Acoustic recording

[ryan79]

Hello. Not super experienced at recording. But done some.

2 X mxl 603 going into a focus right 2i4. Guitar crafter

Doesn't sound great through mobile phone speakers tho ?

Jesu Joy Of Mans Desire by Ryan

 

[Folkcafe]

Sounds about what I'd expect on my iPhone. For this kind of stuff I prefer to keep the dynamic range. It is one guitar so I'd keep it simple vs compress the hell out of it. A light touch with multi-band compression and light on the mastering dynamics. While I get the phone is the new boom box, few would be listening to this sort of thing on phone speakers.

 

[ryan79]

Thanks. Does Audaciity have the tools I need ?

 

[Folkcafe]

My only familiarity with Audacity is I used it a long time ago to cut some clips real quickly for some video work on my laptop. Perhaps someone else can chime in. Here is an article on the best free DAW's Best 15 Free DAWs (Digital Audio Workstation) in 2020! - The Home Recordings If you are on PC maybe something like Cakewalk or one of the other choices would work for you?

 

[TalismanRich]

Audacity has compression, not fancy multiband, but you really don't have lots of bands you need to keep separate.

One thing you might check is the phase of your signals. If you get the phase off between the two mics, then add them together for a mono signal, you'll get weird cancellations. Try flipping polarity on one channel and see if it sounds better on the phone. I had that issue some years ago, recording a jazz guitarist. I had two mics, one got bumped and when the two were added together it sounded really bad. I flipped polarity and all was good!

All phones are different, depending on the type of speaker element they use, but I've seen measurements of I-phones and the response is from about 3-400Hz to about 10kHz, with numerous peaks and valleys. Anything from 300Hz is down by 20-50dB.

 

[ryan79]

Audacity has compression, not fancy multiband, but you really don't have lots of bands you need to keep separate.

One thing you might check is the phase of your signals. If you get the phase off between the two mics, then add them together for a mono signal, you'll get weird cancellations. Try flipping polarity on one channel and see if it sounds better on the phone. I had that issue some years ago, recording a jazz guitarist. I had two mics, one got bumped and when the two were added together it sounded really bad. I flipped polarity and all was good!



Sorry. How do I flip polarity ?

 

[TalismanRich]

Assuming you have 2 mono tracks, just select one of the tracks. Under effects, choose Invert.

 

[grimtraveller]

Doesn't sound great through mobile phone speakers tho ?

Does anything ?

 

[DesertRatt]

Nice guitar Ryan!