Recording acousitic/electric?

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Joey-T

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I have an acoustic/electric guitar and was wondering your thoughts on how to best record it. A buddy suggested running one channel to the guitar's electrics, then another channel micing the guitar. He claims it gives better tonal qualities to the recording, but I've never seen that method used. Ideas?
 
A good mic, positioned correctly will give you a truer acoustic guitar tone. A pickup will allow you to enhance the tone before it goes to the recorder. Use both and blend them together to get a fuller sound. It takes a bit of trial and error but finding the right mix of mic/pickup is worth the extra trouble.
 
It's a sort of "why not?" thing. You aim to capture the acoustic with the mic as well as possible, and if you have a spare channel you might as well track the pickup as well. Whether or not it sounds better mixed in, you give yourself the option.
 
more info please

How many mics can you use and what kind?
 
artlover said:
How many mics can you use and what kind?
Most commonly done with one or two. Less often with 3 or more. As far as what kind of mic's... beyond just saying that condenser mic's are the most common on ac gtr, it depends on the price range. Lots of threads have covered this... easy to find if you use the search function.

Tim
 
Any body know of an amp that you can play acoustic or electric through, preferably tube?
 
Unfortunately, the needs of acoustic and electric on stage are strikingly different as a rule. However, you can get around that a little by using a wicked clean acoustic amp and an amp modeler. For instance, one combo that works fairly well is an SWR Strawberry Blonde or California Blonde used with a Pod, Vamp, or Vox Tonelab. The acoustic goes straight into the acoustic amp, and the electric goes through the amp modeler, with the cab model disabled, then into the acoustic amp. Tube amps rarely work well for acoustic, as they tend to introduce controlled distortion which is often good for electric and bad for acoustic. For small solo gigs, I often jack the acoustic straight into a small PA, and the electric goes through a VAMP II into the PA. I use a Fender PD250 Passport for this. Perhaps when viewed as a PA, the little Fender is pretty weak, but if you consider it as a 250 watt acoustic guitar amp, it produces plenty of power.
If you really want that kick-ass, cranked-up tube-based combo amp tone, you will need 2 amps. For pure onstage acoustic sound, I've heard no acoustic amp that beats a Strawberry Blonde, although my Passport comes pretty close.-Richie
 
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