Recording/mixing one vocal, one guitar

tombuur

tombuur

New member
How do you record and mix a simple song with one vocal and one acoustic guitar. Think early Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and other singer songwriters delivering their song with just a guitar.

If you record the vocal with one mic and do the same with the guitar, they both end up in the middle of the mix, resulting in something close to mono. So how do you add interest to this setup. Do you record the guitar in stereo? Do you add effects that make a L-R difference?

The search engine in this forum didn't work last night and not today either, so sorry if this topic has already been discussed. In that case, please direct me with a link.
 
What you want to do with the sounds on an esthetic plane is your business... the best way I've found to have individual control over voice and guitar [when played at the same time] is to use two microphones with the Figure-8 pattern.

Aim one mic at the singer's mouth with the "null" of the pattern aimed directly at the guitar. Aim the other mic at the guitar with the "null" of the pattern aimed directly at the singers mouth.

From there you can do things like add "room" mics in any form or array from a 'Decca tree' to an 'M-S', 'X-Y', etc., etc., etc.

The reason for using mics in the Figure-8 pattern instead of cardioid is that Figure-8's rejection in the pattern's "null" is of greater bandwidth than the rejection in the "null" of a cardioid pattern.

I hope this is of some assistance.
 
Oh, I haven't got any figure-8 microphone, only cardioids. You worked hard at Mercenary to get me a U195 when I was in US in September, but Soundelux couldn't deliver then. Now I am finally getting one from Germany... But, alas, no 8-figures there either.

However, I am not necessarily talking about recording the whole thing in one take. Guitar and vocal could be recorded separately. The question is still how?
 
What i do is use 2 Condenser mics like Marshall 603s and then i use a LD condenser for my vocal. and i'll put one 603 pointing at like the 8th fret or something like that, about 7" or so away, and then i'll place the other one, slighty off center from the sound whole, about 7" away also. Then i put the vocal mic (AT 3035) in the middle about 4 " or so from my mouth. Depends on what sound i'm going for. Then i pan the 2 guitar mics hard left and right and leave the vocal mic in the middle and make sure your getting a nice hot signal and it should sound fine. Let me know how it turns out.


Zeke
 
Ok, it's one at a time. That's still the answer. ...stereo miking and/or room ambience. A stereo pair up close, a mono up close and a pair farther out, stereo up close with a mono room.
Now, how to choose? ;)
Wayne
 
The best bet for not getting vocal bleed on the guitar track and not getting guitar bleed on the vocal track is to not record them at the same time. Record the guitar part first, then record the vocal.

And as far as getting a good sound with that, record more than one guitar part, and double or triple track the vocals (sing the vocal part the same two or three times) to get them fuller. You could probably just copy the vocal track in software, but it won't be the same.

Good luck with it.
 
So I need a couple of stereo condensers? Or maybe four. And room ambience.

Right now I am working on making a vocal booth with almost no ambience, intending to add that artificially. Thought I could record the guitar there too. Looks like I am on a comletely wrong track.

Don't think vocal doubling is good for this kind of music, maybe some vocal thikckening with chorus, detuninging or something, but not outright doubled vocals.
 
tombuur said:
So I need a couple of stereo condensers? Or maybe four. And room ambience.

Right now I am working on making a vocal booth with almost no ambience, intending to add that artificially. Thought I could record the guitar there too. Looks like I am on a comletely wrong track.
Click to expand...
Not at all. Recording in stereo' doesn't have to have room' on it. They were just one of the many ways to choose from. A pair set back several inches (or where ever :) ) even in a dead room still picks up the little differences comming off the instrument.
 
In this type of situation, I'm a enoumous fan of M-S micing. I'd prefer to do that in front of the person in the right position than close micing anything. I think the type of music involved is such that you really want to present it in a sonically honest fashion. At least I do. There are no rules mind you....Anyway, M-S (mid side) is when you take one mic with a figure 8 pattern, the other really can be whatever you prefer. The figure 8 mic is put in front of the sound source 90 degrees from it so it's catching the sides. The other mic is put as close to the same spot but aimed directly at the sound source. From there, in your DAW or whatever, take the figure 8 mic's channel and double it. Flip it out of phase. Mix the two figure 8 tracks hard left and right and leave the other mic straight up. Experiment with the mix between the main mic and the figure 8 mics as you please. Hope that's a worthy suggestion. I recently am doing this more and more and I love it. It's very basic, but can work wonders.
 
Check this out if you want to record vocals and acoustic guitar simultaneously, but want them on separate tracks.

http://emusician.com/special_report/mackie2/

Or, here's a trick that you might try:

1. record a scratch track, guitar and vocals on one mic. you can use a click track or have a metronome running in the background if you want. This track will not be used in the finished product.

2. record a good guitar track (or tracks if you use stereo) while monitoring the scratch track on headphones. This will be your actual guitar track.

3. record a good vocal track while monitoring the other tracks on headphones.

4. erase the sctratch track.

Result: totally isolated guitar and vocals with no bleed. Hence, no phase cancellation (which can get really bad with improper mic placement, as you probably know).

Of course LDC stereo x/y or m/s mic set-ups a few feet in front of the performer can sound great, IF the levels are naturally correct. But if he/she sings or plays too loud, you won't be able to fix it later.

:)
 
I've had very good results by tracking the guitar with two mics for a nice stereo image and having a mic for the vocals as well.

I prefer to record simple acoustic songs live just to help capture the energy and feeling a little better. I'm not about the top 40 "everything must be perfect" crap.

One thing I would like to mention that I often forget to do is cut the lows off of acoustic guitar. Since I usually end up placing the mics fairly close to help reduce bleed and all, there's more bass and you can usually use a high pass filter to help it sound less "boomy" and generally clean up the sound a bit. That works on vocals as well.
 
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