How would you mic this?

[Armistice]

The only thing that greatly disturbs me is the guitar amps, I don't see how that is going to be conducive to a good tone or normal stereo image.

It's probably not, and as I listen to it I'm thinking I'll do a few things differently by way of moving amps further away and twisting them 90 degrees to get the bulk of the sound (and we're really using them at very low levels) headed in another direction, and point an additional SDC at my guitar, to get a better acoustic sound.

And maybe using a dynamic as well on the vocal is a possibility... (Thanks Aus!)

I stress that all I'm trying to do is record the sound as we rehearse, live, so no multi-tracking, to get the best sound I can. As they're his songs, he'll use this to develop them a bit, and he wants to play them to his wife and friends too I guess, as you do... show them that he's not actually spending every second Saturday afternoon pleasuring his mistress, but is actually rehearsing with me!

A recording masterpiece this ain't meant to be....

What I got on the weekend was actually quite good, considering the constraints... and if I can just get more voice, less acoustic in the main vocal mic, that will be better as it gives me a few more options on what to do with the vocal track in the mix... and also improve the acoustic guitar sound...

Think I'm going to need a few more mic stands...

Thanks!

 

[robin watson]

For the scenario you mention, either Daisy's suggestion (just a small stereo recorder set up near you with a decent condenser mic), or DI the guitars and close mic your singing (2 mics, 4 channels total; a little bit of mixing and you'll have a more than adequate sound for simple evaluation purposes.

 

[juan162]

Well he could.........except for the time frame and additional cost of posting to Australia.

Oops! Yeah, that would be a problem. Didn't realize he was in Australia.

 

[juan162]

Lapel mics are a compromise that I don't think is appropriate in a recording studio. There are probably exceptions, but I wouldn't think this is one of them.

While I am not trying to get into an argument - mshilarious would definitely win as he knows way more than I do about recording - guess it depends on how good a recording Armistice is looking for. I haven't used this particular technique myself for recording, but have done it a few times in live situations where I have a performer who plays acoustic guitar and sings, but doesn't want to have to worry about staying right on their mic. Of course this is a different, if similar situation, as the goal here are different.

Armistice, regarding the guitar bleed, exactly how far away from the singer are you setting up the LDC, what angle, and where? Just wondering as I am about to do an acoustic recording similar to your situation and might have to deal with the same problem.

Juan

 

[Armistice]

Armistice, regarding the guitar bleed, exactly how far away from the singer are you setting up the LDC, what angle, and where? Just wondering as I am about to do an acoustic recording similar to your situation and might have to deal with the same problem.

Juan

Too far away Juan, is the short answer....

What I was trying to do was capture the tunes LIVE (no multi-tracking) to a good enough standard to listen back to and evaluate structure, guitar parts etc.... however, as usual, when you do something, it always gets more complicated. Now I want a better sound for my own purposes - more the exercise in working out the best way to do it as a learning experience than anything else.

So the singer was actually sitting in a chair, looking down at his lyrics on the floor and the LDC was probably 2 feet from him at his head height or thereabouts... so the guitar was a little closer to the LDC than normal and he wasn't actually singing straight into the mic

Now if I was seriously trying to record the guy singing and playing I wouldn't do it like that.... I'd make sure he knew the words properly, or had the lyrics at least at head height and was singing up to the microphone and it was only about 6 inches from him....

It's all made a little more difficult by the fact that the guitar parts are a bit complicated and hard to play and sing at the same time - so I suspect that while he's looking at the lyrics on the floor, he's also checking out the fretboard. I know I would be...

The next time I attempt it I'll put the LDC about 1 foot away and make him sing straight at it, and while I'll let him play his guitar through his amp, I won't record it as it's not a good enough sound... it's not a particularly good guitar but will sound better just with an SDC on it, I'm sure.

And, everyone, I know all about the effects of using amps / acoustic guitars on the guitar tone... I'm doing it for a reason... I wouldn't do it at all if I was recording properly. Cheers.

 

[juan162]

Thanks for the reply, Armistice. And yes, things tend to get complicated very quickly, don't they? I can just see your singer looking down at the words on the floor and at his fret board, his head getting even closer to the guitar and putting the two sound sources closer together.

Still, if your goal is to capture the sound naturally, I think the short answer is to either have him sing louder, play quieter, or both!

Juan

 

[Killbrillearwax]

Cool Stuff!

 

[rockerdude]

A friend and I are getting an acoustic duo happening. We both play acoustic guitars, he sings and I occasionally moan a line or two as a doo wop boy.

When we rehearse we generally plug our acoustics via the inbuilt pickups into our electric guitar amps, at pretty low volume, just to boost volume a bit, add a bit of reverb etc. We sing unamplified.

This next rehearsal I want to record, for the purposes of listening to it and seeing how song structure / combinations / guitar parts are working.

What would you recommend I stick where to best do this in a simple way? I don't want the distraction of the singer all of a sudden having to sing directly into a microphone - I just want to capture the sound as we're currently making it. Capturing the amplified acoustic sound per se is of no importance - it's just to make rehearsing easier.

I appreciate that this is necessarily going to be lo-fi - the point is not to get a high quality recording, but to get something we can listen to and make decisions about the songs and who plays and sings what etc...

I have a reasonable selection of LDC (including one with omni), SDC and dynamics (OK, just your basic Shures for dynamics) and probably enough leads and stands and preamps to run four mics if I needed to...

So.... any suggestions on what I should do?

The room is a lounge room with carpeted floor and 10' ceilings - brick and plaster walls, brick being the closest, if that makes a difference.

Thanks for your help...

Get a zoom handy recorder H2 (200.00) they sound awesome