FX for an acoustic?

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rhythmgtr5

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What can I do to an acoustic track to make it sound better after it is recorded? I know this is kind of vague, but I have no clue where to start producing (mixing or whatever it's called) after you have a good take of a song. I'm using an audiobuddy and an SM 57 if it matters.
 
Instead of recommending a specific effect like reverb or anything, let me say this. If you want you acoustic track to sound good(assuming the recording is done well) play the part twice,exactly the same way,and pan one hard left and one hard right. This will give your acoustic track some real body. Then you can mess around with some different effects like chorus and what have you. Hope that helps a little bit.

keith
 
The previous suggestion is also a good one.

Another little trick you can do is to copy the track and then off set the track by a say 5 milliseconds or so... depending on the effect to get a sound that sounds like a 12 string guitar... you could even pan one left and the other right...

What I've been doing lately is sort of stereo micing. I'm using my Rode NT2 and a Rode NT3. The NT2 is placed around the 12th fret and the NT3 is sitting on the ground pointing towards the sound hole... sitting about 50cm or so away. I use those two sources and mix them together in the mix (sometimes even DI'ing the guitar as well and mixing the 3 tracks!!).

Porter
 
When panning tracks, I assume you dont want to add the exact same effect to both? Like different reverb settings or one track w/ reverb and one without? And how hard would you say to pan them?
 
rhythmgtr5 said:
When panning tracks, I assume you dont want to add the exact same effect to both? Like different reverb settings or one track w/ reverb and one without? And how hard would you say to pan them?
Click to expand...

After panning each one 22 in opposite directions, for some reason the right channel is clipping now even though they are the same tracks offset by .007 of a second (perhaps my measurement is wrong, but if i set it to .01 for example the timing gets really off). Any idea why the right channel of the song is clipping and the left isn't? (the vocals are panned right down the middle)

Sorry for all the questions, but this is my first recording.
 
rhythmgtr5 said:
After panning each one 22 in opposite directions, for some reason the right channel is clipping now even though they are the same tracks offset by .007 of a second (perhaps my measurement is wrong, but if i set it to .01 for example the timing gets really off). Any idea why the right channel of the song is clipping and the left isn't? (the vocals are panned right down the middle)

Sorry for all the questions, but this is my first recording.
Click to expand...

Is the track or the main bus clipping? If you have copied the track and faders are at the same levels you shouldn't clip the track... you might clip the main bus and if you do that, just turn the volume down slightly. If the vocals are panned down the center and guitars either side, there shouldn't be a reason why it would clip except the faders are different on both tracks, or you are running an effect with the gain turned up on the clipping track.

Porter
 
Porter said:
Is the track or the main bus clipping? If you have copied the track and faders are at the same levels you shouldn't clip the track... you might clip the main bus and if you do that, just turn the volume down slightly. If the vocals are panned down the center and guitars either side, there shouldn't be a reason why it would clip except the faders are different on both tracks, or you are running an effect with the gain turned up on the clipping track.

Porter
Click to expand...

The main bus is clipping strangely enough - and I copied them at the same levels. Should I turn the track volume down or the main bus volume down on that channeL? Both acoustic tracks were dry also - the vocals had some reverb on it
 
If you copy a track and leave both tracks faders at 0db, I think the total output calculation is something like +3db on the bus... so turn down each track individually.

Porter
 
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