How to record vocals/acoustic guitar separately?

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donandrez

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What would be optimal way to record acoustic guitar and 2 vocal tracks separately at home?

As I understand, its not doable with just Audacity and Samson Meteor Mic? Or is it? In that case cant find any tutorials whatsoever nowhere.

Goal is not to professional recording by any means, but rather decent demo for myself and few others. Goal is to get one-person folk songs on tape (guitar part + main vocal + backup vocal). Its better to record tracks separately, because playing together - both - guitar and vocals are suffering a bit.

What equipment (physical and software) is unavoidable?
 
You need to get a daw like reaper. Audacity is for editing single files, it isn't a fully functioning daw.

I'm not familiar with the meteor Mic, so I can't help with that, but reaper will give you the capability to record different tracks and mix them.
 
You need microphone, interface, computer, DAW, monitoring system.

Your Meteor is a mike combnied with interface, so that takes care of those.

Reaper is as good a DAW as any, and you will get plenty of help with it here.

To hear what you are doing, then what you have done, you need a monitoring system. Headphones will work. So will speakers.

I don't know what monitoring the Meteor has (if any). Some of the USB mikes provide a headphone socket.
 
You COULD get the Samson USB mic and record the guitar part then add the two voices using Reaper but that takes some musical chops and some recording technique to do.

The other way would be a separate 'proper' mic for guitar and each voice into a 4 way interface (no 3 ways AFAIK) such as the Behringer UMC 404HD. You would then have the ability to treat each track independently for level, maybe equalization, and make a stereo mix.

Both of those techniques can be made to work but they are not the 'natural' way people perform their music. If you have a decent sized room at your disposal, church hall, empty pub stage, far better to setup a 'stereo pair' in the room and just 'do it' as an ensemble. The great thing about computer recording is that you can just set the kit running, jump on stage and do as many takes as you like.

You can do the same in a smaller, domestic setting but better done in mono in such a case. Depending upon how 'fussy' you are this sort of thing can take a LONG time to get right! Least of your concerns should be the equipment so, decide on the MO then work out a budget to do that....THEN ffs ask here BEFORE you buy it all!

There has never been a better time to buy technically really good hardware at frankly silly prices but TBH, all up with AI, mics. headphones, stands and cables you have to look at around $400US.

Dave.
 
I watched a Neumann training class and they showed 3 different ways to record acoustic and vocals and reduce the sounds bleeding into each other. having a separate singer would be get the mic up close.

record to separate tracks in a software too. then its easier to adjust volumes of each.

you can make a demo with that mic.

example

put the mic on the guitar, then sing and play .
then do a track with just the guitar...or a couple tracks, pan them away from each other.
then sing along with the guitar on separate tracks..
then add some percussion maybe, slapping the back of the acoustic or a eggshaker, spoons whatever...

then sit down and mix and add plugins to polish it up and get the demo to its best ability.

Is the Samson Meteor Mic good for singing?
Why We Liked It - The Samson Meteor mic makes for an affordable Blue Yeti alternative and provides industry level audio capture fit for a range of uses from Skype and YouTube video audio to voice recording and it's even a great mic for recording acoustic guitars and singing.May 29, 2020
 
Farview said:
You need to get a daw like reaper. Audacity is for editing single files, it isn't a fully functioning daw.

I'm not familiar with the meteor Mic, so I can't help with that, but reaper will give you the capability to record different tracks and mix them.
Click to expand...

Hi donandrez,

Completely disagree with the above by Farview. Audacity is perfect for the project that you're describing. I say this because if you want to record something simple e.g. acoustic guitar and voice, it won't need too much messing about with. More comprehensive software is available at a cost but it's used for more comprehensive projects. I use Windows 10 with Audacity 2.4.2. and it works perfectly. I play both piano and guitars and have created some nice sounding work. When you've got it set up with your mic, start a new track with a rhythm to play to, to keep in time. Then make sure Overdub is selected, then you can play it back whilst recording your first vocal track over the top. Then the same again for your second vocal track. There is a massive help file on there so I won't repeat it all here. Audacity is brilliant and it's free! You can also mix and edit with it but for mastering I would use another platform from the literally hundreds of on-line mastering services. Don't be put off by people saying that you need top professional hardware and top professional software, when you're only doing a small project.

Hope this has helped.

