Mixing classical guitar?

A

a modified dog

New member
If I may be so bold, I would solicit tips, comments et.al. as to recording a classical guitar (played fingerstyle, for the most part)...

I'm using Cakewalk Home Studio, Sound Forge 5, a cheap mic, and a 550 Mhz AMD system.

Mostly I'm interested in how to make the guitar sound better by mixing, using EQ and effects.

TIA for your input
Denis
 
Your make the recording sound better by mic'ing it properly in a good room. When it sounds good on tape (or DAW, whatever...), THEN reach for the effects to enhance it.

good sound + good effects = good recording
great sound + great effects = great recording
bad sound + good effects = bad sound + good effects

"You can't polish a turd!"

Bruce
 
I recorded a fingerstyle piece one time, that I think was my best recording ever, but I lost the tape!

I had a cheap condensor, small diaphragm, and used a Tascam 424. I had an empty room about 12 x 14 with hardwood floors that just rang out forever. I recorded the guitar, used no effects or EQ at all, and had a wonderful sound. Very "classical", old sounding, like an old recording you listen to in music theory class.

If I ever find that tape, I'll have to convert it to digital and put it up on here.
H2H
 
What Bruce said, is very accurate!

I record acoustic guitar in a dead room, and add very little reverb later.... Too much 'verb makes an acoustic sound to ringy... (i can't think of a descriptive word)..... Just enough to give it that added space. Not like the player is sitting in an empty stadium....... I use an AT 4033 condenser mic.... and an SM57.... usually I get the SM57 up near the bottom of the neck, and the AT facing the piece of wood just above the hole and placed about 2 feet out.. I find, if you point any mic right at a hole in a guitar, you get these low mid ringy noises...Try and avoid this....Joe
 
Blue Bear Sound said:
good sound + good effects = good recording
great sound + great effects = great recording
bad sound + good effects = bad sound + good effects

"You can't polish a turd!"

Bruce
Click to expand...

Bruce,
Be that as it may, the equipment I have to work with is:

550 Mhz AMD PC
SoundBlaster Live! card
cheesy mic that came with my card
SoundForge 5.0
Cakewalk Home Studio
Yamaha PSR 540 keyboard
a brain busting with music

I was hoping for advice to push the limits of what I have.

Zulch! is the auto works...
Denis
 
Throw the cheesy mic out the window, and get yourself a decent condenser and mic pre... that will cover 50% of your sound problems... the other 50% is covered by mic placement and performance.

If your next question is how to get good sound with a cheesy mic, the answer is "forgedabawdit..." Cheesy, cheap mics give you cheesy, cheap sound... there's no magic in that formula, you get what you throw at it!

Bruce

:)
 
You should just keep the cheap mic, and rent one of those new antares mic simulators.....(kidding).....I can't believe that anything can properly simulate a mic,.... (All you do is turn the dial to "U47", and whappp!! theres your sound........).. Theres no way this thing can be like any mic, I mean, your still singing through a shit mic with poor responce and dynamics........Joe

P.S. you guys were talking about budget mikes,and I just had to mention this piece of gear.....
 
a modified dog said:
I was hoping for advice to push the limits of what I have
Click to expand...

Originally posted by a Blue Bear Sound
If your next question is how to get good sound with a cheesy mic, the answer is "forgedabawdit..." Cheesy, cheap mics give you cheesy, cheap sound... there's no magic in that formula, you get what you throw at it
Click to expand...

Yeah, well anyway...

To further clarify my question:

How can I get the best sound with what I've got?
or:
How can I use processing and effects to get the best sound from my existing system, cheesy mic and all?

Please don't tell me I can't enhance my recording with what I've got: even a little better is better.

TIA
Denis
 
Denis....

What answer are you looking for??? What you ask is simply not possible... I repeat... a cheap, cheesy mic gives you a cheap, cheesy sound!!!!!

You throw reverb in there and you have cheap, cheesy sound in some sort of ambient environment. If it's a cheap reverb, then you get cheap, cheesy sound in a cheap, cheesy room!!!

What else can I say????

