF at 14khz, and clear a bit around 1.5k instead of the 2-5k which you suggested, I am putting a HPF at 70hz (shallow) if no bass guitar or drums, the boost up in the air frequencies is really important, I underestimated this area, I was actually attempting warm and darker mixes by throwing a low pass filter (shallow) on the acoustic guitar at around 8k, I've tried all sorts. The most exciting and pleasant to my ear is pushing the highs like you say. But now I have a different thought process thanks to your suggestions, I will take note of the extra seperation I get by boosting up around 10k area and listen carefully while fine tuning it, your advice was invaluable to me and I will most certainly try it out as soon as I can. The compression advice is noted also, I was using very little compression in the box, and none on the way in, most of the time the compressor was not kicking in but occasionally i'll get 2-3dbs of compression at certain parts of the song. I thought the fastest attack might be a good idea to push the guitar back a little from the vocal? I was never sure, I lose punch at the cost of that setting but then it can interfere a little with the vocal. Adding a room verb seems to do wonders too, on the strumming guitar, it really makes the melody or vocal line stand right up front and in your face without the need to turn it up, but again... this comes at the expense of punch (even while messing with pre-delay), there is a lot to think about and it's tough.
I will write more back here as soon as I can, I'm in a different time zone and I was asleep so this is why there was delay, there is a few things I want to say still. There are some recorded acoustic guitars on one of Warren huarts songs that is my GO TO acoustic guitar reference. It is simply the most beautiful damn thing I've ever heard. I have the multitracks but unfortunately there was no mix breakdown so I have no damn clue how the hell he got there. He has 4 recordings of strumming guitar, 2 standard guitar takes, and 2 nashville tuned takes. I am assuming hard panned L/R. although when I try this I can hear a little flamming going on in the higher frequencies, panning in 75% or so L/R seems to sound miles better on my own recordings for some reason, my playing isn't that sloppy, and I edited even tighter also so I feel like it is bad EQ accentuating the flams, but I could be wrong!. The bass is huge in this song, using a spectrum analyzer there is a nice big bump, and to my ears the acoustic guitars are SO clear around that 300hz range, I feel like he perhaps went up quite high with the high pass filter also. To my ear it sounds like he is choosing the bass guitar to win the fight in the low end, there is definitely some harmonic activity going on, he uses Rbass a lot, it sounds subby even above 60hz (by that I mean the frequencies that make the sound very round are much higher up), I don't think there is much EQ going on with the bass guitar, the acoustic seems to be cleared around it. I think the guitars are perhaps sidechained heavily, they seem to come up quite consideribly in between phrases although unsure if master bus compression or sidechain ducking. I think one of the tricks he uses might be to have the acoustic guitars and bass LOUD at the start of the song to stop the listener from turning the song down when the vocal comes in even though it comes in hot, and then just turning everything else down a ton to leave a butt load of room around the vocal. reason I bring this up is because it really can affect my EQ choices.
Skip to 30 seconds for the song with the acoustic guitars
if you was interested in what I was talking about, and trying to achieve.
I was struggling with bright harsh guitar sound so I found I got the best recording with what mics I have using a ribbon mic only, the very budget Tbone RB500 Ribbon, which is my entry into the world of ribbons, I love it, sounds awesome, I was using this on the same guitar as what warren is using in the video which is the
Yamaha LL16, I brought it specifically because I thought it was going to be the answer to everything. 4inches from the 12th fret on axis actually sounds surprisingly good, I could definitely get away with that sound using little EQ if it was a solo guitar (although if solo guitar I would probably stereo mic anyway), my issue was trying to shape it around a vocal line, or melody guitar. But yes, I am recording below a cloud in my mix position, I have bass traps, I have thick duvets hanging in front of windows, I have RFZ etc. I am Close miking, there is very little room interference compared to normal. I do have an annoying 600hz resonance, not sure if that's the guitar or room but 2 or 3 db notch seems to take care of it nicely. I am recording 4 seperate takes like warren did, using nashville + normal acoustic. I wish i knew how the hell he mixed that nashville in with the normal acoustic guitars aswel! It's so bloody annoying that the one song I am working towards with my own recordings has no mix breakdown!!!!
I had a good look at the AT4050, unfortunately none for sale on Ebay. the U87 would be lovely, it's juuuust out of my price range right now. I am torn between the R121 and U87 now ......
I feel like a high end mic my be a missing ingredient, it's the only thing that seems to be missing from my chain, like in the Warren huart video above, I'm using same guitar, better interface and being recorded the same way with no outboard gear stright into the interface, in a fully treated room. the only part of the chain that is different is the mic (and obviously player). But this can come a little later, my results are very good still. But there is still room for a lot of improvement. I think your EQ suggestions will help a great deal.
I will most probably need to copy/paste your reply into my notes so I can refer back to it. lots of good information there, dense! You most certainly are not coming across like a know it all. it is very much appreciated. I need those details you mentioned, all of it. But anyway, I have plugged you for enough information! It's not fair I take up too much of your time.
I'll tell you what though.... I'm going to be sorry if you dissapear from this forum. You have got me thinking about a lot of things. And I feel more confident. I really do wish I lived near Detroit, unfortunately I am in England. You're very kind and you have made my day, I just re-read your original posts again and It has all sunk in now, I learned a lot. I'd definitely buy you a beer for that, hell... probably 20. Your post is without a doubt going into my notes permanently. Cheers man!
