Help with mic'ing/recording acoustic guitar

  • Thread starter Thread starter spantini
  • Start date Start date
I was just over in the 'let me see your studio' thread and I now know where all the lava lamps ever made wound up :laughings:
 
No wonder you can't capture good sound - you don't have a lava lamp!
 
You guys have gotten me to convert from thin picks to hard picks. Gotta give yourselves credit.. no one has been able to do that for me in the past. I have also been practicing a different technique with open chords..

I used to be lazy and strum all 6 strings on all open chords. Now, I'm muting or not playing some open strings which greatly reduces a lot of extra resonances that may muddy the sound. One example: with an open C-Chord, I would strum the open E strings (both) - now I'm muting the low E and it sounds fuller, louder, and much cleaner. Same with an Am. I should have been playing this way all along, but..

I believe this cleaner technique will combine well with my future acoustical treatments to produce a better sound than my previous takes. Well, that and.. you know... a vintage lava lamp. I've had several original lamps while growing up in the 60s - all were orange. One was shaken so bad before we got it, it was in about 100 little globs that never would recombine in the 12 years we had it - left it on nearly 24/7 all that time, too.
 
Y One example: with an open C-Chord, I would strum the open E strings (both) - now I'm muting the low E and it sounds fuller, louder, and much cleaner. Same with an Am. I should have been playing this way all along, but..
One of my pet peeves with lazy guitar players - specially that C major chord, because it sounds like shit with the low E when strummed. The Aminor is not so bad, but no question that when strummed it can make a muddy sound.
You can get lava lamps at Spencer Gifts (almost every large shopping mall has one.)
 
All my recording sucked before lava lamps and abundant Christmas tree lights(50 cents a box at the drug store after Christmas)
 
I'm getting the hang of this proper open-chord strumming. I still get a slight buzz now and then on the A-minor's high E string as my thumb is curled over the low E for muting and I accidentally touch the high E with another finger or the inside of my palm, depending on how I finger it. If the neck was one micron wider or deeper I don't think I could do this.

Practice. Practice. Practice.

I'll definitely need to replace these relatively new strings in another week. Before I record, certainly.

The chords now sound a lot cleaner, and soon I'll have my Roxul panels finished and then.. then.. then I can get right on that $100,000,000 song. I can't wait.
 
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