Reducing incidental noise

  • Thread starter Thread starter Armistice
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Armistice

Armistice

Son of Yoda
I'm trying to record an acoustic fingerstyle guitarist (me!) and am having trouble with incidental noise created by playing the guitar.

Specifically I'm talking breath noise, guitar moving against cloth - that sort of thing. Because it's fingerstyle the volume is quite low and this sort of stuff is audible - especially in the qiuet passages - and there's a few of them.

Any clues, tips etc you guys use? I have all the other noises (strings, general rumble) under control - and I'm not a heavy breather particularly!

Cheers

David
 
Play in the nude and hold your breath?:D

seriously though, you might try some different mic positioning to help minimize some of the noise.


Cheers:D
 
Breath noise could be reduced by mic position... or just breating quitely... alternatively you could use it as part of the song ;)

With the Guitar moving against clothing, you might want to try sitting in a different position... somtimes different clothes make different sounds.. try different shirt I guess... try all different things, put a small blanket between you and the guitar.

As for leaving little things like that in a song... Listen to Buddy Holly's 'Oh Boy'... have you ever head the cough 2/3 of the way through the song.

Which part of Sydney are you from?

Porter
 
I kinda like those sounds in moderation...sounds like the guitar player is really there. It can be annoying after a while though.
 
I'm a resident of the lovely Bankstown area Porter. You?

Winter's coming on, it's getting a bit cold to nude up and record! I've already trained myself not to breath through my nose when recording, or release a sigh of contentment at the end of what I thought was a good take!

I just know when I listen to recordings of really good acoustic guitar playing I don't hear these "artifacts".

I'm thinking I'll put the mics up a tad higher and angle them down a bit more, get the breathing into the off-axis area a bit more. I guess it depends upon what you're playing too - it's easy to keep the noise down if it's a simple piece, but if it goes all over the place then there's a certain amount of movement of fingers against guitar neck and then guitar against body.

Life was much easier before I discovered microphones!
 
I have to remember to take my watch off when tracking guitar, I never hear it in real-life, but my mic picks up this really annoying screeching noise, which is my watch band jiggling on my left wrist when I play. At first I thought my mic was busted! :)
 
gordone said:
I have to remember to take my watch off when tracking guitar, I never hear it in real-life, but my mic picks up this really annoying screeching noise, which is my watch band jiggling on my left wrist when I play. At first I thought my mic was busted! :)
Click to expand...

So that is where that is coming from! I will have to remember that.
 
I'm all for incidental noise in general, but I really hate the sound of my right shirtsleeve agains the guitar, really not musical at all. So I just wear a shortsleeve shirt. One of those moments when you feel like you've really gone off the deepend with the audio geekiness.

If you're working with really quiet stuff, you're going to have to do some really anal work to get rid of those noises. Try different chairs, take off your shoes, wear jeans insted of really slippery pants, etc. etc.
 
Armistice,

I'm in the Drummoyne area.

Obviously you haven't listened to Tommy Emmanuel. You can often hear him 'singing' along to the song in the background of his recordings... sort of leaving artifacts ;)

BTW, I also playu guitar, piano & program my own drums.

Porter
 
well one thing you need to remember is that you are not just recording a guitar, you are recording a human being playing the guitar!

i just finished a demo for a solo jazz guitarist, just one track of guitar, and i think the incidental noise actually gave it some life. breathing, shirt scrape and even the occasional grunt of satisfaction all seem to occur in rythym, adding a kind of percussive element. there are a couple of clinking beer bottles in the background of one of the tracks, and to be honest i think it kept things quite interesting... i could have spent all day eqing and gating this stuff out, but it would have been detrimental to the whole sound... in the end the client was quite happy (as he should be becasue it did'nt cost him anything). i told him to just concentrate on the playing, as a good take with a little breathing would be better than a shit take with his head in a plastic bag wearing silk underpants :)
 
I don't mind the "normal" noises you get playing the guitar, but I'm not a fan of breathing (or the noise of it anyway) - maybe my breath just doesn't sound musical!

Good to know I'm not the only person facing this particular challenge - mind you I have a friend who positively snorts whenever he has a guitar in hand - never tried to record him, didn't want the frustration!
 
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