Acoustic guitar tone

  • Thread starter Thread starter wfaraoni
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sounds halfway decent to me, but I don't hear anything that couldn't have been done with a POD or some type of similar device.. nice playing.. I don't have any e.q suggestions because I am going through an e.q. crisis myself.. perhaps someone else can help.. I liked the piece though..
 
b.sabbath, Well I'm kind of glad to hear that I'm not the only one suffering from this very frustrating problem. It seems that If I get a descent tone through the headphones the eq on my PA sounds boomy and weak in the mids and highs. I guess I should Eq my PA to the more flat response of the headphones. But since I dont have any monitors Im not quite sure which is the best way to adjust this. Since right now I have the PA equed for the best sound from a professional recording!! Its pretty frustrating. :( I know that Ive improved the tone and overall recording quality with each step that Ive learned from all the guys here and some research as well. Since I have an line 6ax2 I can record direct but Ive found that something is lost when I do this,,sounds thin and flat, you would think it would be the same as using a pod would't you? I have Much to learn here. But Im still not very satisfied! Maybe Ill get some good response ahead. most times there is no replacement for experience. BTW Im not one of those gifted players who can get great tone out of anything, I find that to be truly amazing. I know a guy who can play the same thing I do but he gets this great sound on the same guitar.

Peace and
Thanks for the listen

Wow; Now a senior member!!
 
Im not recording expert enough to tell you exactly what to do on your recording eq, im working desperately to get that squared away myself, but I`ll honestly tell you what I hear and what I "think" might help.
That Alvarez has a beautiful big clear tone. The 58 does a good job of picking it up but they tend to start increasing the mids as you approach 1k to 2.5k and begin to get a little honky, I`d ease back a slight touch. The upper mids seem to need just a slight lift, maybe around 3.5k to 4 for presence without lettin it get tinny in fequencies above there.

If your after that on the live board and the system is eq`d to the room, Id back the bass down a little and flatten the highs to keep the tin off the strings and use the mid at around the 5.5 to 6k knee and increase it by small percents till you hear the guitar voice come out, and work around in that area, if its too "honky" raise the knee to 6 to 6.5 and work in small increases. To get the sound you need inside the phones I`d run a separate monitor eq so you can pump the lows and lower mids to suite your taste there.
You have a nicely seasoned and tasteful touch with your picking. I'ts a Pretty song.
ken
 
I'd say ditch the amp and experiment with micing the acoustic. A starting point would be to try putting the 58 at an angle roughly the same as your ears point of view pointing at around where the neck joins the body. If you have one, run the mic into a compressor and fiddle till it sounds good :) Then cut some lows/low mids if it's too boomy in cakewalk add some "air" at around 10-15k to liven it up a bit and whack a bit of reverb on there.
 
You will probably get a better sound micing the guitar itself. This sounds like some nice playing, but all the wrong freq's are boosted, as has been already stated.
I suggest this. Is it a 58 you're using? Try placing it 8 to 12 inches directly infront of the 12th fret and aim it at the center of the soundhole (adjust to taste). This will keep the wind off the mic, but direct you to the source. Make sure your level meter indicates approximately -12db as your recording. Try that and post the MP3. Then we can talk about EQ.


Nice song idea by the way :)
 
I took a crack at it. If you like any of it, just lemme' know and I'll tell you what I did. If you don't like any of it, just lemme' know and I'll tell you what I did. :D

BTW - I'm about 20 years younger than you, but I think we have similar ear damage. :D

www.nowhereradio.com/honestmango/singles
 
BTW - I'd have never guessed that this was an acoustic/electric. It really sounds like an electric guit, so I treated it as such.
 
that was an acoustic???? :eek:


yeah... so... it's time to mic the soundhole.

The playing was good, but that might as well have been an elec. git, by the way it sounded.

WATYF
 
without the amp

Thanks for all the great responses: I put up a short recording done with the mic at about 12" pointed at the soundhole. I believe that it sounds better, but comes with some tradeoffs.
Every little string noise or finger hammer/slide that is there is greatly amplified. And I will be the first to admit that Im not a clean smooth player. also The bass punch is somewhat dampened. The chimey high notes are still there but they can be controlled easier by adjusting the playing intesity to compensate.

http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=1644&alid=-1

Toki: Ill try your suggestions on the amp eq experiment when I can crank it up on the weekend. It wouldnt go over very big with the family at midnight. My DEAFNESS for highs is "TOTAL" AT A LITTLE LESS THAN 6K :( ! So some of what you suggest, I may never be able to apply.

Ianw: Im really afraid of blowing something up in the 10-15k range, (see above), even if it sounds good to others. I couldnt hear that even if it was 200db. I've been know to set things with ear piercing sounds that causes others to cover their ears in pain while yelling profanities, while I stand by adjusting things totally oblivious.:) I dont have a compressor except for whats built into sonar 2. I use it quite a bit. I think that you are right in that miking the acoustic may be the best way to achieve a good acoustic tone. See the raw sample I posted. Hey BTWI cant even imagine what 15k sounds like!!!

Sluice: I used the mic exactly as you suggested and I agree that the raw tone is better than going through the amp but its still kind of shallow. I tried to adjust my playing on some of higher notes which had a tendency to really ring out by playing that part more softly. I thought that if I moved the mic back further that it would help but the recording level suffered too much and the punch seems to be lost. I left it raw for you to hear,Now what should I try to do to enhance It, in your opinion??

