Help with recording acoustic guitar

[Enchilada]

I need help getting a good accoustic sound. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to place the mic so I just put it 6 inches away and directly in front of the sound hole.
How do I record accoustic guitar without thet annoying sound of the pick hitting the strings???? ????

The song is "What I Got" by Sublime. The vocals + guitar were recorded with my MXL V67g through a Behinger MIC200 into a Korg D16 and the drums are from the built in drum machine from the D16.

Excuse the crap singing and try and focus on the sound of the guitar.

Thanks guys

EDIT: also there were no EQ or effects used

 

[xfinsterx]

That is surely a closely placed mic and a controlled sound as far as the acoustic sound is concerned.

You pretty much nailed it though.

(ench)"dont know where to place the mic"(ilada)

Try placing the mic, or better yet mics about 10 to 15 inches away from the guitar and see what you get. Repost when youre done. Id like to hear it.
BTW...what mic/mics are you using?

 

[StevenLindsey]

trying...trying to focus on guitar..... No not really Your voice doesn't sound bad at all.

Sounds pretty good on my dinky little dell speakers. Try moving the mic up the neck to around the 12th fret pointing slightly toward the sound hole. Move it around till you find what you're looking for. Try using a thicker pick and picking a little further toward the bridge. It's about placement of the various components to get the desired sound. You're getting there!

 

[Peter Lancaster]

Different plectrum materials and different plectrum thicknesses have different sounds. Altering where between the bridge and neck you are picking the strings will affect the sound a lot. New, old, Elixir, phosphor bronze strings, etc, all make significant sonic differences as well. Use and do what suits the song being played. It may take a bit of experimentation to get things right.

Also the inherent sound of your acoustic guitar is important. If it sounds great acoustically i.e. it's a Collings, Santa Cruz, etc, then you'll be able to get a great recorded sound. If it's made out of pine plywood and cost $50 I suspect that hell will freeze over before you make it sound good on a recording. Also the body of your acoustic guitar is important. If you want a dreadnought sound, but only have a parlor guitar it's just not going to happen. Your guitar needs to sound like the sound you want to record.

Personally I have found that my Taylor 510 using Elixir 12-53 nanoweb strings and Jim Dunlop Tortex .60mm plectrums sounds pretty good for a lot of acoustic players I have recorded.

The MXL V67 should give you a good recorded sound. I'd personally position it about 12" to 15" away from the guitar positioned parallel with the guitar body and pointing at the middle of the fretboard where the neck joins the body. From there I'd move it up to a few inches in any direction and maybe angle it slightly depending upon what it was sounding like.

If you want a mic that responds slightly quicker to the sound of an acoustic guitar you may want to consider using a small diaphragm mic. I use an Oktava MK012 and it sounds clearer and more detailed than using an AKGC4000B or Rode NT1 (which sounds similar to the MXL V67).

You'll also need to consider the sound of the room in which you are recording. The further away from the sound source your mic is the more of the sound of the room it will pick up. If your room accentuates certain frequencies it can make your acoustic guitar recordings sound pants and you'll find yourself having to compensate for the room sound with mic positioning and eq.

When you are trying to fit acoustic guitar into a mix you'll usually find that the recorded sound has too much bottom end. Use a high pass filter to take off enough bottom to get the guitar to sit nicely. The sparser the mix the more bottom you can leave on. I generally start with a filter at 120Hz and take it from there.

Pete.

 

[chrisharris]

A "plectrum" is a pick, for our non-european participants, lol.

I pretty much agree with what's been posted in here so far. The pick noise on this is actually a tad distracting, and the 2 things I would try first are (1) using a medium pick...light ones seem to click too much, and heavy ones seem to create too much attack for my taste. So if you're NOT using a medium pick, try it on the rhythm stuff. (2) point the mic less at the sound hole (which is where you're probably strumming) and more towards the area where the neck meets the guitar...as was pointed out above.

EQ'ing an acoustic guitar totally depends on the instrument, as I'm sure you know, but my experience has been that no matter what kind of acoustic I'm using, it doesn't hurt to hack off everything below 100Hz, and it's almost always acceptable to start with about an octave wide cut centered at 315Hz to alleviate some mud. After that, depending on where it's sitting in the mix, you might want to try a VERY SLIGHT boost in the hiss region...around 12K, just to brighten it up a little more. Oh, and I think that pick noise that's bugging you could be cleaned up a bit by using a super narrow notch somewhere around 4K-5K, but it's really better to eliminate as much of it as possible during tracking so you don't have to resort to "corrective" EQ for things like pick noise.

 

[Enchilada]

Thanks for the input guys. Sadly I deleted the song on my D16 but I'll re-record the same verse taking onboard tips from here and re-post it

 

[Enchilada]

If you want a mic that responds slightly quicker to the sound of an acoustic guitar you may want to consider using a small diaphragm mic.

I have 2 behringer ecm8000 mics. Would it be an idea to record the guitar with one of them?

 

[Peter Lancaster]

Those mics have a very flat response as they are supposed to be reference mics. I know that some people like the sound of them as drum overheads, so I don't see why they wouldn't be ok on acoustic guitar although they'll be fairly honest with the sound, so in the wrong place or with a poor sounding guitar you should really hear it.

Give them a go. Start with just one pointing near the neck/body joint, then if you are getting a good sound try adding another about the same distance away from the guitar, but pointing just behind the bridge and see what it does to the sound.

Watch out for phase differences between the mics. You may have to move one of the tracks slightly to ensure that the sounds are as in phase as possible.

If you like the sound of them you could try an XY configuration of the two Behringers to avoid any phase problems.

Pete.