Like I said, you can only record what you throw at the recorder - if the signal source is cheap and cheesy, then the recording will be cheap and cheesy from start to finish. You can't "make it better" by washing it in effects.... This is a big misconception that a lot of people make - record it quickly and fix the sound in the mix... they spend minutes tracking and spend hours (days!) mixing trying to get the crappy sounds to sit right in the mix, and it never does... then they scratch their head and say, well I guess I need MORE effects...

Here's the secret - get the recording to sound right at the start. Spend hours, days on TRACKING, then the mixing will be that much smoother and you will feel the need to "bury" the sound in effects to a far lesser degree....

sjoko2 posted this in greater detail recently in a nother thread... take a look at it.. (I think it was the BEST Tips thread)

Not much more to say... not the answer you want, but what you want is out of touch with what can be done! Cheap and cheesy will ALWAYS be cheap and cheesy...

Bruce
 
Blue Bear Sound said:
Denis....

What answer are you looking for??? What you ask is simply not possible... I repeat... a cheap, cheesy mic gives you a cheap, cheesy sound!!!!!
Click to expand...

I'm looking for advice as to how I can make my classical guitar recordings sound better, given that cheap cheesy equipment is all I have to work with. Even if the improvement is so small as to be almost imperceptible, it's still improvement. It's learning by doing.

Blue Bear Sound said:
sjoko2 posted this in greater detail recently in a nother thread... take a look at it.. (I think it was the BEST Tips thread)
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll look for it.

Blue Bear Sound said:
Not much more to say... not the answer you want, but what you want is out of touch with what can be done! Cheap and cheesy will ALWAYS be cheap and cheesy...
Click to expand...

Sorry, but you didn't address my question. I'm not asking about absolutes. I'm asking how I can become better at this by doing it. I know that my gear sucks, but using your reasoning, I should pack everything up and wait years until I can get good equipment like what you work with. This site, although obviously not exclusive of recording pros and just plain folks with nice gear, is a place to ask and talk about HOME recording, as in homerecordingdotcom.

Your posts are prolific, and generally intelligible, which means they're helpful. Don't leave a bad taste in a newbie's mouth by berating them on the one hand for not understanding you or you're misunderstanding what they want, and giving them great advice on the other.

May I suggest that your approach!!!!!!!!! I repeat your approach!!! to helping people out may seem condescending to some folks... ok, me... with all the "I repeat!!!"s and the "!!!!!!!!!"s

Denis
 
Believe me, you'd know if I was "berating" you - and nothing I said was meant to be condescending at all... just the facts... I make no apologies for my "presentation." If you've read my other posts then you already know my writing style...

I keep telling you things and because it isn't what you want to hear, you keep coming back with "but..."!!!

I'm not telling you to buy the most expensive gear, nor to wait until you do... I'm simply saying you can't get blood from a stone... there's no secret in "cheesy IN equals cheesy OUT!"
 
Here's a recommendation if you want to still be cheap:
Find two used Radio Shack 33-3017 condenser mics. Granted, they are cheap and they are a *little* cheesy, but they will sound 100 times better than a cheap cheesy mic that was designed for people who like to voice-chat on their computer. When used in an XY stereo pattern, they sound actually not too bad on an acoustic guitar. I paid $40 a piece for them a couple years ago, but now they don't make them anymore, so I'd expect you could find them used for $10 each. Also, Sony made a mic a long time ago... it was called the "one point stereo" microphone. It's miserable on vocals, but it actually sounds very warm and mellow on guitar. It's a dynamic mic and it's extremely affordable if you can find one. It's old and it's cheap, but it would still sound better than what you have. Otherwise, continue to save your money and get something really nice when you have the cash. I learned a long time ago that you can only push a cheap mic so far... and trust me, it won't get very far.

And now some words of instruction: "Use the source, Luke!" (sorry for the cheap, cheesy pun...)

Isaiah
 
Prism said:
And now some words of instruction: "Use the source, Luke!" (sorry for the cheap, cheesy pun...)
Click to expand...

Thanks for your advice. If I spot either at a garage sale or something, I'll snatch them up. As for the pun... have you no shame? ;-)
 
I will reinforce the points made here.

You are going to "learn" little from trying to maximize the use of the mic "that came with my soundcard". The frequency response is horrible. The SPL handling is horrible. And the proximity effect will drive you nuts!

Just about ANY XLR type of microphone is going to be better friend.

