Mic placement for acoustic guitar: do we overdo it?

  • Thread starter Thread starter LI_Slim
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LI_Slim

LI_Slim

voice in the wilderness
Like most of us who have recorded acoustic guitar, I have tried various mics and combinations of mics in various placements, dutifully following the various excellent advice that I have seen on this BBS.

But the other day I kind of started over. It was the first time recording my new guitar, a Breedlove Focus (cedar/rosewood), and I was also trying out my new AT 4041 (small condensor). I used that single mic. I tried recording the same part of a song with the mic positioned five different ways:

1. Pointed at the fingerboard around the 14th fret, about 12" away.

2. Pointed just off the edge of the soundhole (the 1st string side) about 15" away.

3. Pointed just below the bridge about 15" away.

4. Pointed at the sound hole about 18-20" away.

5. Pointed at the sound hole about 6" away.

Number 5, I think, is what people do when they don't think about it. Number 1 is the most common suggestion.

Number 5 was by far the best. It sounded like the guitar sounds when you're sitting in front of it, clear and with full harmonics. Number 1 was too thin; Numbers 2 and 3 were kind of muddy and boxy; number 4 was, well, too far-away sounding.

Are we better off just putting the right mic in front of a nice guitar and hittin' the switch?
 
c7sus said:
I wanna build gobos so I can put the Cactus 4 FEET in front of my Martins. All the close-micing I have tried just isn't getting the sound I want. Maybe it's the guitars....... dreadnaughts can be boomy as hell. But to get a decent S/N ratio I need major treatment before I go putting mics across the room from the instruments........ I want the sound of "room" without all of the noise in the room. Plus, the way it has been explained to me, the fundamental wavelengths generated by a guitar need 3-4 feet in order to really blend into the true voice of the instrument. Maybe it's all crap. I figure it's worth looking into.

I look at my little studio thing as a full-scale mockup. The whole thing is just a big experiment to me.......
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ya know, back in the early 70`s I used to read Modern Recording and stuff like that quite a bit even though I only fooled with live reinforcement. There was an intersting article about using a styro head like they use for wigs with condenser mics in the ears and placing it at the optimum position one would be sitting at in front of the instrument to hear it in its natural state, and recording it that way. The logic behind what your saying is pretty solid.

Do folks do this?
 
Don't you think for 7k they could make the guy look alittle better, give him hair, teeth, etc? Am I being too picky?-Richie
 
Toki987 said:
But that far exceeds my speculations of possibly pulling that stunt off for under $200. :D
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Scroll down the page and check out Trackrat's setup.
 
chessrock said:
Scroll down the page and check out Trackrat's setup.
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I couldnt find a link to his studio on the Merc' page.
I saw a pic a while back of the desk he built at the at that site where the studios of some of you folks. It was damned pretty awesome, I like the hinged patchbay on the left side.
 
if you have a pair of mics that can do figure 8 there is a whole nother world of sonic possibilities for accoustic micing
 
Just steal the head from a doll or something, the ones used to display clothes in stores. Then put 2 capsules from the cheap ECM8000 in it, and there you have it.

Sounds great in headphones, and not good on loudspeakers.
 
pipelineaudio said:
if you have a pair of mics that can do figure 8 there is a whole nother world of sonic possibilities for accoustic micing
Click to expand...

Go on . . .
 
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