BASIC recording of duo, mic and technique advice MUCH appreciated!

T

the dairy giant

New member
Hi, I would appreciate some advice here, I am a penniless guitarist for a penniless but very talented singer songwriter. We are going to record some songs, it will not be pro by any stretch, but I want it to be as good as it can given the limitations. We can sell them cheap as 'bootleg' CD's at gigs.

She will sing and play acoustic, I will play electric and do b/g vocals. It will be done live, hopefully in a nice reverberant space like a church.

I think the maximum no. of channels I will have is 4, I have 2 'budget' interfaces i should be able to cobble together as an aggregate device in OSX, although one is the m-audio fast track USB, so maybe i only have 3 mic inputs and 1 guitar input, that I could for the acoustic guitar pickup for further options later. I will also be the 'engineer' :-) Re the sonic aesthetic, something approaching 'trinity sessions' would be the goal...

re mics, I have an:
ATM41a (an old SM58-ish mic)
I can borrow (hopefully):
Rode NT1000 (I think that's the model),
a pair of (I think) Rode NT3,
An SM57
A budget SDC of some kind.
Maybe there is something else I can beg/borrow/steal if it's recommended highly enough.

So, I am begging for your wisdom, as to the best way to get this on 'tape'. These are my initial thoughts...

A) I would have liked to do a technique approximating trinity sessions with 2 omnis, but i don't have them... I could maybe get hold of 2 if I ask around. cobble together something jecklinish... I had wondered about doing that, and adding the NT1000 to make sure I got the vocal really strong, but would I have phase issues to worry about?

B) an SM57 on my amp, NT1000 on main vocal, and something else on acoustic. What do I need to be concerned about when attempting to record acoustic and vocal at the same time? I could DI the acoustic as well with this setup, and o/dub my vocals after.

C) some other thing. ... I really have no experience other than recording myself in my bedroom.

I really appreciate any advice given. Here's a clip of us playing, so you can get an idea... We may not be able to capture the sound with the utmost sonic detail, but i think we should be able to get the atmosphere.

When You Come Around - Hannah Harding - YouTube

Thanks so much...
 
I'm not sure that you can get away with being able to "cobble together" two interfaces.

Here's what I would do:

Find your nice reverberant space.

Set up the two Rode NT3s in an XY configuration.

Do your playing and singing and record it as a live stereo recording.

This would mean paying attention to relative volumes of vocals, acoustic and electric guitars, and a bit of experimentation with mike placement . . . but you should get reasonable results if you do some trial and error stuff first.
 
Beware of your nice reverberant space - you might think it sounds nice but once you've recorded with all that reverberation you can't get rid of it... a church would be a bit much for mine... so test it before committing.

Also, you could record normally, a la multitracking one thing at a time.

I assume there's some reason for you to want to do it all live and together, however, so I'd go with gecko's suggestion...
 
Record it live as in Gecko's suggestion, or 1-track at a time via multitracking. How you are thinking of doing it (3 mics+) is going to have a lot of sound bleeding and probably not be too useable. IF you are playing out at gigs, why not take your PA output or just record (with mics) one of those gigs?
 
thanks for the input so far...

The reason to record it together, live, is that I know Hanna will perform better that way, hearing the 2 guitars together while she sings.

The 2 mic stereo thing I though had the potential to sound pretty good, a la the Cowboy junkies record... but I did think adding a LDC like the Rode NT1000 might give the opportunity to bring out the vocals a little more if necessary. I know we would need to play around with placement of mics and guitar amp etc to make sure the balance was good.

I would have liked to get a really good recording of us live form the desk, but we don't actually play that often, and its been hard to set these things up as we are not usually doing our own gigs, but more often playing as part of a line up of bands and such. Also, this way we can set aside a day and play each song several times rather than rely on one performance.

Thanks for input so far... ps I've added a link of a song from a live show, recorded on a friends Zoom thing, and edited a bit in logic. It was really midrange heavy.
 

Attachments

  • 2 paradise.mp3
    4.7 MB · Views: 7
No reason why you can't add a separate vocal microphone into the mix if you have the channels and the skill, but the problem with using all these condenser microphones in a live situation is that they all pick up everything because of their sensitivity.

As sound waves travel quite slowly, the new vocal microphone you've added will be picking up output from the electric guitar amp (as well as everything else) although the electric guitar sound will get to a closer mic more quickly and then you'll start having phase type issues between all the tracks, which when added to your reverberant space, can make it really really, really messy.

And if Hanna sings best with the two guitars, then record the two guitars and let her sing later.

Taking a purist approach might work, but chances are you'll get better results if you multi-track, if you don't really understand what you're doing from an audio engineering point of view. There's a reason it's done that way.

Good luck
 
yeh... oh well, I'll do some experiments.

The LDC i have borrowed is actually a Rode NT2000, so has multiple patterns. I could try a mid/side scenario, or the X/Y, or the wider versions, ORTF etc, and put the NT2000 right at the same point above the X/Y... or I've been reading about decca trees...