Look at a Shure SM-57 or 58. The 57 is about $80 new, and the 58 is only about $10 more. While neither would be my choice, in a pinch for recording a demo, I would favor them over what you have any day of the week.

Getting into the whole recording things requires a bit of a commitment to at least have equipment that is somewhat usable. The mic you have is truely not at that level, unless you seek a messed up sound for a special effect on a track.

Another little bit of advice:

I would shy away from ANY processing of classical guitar. If because of using a less than desirable mic you need to eq a bit, try not to do anymore then +/- 3dB of eq. Any more than that and you start really altering the tone of the instrument in unnatural ways, which I don't think would be desirable for a nylon string acoutic guitar.

I used to have a recording by Kimbal Dykes (some Canadian dude who did a lot of Bach) and they used some reverb on the guitar. Truthfully, I didn't like the sound. The guitar sounded great, but the reverb sounded a bit unnatural. I have NEVER heard an acoustic guitar sound that way in a room before, and this sort of distracted me in the listening of the otherwise fine playing.

Buy a another mic. There is little any here can suggest in the usage of the mic you currently use. It is just simply that bad of a mic....:(

Ed
 
Im gonna turn an early demo of mine into an MP3.... I used a $39.00 radioshack mic...... It sounds good (yet not optimal)... I had to tweak the hell out of the vocal track on mixdown, to get rid of the cheesy sound.. But this is proof that a shit mic can work good...... I will try and get this up within the next 4 days... My Audio Tech....4033 mic sounds great when tracked and mixed flat... but a cheaper mic... needs mega high eq to make it "crisp" sounding on mixdown...... This is how you can make your existing mic gear sound better

My Email address is adrrecordings@hotmail.com

email me, whoever wants to hear this, and I will send it to you via email...

Joe
 
a modified dog said:


Be that as it may, the equipment I have to work with is:

550 Mhz AMD PC
SoundBlaster Live! card
cheesy mic that came with my card
SoundForge 5.0
Cakewalk Home Studio
Yamaha PSR 540 keyboard
a brain busting with music

I was hoping for advice to push the limits of what I have.

Denis
Click to expand...

Denis, most of the gear that you have is great for home recording and is quite capable of producing very good demo quality stuff that might even be good enough for some local airplay.

I will attempt to rate your gear on a scale of 1 to 10, with '1' being a barely functional toy and '10' being stuff that can produce a really great home recording.


550 Mhz AMD PC - 9

SoundBlaster Live! card - 7

cheesy mic that came with my card - 1

SoundForge 5.0 - 10

Cakewalk Home Studio - 9

Yamaha PSR 540 keyboard - 8

a brain busting with music - 10++



From my arbitrary of the top of my head ratings above you can see that your gear is fine except (like everyone is trying to tell you) for your mic. It is in a completely different category to the rest of your gear and as a result will drag a perfectly good recording setup down to it's (horribly low) level. Do yourself a favor, save up a couple bucks and upgrade to a real mic, an SM57 is only about $80 and the difference will be astounding.


If you insist on trying to record with the plastic mic that came with the soundcard then your best approach is to do a lot of experimenting with mic placement and you will probably need to use a lot of EQ.
 
keep recording with the cheesy mic, till you've got the good one

no one's telling you to stop recording with the cheesy mic.

just start saving for a decent mic in the process.

1) the cheesy mic isn't going to work well far from the source, which means you have to put it close to the hole; however, don't put it directly at the hole, take it at an angle so you don't get all the boom-i-ness.

2) eq the boominess out because you are still going to get it... cut everything below 120hz.

3) sweep the upper eq range to find out where the good guitar sounds stop and the cheesy white noise takes over. cut that high crap out.

4) sweep the mids and upper mids to find out where that nasty ringing is coming from and dip that 6db or so. now, you've got what you can get, which is a classical guitar with it's best recorded frequencies in the vocal range.

don't forget to keep saving for that SM57. i use a shure sm57, audio technica 4000c, & an audio technica 4033. i once even took one of those audio technica clip on mics used for micing percussion instruments and clipped it into the hole. just keep experimenting.
 
Hey Dog!

*ghrin* I just noticed you gave Bear some stick :>)
But.... in his defence, no eq or anything will save you from a godawful sound if you record with a mic like that.
It simply is NOT suitable as recording equipment, and that's all there is to it.
 
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