I need to capture a Beautiful acoustic guitar sound... a pair of Rode NT5s?

[pisces7378]

When it comes to getting a beautifully sweet acousitc guitar sound I believe in going to the source... at it certainly isn't in LA or NY. I am talking about Nashville. I read an article on getting that "Nashville sound" rescently. Now as much as I HATE country music, I have to give credit where it is due and I have to say that the N'ville guys know how to bring out every little piece of beauty that can be found in an acoustic guitar performance.

In the article, they said that 99% of N'ville engineers employee a balanced pair of small diaphram cond. mics placed at a 90 degree angle to each oter... once facing the sound hole and the other up towards the middle of the neck. I guess this is to take care of any phasing problems caused by room acoustic problems, as well as capturing the two different "sounds" that resinate from these two areas of the instrument. We all know how different the stringsd sosund if you record with a mic at the hole or at the neck.

Now in the article they were using some Neuman mics. That is probably going to be out of my price range since Neuman could probably take a shit into a little baggy and still sell it for over $2,000. but I have a Rode NTK and am happier with it than any mic on the market. I haven't had the chance to try out the Rode NT5 pair of balanced mics yet. Anyone have any suggestions or experiences with getting a pristine ac. guitar sound?

Thanks guys,

Mike

 

[pipelineaudio]

2 414's would be my choice. Barring that, a pair of something decent that can do figure 8.

But for the technique youre describing, you can get elcheapo Oktava's to do it pretty well! I bet theres some oktava users on here who do it that way too.

 

[wes480]

for the price i don't think you can beat the NT5s...

Until the studio projects C4s come out (matched pair, same price point, designed by Brent Casey who did the Marshall 603s back in his marshall days).

and...we will see. supposedly those will be smoothe.

I have Rode NT3s (pair, not matched) and am happy with them. very hot mics...not sure about the nt5s in that respect.

 

[littledog]

I definitely agree about Nashville and guitars.

A couple of years ago I remember hearing a Mark Knopfler/Chet Atkins CD out of Nashville, and rememebr thinking I'd found the Holy Grail of recorded guitar sound!

 

[Track Rat]

I've had very good luck with a pair of KM-184's, Octava MC-012's and definately AT4033's. A lot depends on the guitar and if it's strumed or finger picked.

 

[Light]

The mics are not the first concern, the guitar is. The guys in Nashville are not playing typical factory made guitars. The most common guitars to be recorded in the last couple of years are Olsons, and if you do not have a guitar of that caliber, you will not get that sound. The only problem is that Jim (Olson) generally has a two year waiting list, his guitars start at almost $8,000, and he is no longer taking orders. He is currently making a line of James Taylor signature models, which start at $15,000, or $25,000 for Brazilian rosewood. The other common guitars in Nashville is (and has always been) old Martins or old Gibson Jumbos. You will never get that sound out of a Taylor. A lot of guys use Taylors on the road, but in the studio it is Olsons, Martins, and Gibsons.

The good news is, you can get a guitar just as nice as an Olson from any good luthier, and these days there are hundreds of them. You can find a list of good builders at this site

http://www.cybozone.com/fg/luthier.html

Once you have the guitar, you will probably need to get it set up, because even if you buy a great guitar, by the time it gets to you (unless you live near your builder (and this only works with small builders, not factories, because factories never set up their guitars right) the guitar will change because of the change in environment.

Now you have the guitar and the set up, so make sure your strings are fresh, and the guitar is in tune. Tune it by ear, because an electronic tuner will never get your guitar in tune.

Now on to mics. Get the best you can afford, and experiment. Every guitar records differently. There is no absolute set method which always works. I generally start with a small diaphragm mic pointed at the neck/body joint. I will sometimes use a large diaphragm mic for this. I will tilt this up and down, and aim it left and right, until I like the sound. If I use a second mic (and I rarely do with my guitars) my first shot is pointing it at the back side of the bridge, again making small movements until I like the sound. The last place I would try is pointing a mic directly at the soundhole, as the sound is usually pretty muddy and overly bassy, but even this is not a hard and fast rule. Sometimes I quite like the sound of it. The other mic I will frequently use is a large diaphragm about three feet away, pointing at roughly the twelfth fret.

