Spaced pair aggravation!

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tjohnston

tjohnston

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Ok I’ve run into problem number 5000

Here is the deal...
I am recording an acoustic guitar. The mics are 6 inches away from the guitar and 18 inches apart. One mic is at the bridge and the other is 18 inches further down the neck. (Just like the picture in the book) The sound going into the bridge mic is louder than the neck mic. Because of this the noise floor is noticeable in one monitor during playback. I tried turning the weaker mics channel up one notch on the preamp but there is still more hiss. BTW I am using quality cables and two of the same brand mics.

Help is greatly appreciated

Thanks
 
also I thought about sitting inbetween the mics to balance the volume but that ruins the bass response.
 
It shouldn't matter too much - you're going to be panning them inwards anyways, which will balance the levels somewhat (unless you want the guitar in the mix to sound as if it's wider than the whole drumkit!)
 
tjohnston said:
The sound going into the bridge mic is louder than the neck mic. Because of this the noise floor is noticeable in one monitor during playback.
Click to expand...

Such is life.

Is this noise floor from the mic/preamp or is it ambient room noise?
 
Pan them inwards? I thought it was always hard right, hard left.
Ambient room noise? Im not sure exactly what that is?
 
You don't say what other instruments there are in the recording so panning decisions can't really be made yet...

When I record just acoustic guitar and vocals, I will often pan the guitar left and right weighted slightly opposit the main vocal. As Blue Bear points out, if there are other instruments such as drums then panning the guitar that wide may not be the best effect (though it could be too...YMMV).

As for the noise.... is the room your recording in quiet? If so, what are the mics and how much gain are we talking about through the pre? You shouldn't have too big a problem with that setup all things being equal.

Kevin.
 
thanks for your replies. There is not much to mix. Its just one guitar and a separate vocal track. I have the gain on the RNP set on 48. That’s what it takes it keep the meters averaging at
-15. The room is dead silent. I am using 2 sm-81
 
Have you tried switching the mics on the channels to see whether the difference is in the mics or in the amp? Then get another one of whichever is causing the problem. Or, run one channel of the RNP through a compressor with the threshold set way up high and use the makeup gain control on the comp to fine tune the RNP gain to equal the other channel. Good luck. And as far as panning, I usually pan mine about 3 & 9 if I only have guitar and vocal. There are a LOT of tunes recorded with an acoustic as wide or wider than the drum kit. ( especially in country music. )
 
tjohnston said:
thanks for your replies. There is not much to mix. Its just one guitar and a separate vocal track. I have the gain on the RNP set on 48. That’s what it takes it keep the meters averaging at
-15. The room is dead silent. I am using 2 sm-81
Click to expand...

Either your room is not dead silent or something is wrong with the gear. I can't think of any reason why the RNP and SM81's would be noticeably noisy unless you had the gain really cranked. Room noise is almost always more noticeable then quality preamp and mic gain unless you are recording fly farts or something.

Is your computer in the same room that you are recording?
 
no computer but perhaps the adat noise is leaking out of the other room. The gain is set at 48.
 
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