Miking vs. Direct Signal

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samich17

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I'm nearly always able to get a better acoustic guitar sound by going direct. Every time I mic the guitar, the track is heavy with natural feedback or boom. I posted a thread asking how to mic an acoustic guitar so the boom is reduced..the obvious answer was to pull the mic back and face it away from the sound hole, so i tried many different placements...including: shoulder height angled down at sound hole, shoulder height angled down at 12th fret, 1 foot away, 2 feet away and many other positions and I always come out with a mediocre sound....I had a pickup installed in my acoustic and when i go direct, it always sounds better...It is usually loaded with upper-mids and highs, but it is easy to balance out.. I'm afraid to go with my instincts, because over and over people say to mic an acoustic for optimal sound and everytime I am in the studio , the engineers will mic the acoustic, usually with 2 or 3 mics at different distances....Since I only have one mic (Audix Om6) <-----dynamic, I will, for th time being before I get my hands on a condenser, stick to going direct. I am anxious to post this purely acoustic track so you can hear a song all done with direct signals...A radiohead cover. :) I hope to get some feedback from you fellas dammit!
 
I responded in detail to your original thread. I didn't know, cos you didn't say that you had a pic-up fitted to your Martin. But if you re-read my reply I talked about mixing a pick-up DI and mics. Because you have a dynamic mic only, I suggest you go with your ears and use the pick-up only to lay your track down.

But later, experiment with the dynamic mic a little a distance away and see what results you get mixing the two input signals at different levels.
 
The reason you are getting a "better sound" from Direct, is because 1) Your Mic is not optimal 2) Your miking technique is off 3) the guitar has a lousy "Live, not plugged in " sound....

I would probably guess that it's a combo of 1 and 2...


Direct acoustic guitar always sounds rubbery to me, and a miked acoustic almost always sounds better.. (almost I said)...

I use a $100 or so cheap piece of junk guitar and I get a wonderful sound, through my 4033.... Which is why Im not thinking it's your guitar....

Do you have a music store that you can rent some mics and try them out...

I'd like to see you maybe using a 4033, or something similar....

Anyways... thats my .03 cents...

Joe
 
I had the same problem for ages... I was recording into a dynamic mic striaght into my VS880ex. But then I bought a JoeMeek trackpak (VC3Q and a JM-47 mike) and it's resulted in a huge difference - it sounds like what a miked acoustic guitar should sound like. I normally place the mic directly opposite the end the fret-board but pointing at the place where the neck meets the body.

I'm not suggesting you buy the JoeMeek trackpak, but a condenser mic + pre-amp should go a long way to solving your problem (same as what VOXVENDOR was saying)...

Here's a good article from SOS magazine...
Recording Acoustic Guitar
 
Here is another perspective.

I read in one answer that you are using a Martin.

Well, I have experienced people walking into studios with Martins for decades, and every time that happens it makes me shudder.
The best acoustic environments, the best mics, the best preamps - nothing on this planet will make it easy to record most model Martins. In a studio, a Martin is a pig, and a dirty unwanted one at that.

So if you say you get a better result with your pickup... yes you would. So would even the best engineer.

My advice? Keep the Martin, use it for playing gigs, they sound wonderful live. If you have to record or amplify it, use a good pickup. If you want to record acoustic guitar with a microphone, buy something like a Yamaha for a couple of hundred bucks, and you will get a million times better sounding result than you will ever get with a Martin.
 
aii?! :eek:

not that i don't believe you, i've just had a pretty good time recording a 800 series martin. sounded like hell when it was using the pickups durng rough tracking the whole band. but mic it up with an AKG 414 and i liked it. of course, im not a pro. :)


wh do you think they suck? to bright?
 
Martins sound very good indeed, the huge body / soundboard of most models results in an extremely broad frequency spectrum - from very low to very high.
If you just have a guitar and a vocal, sometimes it works. Start adding anything and your Martin is in everything else's space, you have to start shelving and EQ'ing, and before you know it you have a shit sound altogether.
This is not just my opinion, its an experience the vast majority of pro engineers will have had.
I have in the past gone to the extreme of driving to GC from a studio in LA to buy a cheap guitar as the player in the studio only had 2 Martins with him and we had been struggling for a day to try and get a sound. Now I just won't even try anymore, its a waste of time. Yamahas are brilliant to record, so are Taylors.
 
Just out of curiosity, have you changed your strings lately?

Martins are very dull sounding IMO. Great guitars but very mellow tone. Larivee and Taylors are a lot brighter and clearer sounding.

An SM57 blended with a pickup can give you a cheap decent sound. Not as good as a condensor but passable.
 
oh shit... what am i talking about, it was a taylor. :) brain fart.
 
Thank you sjoko, you have put me out of my misery. Last year I was auditioning guitars for a recording I was doing and it came down to a Taylor or a Martin. And the Taylor won hands down. Why? Brighter, better definition (both had new strings), it cut through the other instruments, had its own "space" etc. I couldn't believe it. Yet my ears told me it was so. But I have been in denial and wracked with guilt ever since (ok, not really, but you get the picture). And along comes someone of your eminence and tells me I was probably right.

But I still enjoyed playing the Martin in a more accoustically live room.
 
If you like to go direct use an amp and mic the amp with a 57 off axis and distance with a condencer. This option works great if you want a big sound. Kind of warm as well not as bright.

I know someone is going to flame me for this but dont knock it till you try it.
 
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