I need professional help.....PLEASE!

  • Thread starter Thread starter NL5
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NL5

NL5

Unpossible!
Here is two versions of a "live" recording. It's just a singer with an acoustic guitar. Problem is, he is a VERY dynamic singer. The vocal signal overloaded, so I put a limiter on the track. Helped quite a bit. Also, I am having a terrible time with bleedover on the mic's. Other than recording tracks seperatly (which he really doesn't want to do), what can I do? I tried to position the mics so they would reject as much of trhe unwanted noise as possible, and this round was quite a bit better, but I would say the guitar tracks are atleast 25% vocal.
If I adjust the guitar track eq, it ends up making the voice sound thin, so I fatten up the actual vocal track, but to get the vocal to sound right, I overide the guitar in the mixdown.

Also, for all you mastering guru's, how are the levels? Should anything be different?

Please don't hold back on the critiques, I really want to learn. This was only my second session.

Thanks for any help/advice,

NL5





edit - if the link doesn't work, just copy and paste it into the address bar...sorry.

link to first session samples -

http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=119311
 
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The main problem is that horrible hiss in the background. I thought maybe it was a cymbal roll when then the song started.

In general it sounds okay. It has a very natural sound which is good if that is what you are going for. If the arrangement is going to be that sparse you might try doing some stereo micing to make it a little more interesting sounding. The overall clarity and quality is kinda poor but it sounds like it may be more of an equipment issue then technique unless you really have your gain staging messed up. You have to get rid of that hiss/buzz.

When you are tracking multiple sources in a room you have to get it sounding right before the mix. The more bleed you have the harder it is to fix things (as you have noticed). We can probably give you some better suggestions if you give us details on the signal path and how you miked him up.
 
okay, I tracked down the hiss problem. It was in the preamp gain, and the whine from my computer that I record with. I can all but eliminate it next time.

The real problem is bleedover on the guitar mics. I placed 2 sm57's on the guitar - one about 6" away at the twelth fret, angled downward to reject as much vocal as possible. The second abot 16" from the body hole, angled down as well.

The vocals were done on an NTK. They sound great on thier own, other than a little clipping on a couple songs I didn't post. He is a VERY VERY dynamic singer.

I was hoping there was some trick to get the bleedover to a minimum without seperate takes for the guitar and vocals.

I want the guitar to sound as natural as possible. I thought about the stereo micing, but not real sure on how to do that....can I add that in the mix with the other two mic's? or, just do the stereo mic's?

His guitar has a pickup in it, but it doesn't work. I'm not too famiilair with acoustic instrements, will the pickup pick up the vocal as well.? It is supposed to be fixed soon. I thought he said it was a "bags" pickup, or something like that.

Thanks
 
Unless you have a very quiet preamp, you're going to get noise from the 57's because you have to crank them to get an acceptable level. You'll see a reduction in your background noise level if you'll get some good condensers on the guitar. If you'll pan the two guitar mic signals to either side you'll get a wider, fuller sound. Start at about 3:00 and 9:00 and go from up from there. Here's something you might try. Do the performance with just one 57 on the neck and the NTK on the vocal. Then come back and record a second guitar take using the NTK on the bridge. The NTK can put some meat in the guitar recording. I don't like acoustic recordings with only 57s..always sounds thin and tinny to me. ( Get a Marshall 603 - cheap and sounds good. ) Then pan the 57 and the NTK recordings to taste. Doubling up the same part on acoustic can really sound good because of the slight differences in timing and in mic'd sound. Can give you a great full guitar track if you do it right. Sometimes you'll just hit a sweet spot that does the trick. Tuning a guitar a half step down can make it sound a little deeper and fuller too. Just some thoughts.
 
Oh, and the Baggs may sound pretty good live but I hate pickups for recording acoustic. I've never really heard one I liked. But, you can get some different sounds by mixing a pickup signal with a mic'd signal and maybe putting a chorus or other effect on the pickup signal.
 
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