Recording Acoustic Guitar with These Mics Available

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leojhartiv

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Hello,

I want to record my acoustic guitar (either an Ovation Celebrity Deluxe or a Yamaha FG-450SA) to eventually be mixed in purely with a vocal track.

I've viewed various articles and videos surrounding mic technique and I'm still not sure whether to record the guitar as mono or stereo. It sounds like stereo is often preferred given my use case.

Assuming that, I have the following mics available:
From what I've read, the SM81 is great for recording acoustic guitar, but it is most often used when paired with another SM81 (using XY technique) or with a large condenser.

As much as I'd love to go out and buy another SM81, I won't be able to do that for a while.

As an alternative, would it make sense to pair the 81 with the CAD 95 or just to keep things in mono?

Does anyone strongly recommend waiting for another SM81 before recording?

Any other options/suggestions?

Thanks!
Leo
 
Hello,

I want to record my acoustic guitar (either an Ovation Celebrity Deluxe or a Yamaha FG-450SA) to eventually be mixed in purely with a vocal track.

I've viewed various articles and videos surrounding mic technique and I'm still not sure whether to record the guitar as mono or stereo. It sounds like stereo is often preferred given my use case.

Assuming that, I have the following mics available:
From what I've read, the SM81 is great for recording acoustic guitar, but it is most often used when paired with another SM81 (using XY technique) or with a large condenser.

As much as I'd love to go out and buy another SM81, I won't be able to do that for a while.

As an alternative, would it make sense to pair the 81 with the CAD 95 or just to keep things in mono?

Does anyone strongly recommend waiting for another SM81 before recording?

Any other options/suggestions?

Thanks!
Leo

Is the piece too complex to play accurately twice? except for improvisational parts, I almost always record acoustic guitar twice and pan to create a great stereo sound. Only need one mic for that! :D
 
No, it probably isn't, but wasn't sure that that was preferred over paired mics. Is it?

Sorry for the cluelessness, I'm a beginner. :)
 
No, it probably isn't, but wasn't sure that that was preferred over paired mics. Is it?

Sorry for the cluelessness, I'm a beginner. :)

No apologies needed! Both approaches are valid. I'll do a stereo track now and again, especially for intricate lead picking parts. But for strumming and/or rhythm style picking, I play it twice--sometimes I even stereo track it with two mics, THEN play it twice. Then I can compare: do I want the the single take, but in stereo? Or do I wan't the double tracked take and just keep one mic's track from each? I almost always end up going with the double track.

I'm not saying you'll never need a second mic. If you're serious about this stuff, you will. I'm just trying to encourage you with what you have. (Besides, this way you learn a new technique too!) You'll probably be impressed with the results.

Here's an example. The acoustic guitar in this tune was recorded with just one mic, but played twice and panned hard and left:

 
The SM81 is used in XY all the time, but it's used as a single mono ACG mic just as often. I place it at the neck joint, pointed at the 12th fret or so, then move it a hair left if I want a little more body. Of the three mics you listen, the SM81 beats the other two at this application easily.

Frank
 
The SM81 can be had for about $200-$250 used. Not really a gold mine, any reason you feel that you've got to wait for a second one?

As far as multi-tracking for a stereo image, if you're not a very consistent player that could be hard to make work for you. And if you are a very consistent player that could lead to phase cancellation issues. I'm sure it can be made to work, but it's not really the same as micing in stereo.
 
You cannot multi track for a stereo image. White strat was talking about double tracking, which is a different matter entirely. A stereo image is just that...an image of the instrument picked up by a stereo pair, coincident or otherwise. You can't track something twice then somehow combine it to make it sound like a single instrument tracked with a stereo pair.

Frank
 
The SM81 can be had for about $200-$250 used. Not really a gold mine, any reason you feel that you've got to wait for a second one?

As far as multi-tracking for a stereo image, if you're not a very consistent player that could be hard to make work for you. And if you are a very consistent player that could lead to phase cancellation issues. I'm sure it can be made to work, but it's not really the same as micing in stereo.

I'm not sure what phase cancellation issues you mean. I've never had any. And while "tight" is good--exact perfection isn't. When you pan the two takes L & R, it's actually all the tiny differences that work so well to create a wonderful illusion of stereo.

You cannot multi track for a stereo image. White strat was talking about double tracking, which is a different matter entirely. A stereo image is just that...an image of the instrument picked up by a stereo pair, coincident or otherwise. You can't track something twice then somehow combine it to make it sound like a single instrument tracked with a stereo pair.