Then my latest plan is maybe do the above, but have the guitar amp directly in front of hanna, maybe 8 ft away, with a mic for that and it being in the shadow of her centre mic, and the left/right picking up the room sound more.... Its fun theorising. I dont have all the gear yet though so who knows how it will sound in practice...

thx, Simon
 
If you can record 4 channels at once (though as gecko said I'd doubt you can cobble two interfaces together) I'd do it like this.

1. Acoustic guitar - NT3
2. Electric guitar amp - SM57
3. Lead voice - NT1000
4. backing vocals - ATM41a

There's no reason why you can't record everything together and get a good take and still have flexibility when mixing. You won't be able to take out the vocals completely really, but as long as you approach the recording as a live time with the option of a few edits, you'll be fine. I've done lots of recordings like this and whenever I'm recording a singer/songwriter who plays and sings, I'll always approach the two together at the same time.

If you make sure that you are far enough away from each other you should get decent separation, but don't go too far so as not to be able to hear each other (unless you're using headphones). Face each other too. This means that the off axis of the mics will be facing the sound source you don't want the mic to pick up. Also make sure that the amps not too loud. You can turn the mic on the amp up, but you won't be able to turn the spill down.

Check out this post for how I did this not long back with bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar and voice (ignore the ambient mics) MixTips: Recording Diaries: The Little Unsaid Acoustic.... and above all remember MixTips: Performance Is Everything
 
the dairy giant said:
thanks heaps. I'll read those articles. Luckily I can borrow a digi 002r, so my pre-amp/conversion needs are taken care of.
Click to expand...

If you're doing that, see if you can beg borrow steal or hire some external pre amps so you can have a few more mics. Then you can have a couple of ambient mics to pick up the sound of the nice church you're in and mix it to taste later on. A DI on the electric wouldn't go a miss either, just in case you need to do a couple of amp tweaks or something. Not essential, but if you've got the inputs, might as well take them.
 
Unless you know she is going to be terrible in the studio, I would go with multitracking studio over live every time. Record the two guitars together, then do the vocals together...i'll bet this will come out the best.

If you are dead set on live I'd mic up everything like in the studio...57ish mic on the electric, NT3s XY on the guitar, NT1000 her vocals, and something for your vocals. That's the way I'd do it, and I wouldn't use an overly live room. Reverb can be added, but never taken away.
 
I understand situations where the gain in performance quality can outweigh the desire for a series of clean individual recordings...I once did a couple who were pub singers and really "bounced" off each other when singing together that they just couldn't match when asked to do it one track at a time.

One thing that can help is to consider the layout for recording--and the patterns of your mics.

I've found that by positioning them to face directly at each other they get the "communication" they need--but it allows me to use cardioid mics so the rejection to the rear is at its best. Couple this with a relatively dead room and, although there is still crosstalk among the mics, it is down to a manageable level.
 
Bobbsy said:
I understand situations where the gain in performance quality can outweigh the desire for a series of clean individual recordings...I once did a couple who were pub singers and really "bounced" off each other when singing together that they just couldn't match when asked to do it one track at a time.

One thing that can help is to consider the layout for recording--and the patterns of your mics.

I've found that by positioning them to face directly at each other they get the "communication" they need--but it allows me to use cardioid mics so the rejection to the rear is at its best. Couple this with a relatively dead room and, although there is still crosstalk among the mics, it is down to a manageable level.
Click to expand...

Definitely. I have this all the time with performers that are used to playing live and when you start taking apart there performances (particularly separating vocals and guitars) it becomes difficult for them.

Planning your room out and making sure that your mics are facing the sound sources that they aren't supposed to pic up, will give you enough separation to be more than manageable later down the line. Baffle off the electric a bit and even don't do the backing vocals till the overdub stage, but unless your singer is a seasoned studio recording artiste, I'd guess it's going to be detrimental to the performance to separate the two... and Performance Is Everything.

I've worked on plenty of records that have more spill that you'll get here and still had enough room to manoeuvre. Albums like The Buena Vista Social Club are basically just spill. And that's a fucking amazing record.
 
That "Performance is Everything" link is great, Spare Dougal. It should be on the "must read" list.

It's easy to get bogged down in technical niceties and forget that we're recording music, not just playing with toys.
 
I'm kinda like that, I feel like I lose some of the feeling doing it in the studio. But, I'm also not a great singer so comping vocals outweighs the live feel.

I would second that mic position, use the cardioid to isolate the voices.
 
Thanks for all this input. We're recording in a few days, and a few of my plans have come unstuck, like the ambient room I was about to use! and it looks like I'll me stuck with my smallish bedroom:rolleyes:

So now it looks like I'll be adding the atmosphere after the fact.... Now I'm reading up on all the room treatment options. blankets here I come!

But I'll be able to use the NT3s in XY on the acoustic and the NT2000 on vocal, and I have SM57 now for my amp. Which needless to say, will be turned down quite low...

I'll post a song when its all done.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top