Top_Cop
 
I completely disagree with your disagreement with Farview Top_Cop!

Audacity IS excellent, for what it does. I use it myself because it enables me to record sounds from this laptop, mainly YT clips and radio, a function Ms 'thought' they had denied us (two digits Msft!) but Audacity lacks teo functions, no MIDI and does not support ASIO drivers. I will admit those failings may not bother the OP at the moment but it is as well to be prepared.

Dave.
 
Audacity is fine for what it is but lacks in a couple of key features - ASIO driver recognition as Dave mentioned and real time non destructive effects processing. Those features are usually standard across most other DAW platforms and key to having a better experience recording and mixing music performance.

Audacity is also a wave editor which not all other DAWs have. It could be handy for that feature if needed.
 
snow lizard said:
Audacity is fine for what it is but lacks in a couple of key features - ASIO driver recognition as Dave mentioned and real time non destructive effects processing. Those features are usually standard across most other DAW platforms and key to having a better experience recording and mixing music performance.

Audacity is also a wave editor which not all other DAWs have. It could be handy for that feature if needed.
Click to expand...

The point I was trying to make is that with a small music project like described above - guitar and voice, it does not require an all singing,all dancing software package. He didn't seem to think that Audacity was up to the job. Just giving him some friendly advice because I know that Audacity is more than capable of the task in hand. Audacity is not the best software in the world but for what he wants to achieve, it's perfectly OK. I know because I've done it.
 
Top_Cop said:
The point I was trying to make is that with a small music project like described above - guitar and voice, it does not require an all singing,all dancing software package. He didn't seem to think that Audacity was up to the job. Just giving him some friendly advice because I know that Audacity is more than capable of the task in hand. Audacity is not the best software in the world but for what he wants to achieve, it's perfectly OK. I know because I've done it.
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You're entitled to your opinion. I'm okay with that.

My point is that not having a DAW that recognizes low latency ASIO drivers that bypass Windows sound controls plus having to use destructive effects rather than process on the fly like just about everything else can be a bit of a PITA. I know because I've tried Audacity. I'm not saying it won't work in a basic sense, but there are other options. Reaper for example, as mentioned. There are plenty of others.
 
I agree with Top_cop. Audacity is strictly small potatoes and for what the OP stated in their one and only post thus far
Goal is not to professional recording by any means, but rather decent demo for myself and few others. Goal is to get one-person folk songs on tape (guitar part + main vocal + backup vocal)
Click to expand...
Audacity will do the job. If there was a cassette portastudio to hand, that would also do or even one of those ancient sound on sound recorders.
 
For another option, (although a bit late for the OP who hasn't been back since posting) I have done exactly what he wants with an H4n. It does 4 channels, you don't have to worry about latency, and if you aren't super critical, you don't need to have an external mic. Its not as cheap as the Meteor Mic, but its got the advantage of being portable and can do 4 channels at the same time, should the OP want to record with others.

The files can be dumped into Audacity or Reaper and mixed down.
 
Top_Cop said:
The point I was trying to make is that with a small music project like described above - guitar and voice, it does not require an all singing,all dancing software package. He didn't seem to think that Audacity was up to the job. Just giving him some friendly advice because I know that Audacity is more than capable of the task in hand. Audacity is not the best software in the world but for what he wants to achieve, it's perfectly OK. I know because I've done it.
Click to expand...

An' Iv'e done it! In the over ten years I have been dabbling with computer audio, I've tried 'em all! Well, them as will run in Windows. Cubase, Cakewalk, Reaper, Audition 1.5, FLoops, Ableton, Mixcraft, Audacity and others well forgotten. Son (he the musician) and I fixed fairly early on Samplitude and used a magazine freebie Samplitude SE8, still have it and use it on two machines. A very good offer a couple of Xmases ago got us Sam ProX3 suite, does just about everything but 3 times the cost of Reaper.

If OP wants a free DAW that 'has it all' hunt up "Samplitude Silver" might have to search American sites but I think you can still get it. Does MIDI, limited un-do, non-destructive FX, ASIO capable and is no more trouble to learn than any of the others. Has a stonkingly good format converter, .wav to MP3 (configerable) and most other common formats. Also saves directly to .wav which Audacity does not. Snag? Limited to 8 stereo tracks and you can only run 4 pluggins at a time but I reckon it will be a time before most folks find that a limitation?

Dave.
 
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