Separation on voice and guitar

R

Resoman

New member
I've been recording a singer/songwriter who plays acoustic guitar while he sings, and he likes to be seated while we record. I'm using two mics, a Rode NTK w/pop screen for the vocal and an MXL V67N on his D18.
My problem is that I'm getting a lot of guitar on the vocal track, to the point that the guitar track is redundant. For our second session, I moved him closer the the NTK (about 10", I think) and things were better, but I was hoping for more separation.

So, how do others handle a situation like this? Do I just keep getting him closer and closer to the NTK or is there some kind of baffle I could fabricate to reduce the amount of guitar reaching the NTK?

I realize it's possible that he drifts away from the mic when singing. I'm playing Dobro when we record, so my eyes are needed elsewhere!

Thanks,

Gary,
Iowa City
 
I tend to use a dynamic mic very VERY close for the voice, but that's purely because my environment sucks and a condenser at distance doesn't sound great.

Ideally, in my opinion, the best thing to do is to accept the bleed, if the environment isn't bad.
Position the two mics in such a way that the whole sounds good.

If you absolutely need separation for, lets say, vocal tuning or whatever, record separately.

You can achieve some kind of separation through mic positioning and choice - Using the nulls/polar patterns etc but I've always found it to be a compromise.
I'd rather put the mics where they sound good and leave it at that.
 
Have you tried taking the guitar away from him....and letting him just sing....seated or standing?

I get the whole thing about comfort zones and "comfort blankets" people need when recording....but I would show/explain to him what the trade off is, and that you can either compromise the recording or he can compromise and sing without the guitar. :)
 
This is worth considering.
There's a guy whose parts I record separately because that's what sounds/works best for him, but I have another guy who I record live, bleed and all, because his performances really are great and worth capturing live.
 
Yeah....it's all about the the end-product.

If the combined bleed of the vocals and guitar sound great and will work fine during mixing, etc.....then go that route if the performer prefers doing it that way.
However, if the tracks really need to be separate, and the bleed is getting in the way....well, then it doesn't work, and maybe the performer needs to make the adjustment. I mean, you can only isolate two mics on a vocal and guitar so much. By the time weird baffles and stuff is added, the performer isn't going to be all the comfortable any more. :D

I think a lot of those people just need to hold that guitar for comfort because that's how they've been doing it. Recording is a little odd to them, but I really do think it's important to try and educate people and get them to become more comfortable and not afraid to try something a little different.

Do some dry runs with him.
Have the singer just play the guitar part....record it, tell him it's just for practice purposes.
Then have him sing a bunch of times along with that recording....and record that too, and tell him it's just for practice purposes.
He'll get comfortable after a few passes.
 
Another possibility if he can play to a click...

Record a scratch track of the guitar and vocal. Record it with a click (for consistency).

Then have him record the guitar and vocal separately, referencing the scratch track as he's doing it.

Might work, might not.
 
Thanks for all the replies, very helpful! Our immediate purpose is to make a demo and, since the voice/guitar balance isn't bad, I'll just record both at the same time. When we get more serious, I'll try to get him to lay down a guitar track first...

Gary,
Iowa City
 
Resoman said:
When we get more serious...
Click to expand...
When you get more serious ?
In my view, the quality of demos should be indistinguishable from something about to be released. Many great released records were actually the demos. And it's better to get used to recording practice now.........
 
grimtraveller said:
When you get more serious ?
In my view, the quality of demos should be indistinguishable from something about to be released. Many great released records were actually the demos. And it's better to get used to recording practice now.........
Click to expand...

Agree.
These days, you can't put up some crappy demo and expect that the quality will be overlooked because it's a "demo".

With the home rec boom, the "demo" bar has been raised, and expectations are not going to be minimized just by telling someone that it's just a "demo" and that it's not your "serious" effort. If anything....saying something like that would work against you...IMO.
 
You need mics with a figure 8 pattern, if used on both the guitar and vocals you will see a big improvement. Some performers just don't get the feel recording guitar and vocals seperate.

Alan
 
miroslav said:
Agree.
These days, you can't put up some crappy demo and expect that the quality will be overlooked because it's a "demo".

With the home rec boom, the "demo" bar has been raised, and expectations are not going to be minimized just by telling someone that it's just a "demo" and that it's not your "serious" effort. If anything....saying something like that would work against you...IMO.
Click to expand...

Couldn't agree more. And witzendoz has good advice too. But if you only have the 2 mics you mentioned and your musician absolutely HAS to record while playing his/her guitar, you can always have one run-through only recording the guitar (i.e. don't use the Rode NTK for the voice, just use the MXL while he sings, regardless), then while using a good recording of the guitar track, hand him an unplugged electric guitar while he sings and plays (as he listens to his original guitar track in order to keep the right tempo).

Not sure if that's clear enough, but the unplugged electric will give the feel of playing while singing, presumably without muddling your sound.
 
Exactly what I'm going through the now - I used to record individually - now I want to record live to capture a performance, but it's a complete pain at the mixing stage and I'm trying to figure out a compromise.
 
Yeah, it depends on the person who you are trying to record. A friend of mine always wants to sit and do vocals and guitar at once. He can't record to a click either. I originally used a AKG C1000 on his guitar, and a Behringer B2 on his voice. I got really good results--good separation, to the point I could EQ the git and voice separately, and place voice and instrument in the mix. Flash forward to last week. My house was broken into a couple months ago, and the C1000 (among other things) was stolen. This time I used the Behringer on the voice again, and a CAD E100 on the guitar. The E100 picked up his voice almost as clearly as the guitar, to the point where I could actually mute the voice and still hear the singing loud and clear. A lesson learned. I always record the guitar first, and then I sing over it. It's tricky, and I can see why folks don't want to do it; the performance can get lost. It's especially freaky to be sitting there mouthing the vocals to keep the time in the ballpark. However, I've found that if one has the song down, this is advantageous for all the obvious reasons. I look at it this way: the recording is a simulacrum of the real thing, the spontaneous performance changed into something else. I personally want the control of discrete tracks that can be manipulated without fear of altering the thing that naturally goes with it. So now I have to convince my friend to do something he simply doesn't want to do, and in fact feels is weird--separately track his vocals and guitar. And maybe to a click track no less.
 
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