Frank

Exactly. It's an illusion of stereo. And with two takes, it ends up sounding "more stereo" than a single guitar mic'd in stereo. A whole stage full of musicians works with two mics, because you hear the actual placement of the different instruments in the stereo field. Not so much with a single guitar. You get tonal differences, and the neck & body sounds are different, so a stereo mic'd acoustic sounds noticably different than a mono mic'd guitar. But the "illusion" of stereo created with two separate tracks is even cooler in many cases.
 
Try these.
SM81 at 12th fret, and the CAD over the shoulder
the CAD and SM 81 in XY,
CAD at 12th fret, and the 81 3-4 inches past the bridge, away from the sound hole.
 
Experimentation is the key

I will typically use two mics to record an acoustic guitar. I place an AKG C1000s near the 12th fret and an AKG Solidtube closer to the sound hole on the guitar. If want to avoid the attack of the pick hitting the strings this second mic can be placed near the back of the guitar. This technique essentially allows you to balance the sound of the body with the sounds of the strings and the fretting hand's movement on the guitar.

If you want to avoid phase problems associated with double tracking or you don't want to have two slightly different strum or picking patterns you could simply copy the one track and apply delay to it. Then pan these two tracks hard left and right.
 
Hello,

I want to record my acoustic guitar (either an Ovation Celebrity Deluxe or a Yamaha FG-450SA) to eventually be mixed in purely with a vocal track.

I've viewed various articles and videos surrounding mic technique and I'm still not sure whether to record the guitar as mono or stereo. It sounds like stereo is often preferred given my use case.

Assuming that, I have the following mics available:
From what I've read, the SM81 is great for recording acoustic guitar, but it is most often used when paired with another SM81 (using XY technique) or with a large condenser.

As much as I'd love to go out and buy another SM81, I won't be able to do that for a while.

As an alternative, would it make sense to pair the 81 with the CAD 95 or just to keep things in mono?

Does anyone strongly recommend waiting for another SM81 before recording?

Any other options/suggestions?

Thanks!
Leo

I've not heard the term "use case" except in IT development quite some years ago!

How you record the guitar depends on the nature of the material.

If a detailed guitar sound is an important part of the piece, then I would suggest recording the guitar in stereo, using the 81 on the neck of the guitar, with the 95 on the body. I reckon those two mikes will give you a good broad representation.

If the guitar is kind of just strumming along, or plays a minor role in the piece, then you can really do what you like. Just use the 81 and record it in mono. You can, if the way you play suits it, do as the others suggest and record two mono tracks, panning them left and right.
 
I agree. Find your best placement with the 81. Then if you want, set up one of the other mics as well. Just because you record it, doesn't mean you have to use the second track. And if it doesn't sound good nothing's lost. But if it turns out good, then great!

yup, uh huh
 
Wow...thanks for all the help guys!

I ended up just using the single SM81 over my shoulder, about 6 inches above the bridge, pointing straight down. I then recorded vocals separately and used a reverb effect that came with Logic Express to add "stereoness" to it.

Here's the result.

I'm not too crazy about the vocal recording, but it's good enough for rock and roll. By the time I was recording that track I was beat. Next on my list of things to do is experiment with recording vocals while recording the guitar. I definitely felt constricted playing along to a click track and not singing at the same time...lost alot of the "performance".

Oh and gecko, in regard to this:
I've not heard the term "use case" except in IT development quite some years ago!
You got me: I'm in software engineering! :)
 
There's a technique call "Fattening" I first read about in David Gibson's "The Art Of Mixing." To execute the technique, you first clone your single track, so now you have two identical tracks. Next, pan the two tracks to taste and put a delay of 1 to 30ms on one of the tracks. The fattening effect is subtle, as the short delay tricks your ears into hearing a stereo image created by a single, fatter sound. Some people will eq the cloned track a little to enhance the effect. When I only had a single condenser mic I used this technique on acou guit a few times and liked it a lot.

Note that delays > 30ms (30 to 60ms) create a different effect, called doubling, which is more pronounced, and the human ear hears the effect as two separate sounds. I experimented with this effect on acou guit and didn't care for it as much.
 
Right...what you're basically doing there is what I learned to do with kick and snare drums years ago. Take a kick drum for example. You duplicate the track (or mult it if you're working analog), hi and low pass the dup track to create a bump at 50Hz, then put a 22ms delay on it. Since a 50Hz wavelength is 22ft, a 22ms delay aligns it with the original track at 50Hz. What you get is a big, fat kick that doesn't eat up all the head room that EQing more 50Hz does...since it's on a separate track it also doesn't skew your the compression settings on your kick channel.

This technique works on a bunch of things.

Frank
 
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