As to which mics, when I did this in bigger studios, my favorite small diaphragms where B&K 4011s, and for large diaphragms where Neumann U87s. Now that I am in a home studio, I use Oktava MC 012s and a Groove Tubes GT 66. They are not the same as B&Ks through an SSL or a Neumann through a Neve, (yes, the price still makes a difference) but they work.

I grew up in a Luthiers shop (my father builds guitars, and is good friends with Jim Olson), and I now build guitars myself (not professionally, just for myself). I am, obviously, a bit biased about nice guitars. I have spent many years in recording studios, and because of my youth around guitars, I have recorded a lot of acoustic guitars, generally for traditional folk, or music which is highly influenced by traditional folk. I hope this gives you a good idea of my preconceptions and bias when it comes to recording acoustic guitars.

Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi

 

[Roker1]

he would have written more, but he colapsed... JK man....
I recorded a friend of mine the other day, who plays some amazing clasical guitar. we got the sound we never dreamt we could get with the mics I had. We ended up using my AT3035 pointed just off the sound hall to the right (from players point of view) and an SM58 pointed to around 12th frett....sounded very silky and fluffy...
Thats what I'm using on all my acoustics from now, until I buy some Neumans....Maybe I won't stop even then..

 

[Light]

Being long winded runs in the family, sorry.

Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi

 

[littledog]

Being long winded runs in the family, sorry.

Light

What a waste of talent, then. You should take up trombone! (but great post anyway...)

 

[pisces7378]

LIGHT

Hey Light,

I have tried to send an e-mail to you, but in your profile it says that you have specified that no one can e-mail you personally. Not that I have some deep dark love secrets to tell you that I don't want the other guys to read

But I have read several good books on building guitars myself. Some are better than others but the one thing that I have leared by reading them all is that I will have to learn by doing. I am sure that the books give a good basic direction to follow, but with shaping the wood etc that will come with time and experience (years!!!).

I just was wondering if you could possibly send me an e-mail through this board with your e-mail address so that I could ask you a few questions. Don't worry, I won't send you 3,000 questions... I am just a bit concerned about where to get the wood for building my first guitar. I don't want to spend a fortune on sun dried black petrified African beachwood to make my first guitar and then I screw it up. On the other hand I don't want to make it out of pressboard and plywood.

Also, as far as tools go... where do ya get them? I am not so concerned with getting razor saws for the frets. I am sure they can be found SOMEWHERE. But in the book I read on building guitars it talks about building your own bending irons for shaping the body sides. They are all talking about propane torches with oval shaped lead pipes etc. He said that he built his buy taking a lead pipe to a junk yard and let the man drop a huge weight on it to squash it into an oval. I am Ameircan, but I live in Munich. There ain't no junk yards with big weights in Munich.

Anyway, this was why I wanted to send you an e-mail. I don't think it is very practical to hash it all out here on the BBS.

My e-mail is: dolmetscherrecords@hotmail.com

Thanks,

Mike

 

[wes480]

excellent post Light. I agree that instruments are the key to the good sound...however..

One of my fav acoustic guitar sounds ever is on Ani DiFrancos "Up Up Up Up Up Up" album. She plays a nice Alvarez.

To me a good sound on an album is about building a certain character into the mix. But, the "Nashville" sound is certainly something different.

 

[riley357]

Luthier's Mercantile in Healdsberg, CA.


These guys have a website......

www.stewmac.com

 

[WATYF]

Since we are talking homerec'ing and not "professional" level (i.e. Neumanns through Neves, and what not) then I would say to use a matched pair of Oktava MC012's...

The song in this thread was done using a pair of MC12's, and the acoustic sound in that song is nothing short of impressive.


WATYF

 

[Light]

My father learned how to build mostly from reading books, as did Jim Olson. If it is good enough for them, it is good enough for anyone.

Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology, by W. Cumpiano & J. Natelson, anything by Irvin Sloan, or the book by Overholtzer (I can not think of the name, and I am not even sure it is still available) are all good books, so check them out. There are a lot of good web sites out there as well. Here are a few:

http://www.lmii.com
(You can get all the wood you need here, and they also sell a lot of tools.)

http://www.stewmac.com
(The best guitar specific tools you will find anywhere. They also are the manufactures and source for Waverly tuning machines, which are as good as anything you will find while maintaining a very classic look.)

http://pweb.jps.net/~kmatsu
(A good site about an amateur guitar maker.)

http://www.luth.org

http://www.guitarmaker.org

http://www.13thfret.com
(One of the best guitar related bulletin boards.)

http://www.frets.com
(The largest and one of the best guitar related sites on the web.)

http://www.hoffmanguitars.com
(My father’s site, which has a step by step discussion on how he builds guitars.)

I build by the same methods my father does, so any questions will be answered on his site. Your bending iron does not need to be oval. When we use one (which is rare) we use a piece of 2" diameter pipe which is about 12" long. It is heated with a propane torch (wear a heavy apron, or you shirt could brown a little.)

I don't like to give out my e-mail address. It already takes me to long to deal with all of the message boards I deal with, and I just don't have the time to deal with anything else. Sorry about that. The links above should answer all your questions though.

Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi

 

[JMarcomb]

Kurt Cobain recorded “Polly” using a very cheap no-name acoustic that had just five strings. “He’d never changed the guitar’s strings

id say the player and recording technique is more important than the guitar itself

 

[pisces7378]

Don't forget that he had to tape the tuning peg with duct tape so that it would stay in tune. It was a "Stella" guitar I believe that he bought in a pawn shop.

And I 100% agree that the player and the SONG have as much to do with a guitar's sound as the instrument's "quality".

It just so happens that Cobain wrote and played songs that would have sounded like shit on a $30,000 Nashville guitar. The low end "boom" of that old pawn shop Stella on "Polly" and "Something in the Way" is what gives those recorings their character. But... believe me, if James Taylor tried to play "Caroline in My Mind" on that old guitar, then... well let's just say, it would sound... uhmmm different.

Nothing against Kurt's guitar or performance or against Taylor and his instrument choice or performance. It is just important to remember that a guitar's price tag doesn't mean shit unless the style of music you are going for dictates that you need the craftmanship that goes into making a "Nashville Guitar".

I always hated the whole "I have a Les Paul, and you have a cheap knock off on a strat" argument. I have known people that could make a Squire sound like heaven, and I have also known people that have $5,000 Les Pauls that make them sound like a strung up turd.

Just me opinion.

 

[Track Rat]

True

 

[Treeline]

Pisces7378--

Here's another link; my personal favorite of the bunch.

www.mimf.com

Hey Light -

Just reading your post gets me going; I'm ready to clean out the workshop and find that mahogany I got from Michael Gurian when he had a shop in Hinsdale, NH! Thanks for building a spectacular thread!

I have the Cumpiano book (the bible) and the first edition of Arthur Overholtzer's book, Classic Guitar Making (of which he insisted in directing the artistic production - proving that he did not miss his calling as a luthier) which was the first book on luthiery I ever bought. Can you imagine building guitar necks out of solid rosewood today?!! Overholtzer was a kind man who was always an independent thinker. Old school, as they say. Had some really odd ideas, but garn - they worked.

 

[ozraves]

here's the skinny on recording a great acoustic sound:

1. a great player;

2. the guitar -- i've seen great players use some interesting guitars. i prefer a parlor size or something sized about the same as a classic. i prefer koa or maple back and sides. smaller guitars tend to give a more balanced sound. with all due respect to the knowledgeable luthier who posted, i like the tacoma pk30e4 and the taylor 612ce. i like plugging a line direct from the fishman as well as using one or two mics. i usually just like one mic if i'm using the fishman as well.

3. something interesting to play.

steve
www.piemusic.com

 

[ozraves]

one more thing... don't obsess about what is the best sound in isolation. the best sound is something that fits in the mix of the song you're working on.

steve
www.piemusic.com