Vox/Acoustic
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keith.rogers
Well-known member
If you want to redo the vox, it is going to be very hard with a recording of both guitar and vocal done at the same time. It's nearly impossible to prevent some bleed, even if you had something like a pair of ribbons with large nulls on the sides, you'll still get room reflections.
It might help to understand why you want to do them together. (Video?) I've done some that way, but it takes a fair amount of practice, unless you're performing solo all the time and this is kind of a natural thing for you. At least, that's IMHO....
Either work on recording separately so you can fix each part, or just do multiple takes of guitar+vox (to a click, preferably) so you can comp in both parts where you need a fix. I'd do this in a single sitting on the same day because it's also pretty hard to recreate the exact sound a day a day later.
That's good advice. Thanks.
I would like to do it this way because I am a singer-songwriter and doing both at same time feels so much natural.
Another idea I just thought of is to Play the guitar direct with 1/4 cable and sing into the SM57. Then go back redo the acoustic with the condenser. My theory being that the vox, new or old, won't bleed into condenser, and the SM57 needing such close attack won't pick up much acoustic, and if it does, the parts when not singing can be cut out and parts when singing will be much louder than any guitar that bleeds through.
Thoughts?
keith.rogers
Well-known member
Anything is worth trying. How much of the acoustic bleeds into the vocal mic will depend to some degree on the mic position and angle, as well as room acoustics. You may be surprised how much guitar you hear in the vocal, so it might still be difficult to just "punch in" a single word or line into the vocal track, vs. re-doing the entire thing. Go ahead and try, and maybe it will meet your needs. (You just have to try things to figure out what really works best for *you*.)
Another idea - I have made a scratch/guide track that was recorded with both guitar and vocal at the same time, and then re-recorded both parts separately, while listening to that first recording. Once the individual tracks were Ok, the scratch track was discarded.
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
There is a part of me that doesn't want to talk you out of doing what you intend. After all, it is the way you are most comfortable and too often on this and other forums, a person asks a question and many of the answers don't actually answer the question in a manner that is helpful to the questioner. Very often the answers are just attempts to dissuade the questioner from doing something that the answerer considers difficult or passé.
But it's only part of me that feels this way !
This is my logic, which is only offered up as a consideration.
Natural doesn't come into it. We are now a good 70+ years into multitrack recording. For the first 30~40 years of that period {from the late 40s until into the 80s} the overwhelming majority of artists of just about every genre known to man, beast and God developed their musicality in some kind of ensemble context. If we put aside the majority of those artists and just concentrate on those that played an instrument and sang, many of the greats from the early 60s onwards, who would have learned playing and singing simultaneously had to learn the rigours of studio recording. And that meant learning how to get the instruments down first, then getting the vocals down. It may not have been that much of a trial for those bands that had a dedicated singer but for those self contained units {your Beatles, Pink Floyds, Lovin' Spoonfuls, Status Quos etc} with singer/instrumentalists, they had to become comfortable with being able to do both the studio thing and go out and do it live.
And didn't they all do a great job ? To the extent that finding that artist that records an instrument at the same time as recording their vocal in the studio is so much the exception that it's quite a story when one finds that person.
Even if you don't do it now, I think it's a discipline that you should learn and utilize. I'm the same with clicks ~ I don't want to hear people saying they can't use them because if their family's life depended on it, they'd be able to !
Rather, my philosophy is that you should be able to record with a click ~ and you should be able to record without one.
Same with recording vocals as a singer/instrumentalist.
TalismanRich
Well-known member
If you are really good at doing the playing+singing thing, like you would at a live show, there's probably no reason to redo a basic guitar/vocal recording. I've done it a few times, but my issue is getting nervous and having brain fade trying to NOT make a mistake. Then I'll forget the words, or miss a chord. Once that happens, it's time to start over. After about the 3rd or 4th take, I force myself to relax and put RECORDING out of my mind. Just play like I'm practicing. If I'm not 100% comfortable with doing both, then I'll go with tracking guitar, then adding vocals. That's much more common these days, as remembering lyrics to new songs seems to be tougher these days!
The trickiest part is getting the guitar sound the way you want. Once you get that, using the SM57 like you would with a live vocal will probably work well, up close means it won't pick up a lot of guitar. That way you can EQ and add reverb, etc as needed.
The trickiest part is getting the guitar sound the way you want. Once you get that, using the SM57 like you would with a live vocal will probably work well, up close means it won't pick up a lot of guitar. That way you can EQ and add reverb, etc as needed.
Why would you only want to redo vox? It never hurts to redo a guitar as well. It will be the condenser mic that will pick up the most bleed, so some of the vocals will be in the guitar track. My approach would be to record scratch vocal and guitar tracks. If you don't play to a click, at least count before starting to play so you know where to enter. Then record the tracks one by one playing along the scratch tracks. You only focus on one thing at the time so your performance will be better, and the recording will be cleaner. And you can use the condenser to record the vocals (may be better or not depending on your voice, the room etc.). You don't even have to delete the scratch tracks, experiment with blending them in the mix, sometimes it works too.
TimOD
Active member
I would second what a lot of folks are saying here--learn to do either the voice or the guitar first, and then take it from there. I'm currently working with a young singer/songwriter who writes on the acoustic, and she gladly decided to do the acoustic first, then the guitar. Or vice versa. I've been doing it that way for years, and there's no question that that is the way to do it. It gives you massive flexibility, and being able to re-do screw-ups on either the voice or guitar, without doing both over again together is just a side benefit. Remember, the recording is a simulacrum of a live performance; I wouldn't sweat it out about trying to create a live performance because you're not really doing that. I have a friend who claims he must do it the live way, and by God he rarely screws it up. He nails it in one take. But then I have to mix it, and it's way easier and more flexible as far as panning and effects go. (You're always gonna get bleed, so those decisions wind up being a compromise.)
For the price of a 57 you can get a pretty decent condenser. Check Ebay for something like a CAD M177 or M179. They can be picked up cheaply, and they are very good mics indeed, but the market is flooded with condensers.
For the price of a 57 you can get a pretty decent condenser. Check Ebay for something like a CAD M177 or M179. They can be picked up cheaply, and they are very good mics indeed, but the market is flooded with condensers.
Bootleg Recording
New member
Agreed with most of the comments here too. I'd absolutely track the instruments one by one (acoustic guitar first, then vocals next). You'll have the best amount of flexibility this way and you can re-do the guitar as many times as you want and the vocals too. This is typically the most effective way to record.