Help!!!!!!!

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MINDCRIME

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Hi there, first let me say thanks to all for the great advice I have recived here, My sound has improved beyond beliefe,
thanks again, anyway, okay I have just finished recording a female vocalist, she is in the style nd sound of say Jewel, or Ani Defranco, sort of a loud ALTO voice very strong, well my problem is I have mixed full bands and it has come out decent thanks too all of you in here, my problem this time is, that its just 1 acoustic guitar and her voice, WOW what a challenge, I am finding it harder to mix this than a full band, she tends to blend with the guitar alot but I cant seem to find the separation with the EQ, how about panning? delays? reverbs? this is nuts, I thought (mistakingly) that this would pose no real challange well I was wrong. well I leave it up to all of you, please help,
Thanks in advance,
Peace
MINDCRIME
 
Do you have any mp3s? How are your recording the vocals and guitar?

Here is some acoustic/vocals stuff I did recently. Unfortunately he wasn't a hot chick but you get the idea. If you like any of the tones and want some more details let me know. This was all done on a VM3100Pro mixer (pretty mediocre) and MXL mics.

http://www.nowhereradio.com/texroadkill/singles
 
Yea I liked your guitar tone alot

Well the set up sounded just like yours, A MXL 67 mic
Martin guitar and a basement,
any tips you would like to share would be great especially the
EQing, thanks for the reply,
Peace, Requiem
 
Yo Fugitive From Colombo:]

Try recording the guitar/music first. If your vocalist is a "loud" one, back her away from your mic a bit; use a windsock [popper stopper] and try to show her some singer's savvy by using the mic "close" when soft and "back-up" when intense.

Also, you might put the guitar/music/background on two tracks for some "beef" sound as your vocalist has strong pipes.

I don't know what your gear is but you should be able to get what you want if you work at it.

Happy vapors,
Green Hornet:D :p :p :p :p :p
 
I'm with the Hornet. I think you could benefit from doubling the guitar track. Pan each at 10-2 and her up the middle.
 
With only one mic I would put it at around the 10-12th fret and use a lot of bass cut around 120-250hz. Double tracking helps also. If you can get another mic stereo micing really helps when doing solo guitar stuff. You can put the other mic above the bridge around 8-16".

The V67 really sounds great on vocals if you get around 6-10" away and use some bass cut as needed.

Are you using any compression? That can really help vocals stay in place in the mix.
 
This is a challenging thing, especially if the singer needs to sing with the guitar to get the feel. In that case, it helps if you can point the guitar mic down at the guitar--away from the singer as much as possible. You'll still get bleed. There is no way to eliminate it. Conversely, if you can point your vocal mic angled up and away from the guitar in a way so that you can capture the vocal properly, that helps some too.

If the singer can play the guitar and not sing, thats the ticket. Just do the acoustic first and overdub the vocal on a separate track. I have also used a technique where I use a click track, have the singer play and sing along as a guide, then go back and redo the acoustic on a new track. Then redo the vocal. Sometimes this works. Its ghreat because you can treat each track as needed after the fact with its own EQ and comp/verb--whatever.
 
I get the feeling the tracking is done, though... right? If so how did you track it..?

xoxo
 
I can't believe nobody has asked this yet, but what preamp are you using?

A nice, warm tube preamp with the right amount of compression and the right type of reverb is all you should need.
 
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