Chrisharris; Thanks for taking your precious time to help. posting the adjustment was great. I could not wait to get home to listen to it. Interesting adjustment, totally surprized me. Yes electric sounding indeed. Since you see that what I am looking for is a sharp, clear and clean yet full bodied acoustic tone with rich distinct bass and warm mids and highs.
Kind of like you can get if you strum an nice quality acoustic at the 14th fret with the right hand. In the new raw post I did actually strum over the neck past the soundhole. It sounded just like I want it to live, but the recording does not. Hey I know Ill never get what I really want here , but if you listen to some of my first recordings, they were Really thin sounding.

Watyf: I agree , The beauty of the acoustic sound was pretty much lost.

Hopefully Ill get some good recordings before I am Too deaf to play anymore.

GUYS PLEASE WATCH YOUR SOUND EXPOSURE,IT REALLY CAN RUIN YOUR HEARING OVER TIME!!!!
 
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That sounds infinitely better already :) all you need to do is play around with the mic position a bit till your really happy with the sound, maybe cut a little bit on the lows in sonar. 10-15 k wont really make it piercing or blow anything, u don't need a lot, it will just add a nice "shimmer" to the top end :) nice playing too btw
 
I had a quick play with that file. compressed it a bit (well a lot :p prolly too much) , added some eq and some reverb :)
 
IanW-UK - I like an acoustic to be squeezed pretty hard. Nice job man...sounds good over here. And Bill, the material he had to work with wasn't too bad either. ;)

Nice job, guys.
 
Ianw: Wow, I'm impressed. Now, can you give me the specifics of how you accomplished the transformation? I think I can add the verb ok but what kind of numbers did you do with the compression. I've only got the cakewalk audio fx plugin which is included in Sonar to work with. Also on the equalization, what frequencies did you change and how much with how wide a band. You did a nice job it now sounds much more like the live sound than anything Ive been able to achieve.
You managed to put back in some of the bass punch while getting the thin flat mids to dissappear and even minimized those chiming high notes. Once again, I admire your skill and talent and just so you know, your time spent IS greatly appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to help an obvious beginner.

Ive also been contemplating getting a roland mmp-2 mic modeling preamp it includes an equalizer and a compressor as well as mic models.
 
ok, what i did was this: first i cloned the track so there were 2 the same.

TRACK 1 (waves ren eq 6) I cut 119hz by 3.2db with a fairly wide Q, cut 733hz by 3.1 with a medium wide Q and boosted 14560k by 4db, wide Q again.

Added (waves ren comp) thresh -4.7, ratio 3.12, attack 3.10, release 78.

TRACK 2 (waves ren bass) freq 72hz intensity 2 (this just makes it nice and fat :) ) you could just try boosting around 72hz if you haven't got it

Then on the output I used ozone's multiband comp to squeeze it a bit: 20 - 120hz, ratio 1.8 thresh -21.3,
120hz - 2k, ratio 1.7 thresh -28.5,
2k - 10k, ratio 1.7 thresh -24.7. attck was 10 and release 100 on all 3 bands
 
Hi Bill!
I listened to both,nice tune,did you write it?

The miced acoustic version sounds better,but the amped version has more sparkle.
Why don't you record both ways,direct to disc and micking the acoustic,mix them together,and see how that sounds.

Really fine playing,and the title fits the music perfectly.

Looking foward to your next attempt.

Have a great holiday,
Pete
 
Muzman: Did I write it? Short story: about 20 years ago I was playing with a guy and showed him a little doodle I had put together and he pointed out how it sounded like a jingle on a radio commercial. It actually did, and I realized it once he pointed it out, so now when I say I wrote something I have to say that it may have been inspired by somemthing I heard but as far as I know Yes this is my original composition. Well as I said its really just a warmup doodle thats evolved over the years. I was playing around with some dropped e&a tuning and its one of those things where you add a couple notes here , pluck around a chord there and it kinda sticks and becomes a habit. I dont know what inspired me to go that way, I quess its just an extension of one of my playing styles.I thought it would be a good sample to put out to try to get this thin guitar tone problem in perspective. I agree with you that somewhere in the middle of the acoustic tone and the amped tone would be ideal. I may try mixing the two or may enhance the acoustic to a more beefy tone using some effects. Ian was able to achieve a better acoustic sound than I was able to, if you gave that a listen. As far as Im concerned the raw tone left alone stinks, but equed and compressed with a little verb or chorus it shows some promise.
I dont expect to be able to produce a real Pro sound out of the system I have but I know that most of the thin sound is because I dont have the experience to alter what I have to get the most out of it.
And the hearing thing :( what can I say.
I think that getting the guitar sound down is my last major hurdle in being able to record something thats worth spending the time to get just right.
Ive got a bunch of things I composed over the years but I have not made an effort to get them posted because Ive been working with getting the sounds right. If you listen to what Ive posted I started with Moonbeams, my first recording attempt, and had a thin guitar as well as terrible percussion not to mention the vocals and timing problems. Ive been working on the drum and bass stuff for a while and got a boss Dr5 as well as some familiarity with soundfonts. The song named weather channel is the fruit of that effort. I am pleased with the improvement so now I am tackling the guitar thinness. When I improve this I should be able to really work on putting a real song up. As far as vocals go, I expect garbage in garbage out to be all I can achieve, so Im not being unrealistic. You know how it is, the more you listen to what you did the more fault you find in it.
Well Im rambling again
thanks for the input
peace
Bill
 
I just got a roland mmp-2 mic modeler and mic preamp, once I figure out how to use it hopefully it will make a big difference.
So far Ive been able to produce a track of acoustic guitar which is definitely superior to what I had before. Ive got 45 days to evaluate if I want to keep it. Ill let you know what kind of results you can get from it. It seems pretty powerful, but that also means you can really screw up the sound as well.
Peace
Bill
 
IANW ; Btw what is waves ren? Is it a plugin or another program?
Thanks
 
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