Acoustic Guitar Clip using 2 - SP B1's...

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WERNER 1

WERNER 1

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Hey guys, I finally got a chance to sit down with my buddies Taylor acoustic and run a couple of test tracks.

I was looking to get some feed back as to your thoughts on the over all tone. Keep in mind one track is "dry" with no eq'ing or anything, and then the next is EQ'd just a bit.

I was wondering if you all liked the dry or eq'd tracks better?? (The Eq'd ones sound a bit better on my monitors, but the dry ones sound better on my home stereo (High end stuff)

Signal chain: Taylor guitar ---> (2)- SP B1 mic's---> DMP-3 ---> Delta 1010 ---- AA 1.5.

I also wanted to point out that the strings on the Taylor were totally shot and dead, so I would imagine that with fresh strings the dry versions would be just about perfect.(??)

Mic Placement: I had both B1's about 12" out from the front of the guitar. One was facing the neck/body joint, and the other was facing the bridge.

Looking forward to your thoughts and suggestion!! :D

PS - I also added some verb and panning to the very last clip/passage. ;)

Thanks,
Rick

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/songInfo.cfm?bandID=410286&songID=3829318
 
Not bad, and thanks for posting this...it gives us something to point to when we encounter th dozens of "what's the B1 like?" posts.

I know they were just test tracks but I noticed some things. On the first pair the only thing I noticed is that your pick hits the body of your gutar creating a 'click.' In the second pair I noticed that you aren't very precise with your picking. Work on those things and it'll help out - the joy of recording is that you can work a long time to make each track perfect.

As for the dry-verb sounds, it's hard to tell which is better. Your skills as an engineer will improve the more you work on it... The real question of which is better is actually whether or not it fits in the general mix. Once you've got drums, another few guitar tracks, vocals and other instruments in there you might find that adding effects and panning will make your acoustic track too busy or distracting, and you might find that you will use eq to make your track fit into the mix rather than enhance the actual guitar sound. THe way your acoustic track fits in with other instruments is way different than by itself.

Out of the four options I liked the second track best by the way...

Jacob
 
Thanks for the "lone" reply!! :confused: ....

Yeah, these were just a couple of quick little tracks thrown down in the process of trying to get some good mic placement on the B1's (I've not recorded acoustic guitar up to this point yet. )

My playing is not the greatest on an acoustic as I'm an electric guy threw and threw :D ;) I can hear the clicking.......it's a little anoying if you're listening for it....

After listening to the tracks over and over again on different systems ( home stereo's, auto, cheap PC's, and the like, I think I like the non-EQ'd tracks better as the EQ'd one's start to sound a bit thin and brittle to me......which would probably only get worse when other instruments are added to the mix..

Thanks for the reply!! (I was hoping there would be at least a couple more though???.....)

Rick
 
Okay, sounds pretty thin to me. It would get lost in a mix but by itself, if that's the way you like it to sound, cool. I prefer as little meatier acoustic tone. I'm guessing that's a 400 series Taylor, airy sounding, almost Larrivee.
IMHO it needs a punch in the low mids, maybe 250 or so
 
Ha! That's funny as in the EQ'd tracks, that's the frequency I pulled out a bit.........along with 120 and adding some highs...... But in the end I like the non EQ'd tracks better for the over all tone.

I believe it was an 821 Taylor or something like that ( 8 something..)........I think it was like 2200 bucks or so :eek:.....sounded a bit boomy to me though.....of course the strings were in extreme need of change.

Thanks,
Rick
 
I'm surprised at how transparent that mic seems to be.

I like the un-EQ'd stuff the best. It sounds the most natural to me. The EQ'd stuff sounds just a bit thin.

Good listen, thanks!
 
For the clip with the heavy strumming i like the eq'd version better. I'm just guessing, but I think that might work best in conjunction with a good bass track. In my head, I was actually picturing the bass kicking in after a few measures of guitar only - I pictured it sounding very cool ;)

For the fingerpicked stuff, I preferred the clip without the eq. It sounds more natural, while the eq'd version sounded thin and lacking in low end. I see you added the verb and panning to the last clip - how about adding a touch of verb and that same panning to the non-eq'd version of this clip. I bet that would sound very nice.
 
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