Recording in a High School Hallway

[kokycoal]

I work part time as a nightwatchman at the local high school. You can imagine that I have a lot of time to think during those 20 hours. Anyways I took an acoustic guitar with me the other night. The guitar is a Yamaha FG-375s which has a solid top but is by no means as good as my Martin D-41. However when I played the guitar in the hallway it sounded great. I suppose the natural reverb had something to do with but it also seemed to bring out more "tone" for lack of a better term, from the guitar. My question is, how could I capture this sound in a recording. Has anyone had a similar experience? I guess I just want to know if recording in a big open area like that is a good idea before I go dragging my equipment to to my workplace. If I mic the guitar like I normally do (stereo, one mic at 12th fret and other below the soundhole towards the end pin) I will not really pick up the room sound right? Should I use another mic to capture the room sound? When I have used a third mic to capture room sound in other locations it seemed to sound thin and tinny, on acoustic guitar anyway and ended up being un-usable in the mix. All suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Massive Master]

There's a lot of experimentation involved, but it's certainly worth a shot.

One word of - caution (for lack of a better term)...

A lot of spaces sound "acoustically cool" -- Hallways, bathrooms, brick rooms, garages, etc., etc., etc.

They sound 'cool' when you're *in* them - The human ear is very (VERY!!!) forgiving in acoustically questionable spaces.

The problem you (we) end up with is when you try to "stuff that huge space" into a little set of speakers in a completely different room...

Ever notice how you can fire up a recorder in a room and wonder why it sounds so amazingly different when you listen back to it later? The room doesn't sound any different to the mic than it did to your ears. But your ear "automatically listens" to what it wants to hear to some extent.

That "automatic ear" is now listening to a set of speakers and suddenly, you're actually hearing what the room sounded like before.

The "added tone" you're hearing is very likely bad bass response.

That said - I'm not saying to not try it... On the contrary - By all means, if you aren't going to get in trouble about it, I'd set up a bunch of mics going all the way down the hall and then take them home and experiment with time-aligning them just for fun.

But in the end, you might find that it's not a really nice sounding place.

 

[moresound]

We got some real goods results in a similar situation.
What we did was to make a good recording home/studio where ever, bring that recording to the hallway (in our case 4 story concrete block sealed emergency stair way) play it down at one end through a good full range speaker (we used a mackie 450) then re-record it down the other end. WOW
Give that a try.

 

[kokycoal]

Massive, Thanks for the help. Sounds like I would be wasting the company's time. (haha) I think you are right in the fact that the sound that I hear in the hallway is not gonna translate to my recording at least not with the equip that I have. I still may give it a shot just for the heck of it. I'll let you know what happens. Thanks again.

 

[kokycoal]

We got some real goods results in a similar situation.
What we did was to make a good recording home/studio where ever, bring that recording to the hallway (in our case 4 story concrete block sealed emergency stair way) play it down at one end through a good full range speaker (we used a mackie 450) then re-record it down the other end. WOW
Give that a try.

When you mixed did you keep the original track and blend the stairway one for effect or just use the stairway track alone?

 

[moresound]

Yes you would season to taste.
Mix the two together back at home/studio go from one extreme to the other to see the difference and chose what you like when you hear it for it will jump right out at you---That's what I was looking for!

 

[Atom Bomb]

question?

does the school you watch at night have a music room?

Only reason i ask is depending on the age of the school and the reputation of their music program their music room may most definaitely be treated and if i were in your shoes...

id say to hell with the hallway and get into the music room!!!!