Rode NT2A - Vocals + Guitar (Omnidirectional)

CMolena

CMolena

Active member
Hi guys.

Can u give me some feedback on this tune I recorded? I used a Rode NT2A with the Omni setting.

Here's what I did. I placed it really close to me and put the guitar amp about a meter away.
The result is here:

I wonder what u guys think about it. Some parts the guitar sounds louder than my voice, but I guess that is just part of the process when recording a performance with a single mic????
 
There is a lot of room noise around the guitar - I question why you choose Omni - you don't have good information behind the microphone. Why not Cardioid?

It's not a bad recording - things come thru - but you are right your Vocals are masked by the guitar for most part - and like I said the guitar
and voice have a lot of extraneous noise around them.
 
Not much mixing you can do when you only have the one track, but maybe you could use the amp eq to let the vocal through better. Maybe lowering the treble and/or presence would give the vocal more space.
 
Papanate said:
There is a lot of room noise around the guitar - I question why you choose Omni - you don't have good information behind the microphone. Why not Cardioid?

It's not a bad recording - things come thru - but you are right your Vocals are masked by the guitar for most part - and like I said the guitar
and voice have a lot of extraneous noise around them.
Click to expand...
I chose Omni because this is the first mic I got that has this polar pattern. I tried experimenting a little bit, you know?
 
You're not projecting very much with your vocal and it's almost dropping out in spots, so you'll need to get that closer to a mic - possibly just project more along with developing mic techniques (backing away and moving in for louder and softer parts). The stronger your voice gets, the easier it will be to sing at lower volumes at consistent levels.. so it doesn't drop out.
 
You need to experiment more with mic position and probably turn down the guitar a bit.

I don't see any reason why you'd choose omni pattern for something like that, especially in what looks to be an untreated space. Now, maybe figure-of-8 would be interesting if you turn the guitar amp towards you, and have baffling/absorption behind you to keep its reflection very low in the front side of the mic (i.e., your vocal).

And, a couple other things.

There's a kind of inherent compression in an electric guitar through an amp which your voice does not have, so managing this with a single mic is (IMO) probably harder than an acoustic guitar. You may find it balances better with the first things I mentioned, or not. I think a second mic focused on the vocal is *always* preferable and gives you a bit more control over the guitar/vox balance in the mix.

Also, your guitar playing is kind of characteristic of folks that have not really gotten to the point of listening what it actually sounds like, and the guitar, in particular, gets more energy as soon as you are not focused on trying to sing. If you want to make single mic recordings, (again, IMO/IME) you *really* need to learn to get practiced to the point where you can kind of "split your brain" and keep the guitar even, or appropriate, regardless of what you're doing singing, and vice versa. Recording can actually help that, but you need objective listening.
 
Yeah you want the mic to be closer to you in relation to the amp in that situation.
Just wondering why you're only using one mic?
 
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