tacky miking technique gets better sound

[dobro]

I used to mic my voice and guitar at the same time, cuz I really like playing and singing together, but I stopped tracking that way finally as I couldn't get anywhere near as good a sound as recording them separately - overdubbing. That's been useful, since I learned how to overdub, and got into Fruity Loops, and all of that's made the music more interesting. But this weekend I found a dopey way to make the old technique work much better. Fasten your seatbelts, and don't laugh.

I put a small coffee table in front of where I sit to record. I stack a couple of photocopy paper boxes on the table, and on top of that a 2' X 3' sheet of very thin pressboard. The lyric sheet sits nicely on that. The vocal mic is positioned just above it. The sheet of pressboard is at about the height of my collarbone, and the guitar *just* fits under it. I knocked a corner off the pressboard to give the neck of the guitar and my left hand some room.

The result? There's much less spill on each mic, and the sound's way better.

It looks goofy as hell, but it works. The reason I did it was because I had a handful of songs that I just couldn't overdub because of tempo changes and retardandos and the like.

I reckon it would work even better if I had baffles at the sides to block reflected sound.

 

[BrettB]

It doesn't sound handy though

I still use the overdub way

 

[joedirt]

I read in Sound on Sound magazine that Sting uses the exact same setup! Also, try experimenting with different boxes. I found that a box of Frosted flakes gives a nice little 1-3k boost!

 

[dobro]

 

[dobro]

Brett - it ain't that much of a problem is you can play without seeing what your hands are doing all the time. And again, it's pretty much impossible to overdub a song with a shifting rhythm pattern - gradual slow downs, pauses, etc.

 

[six]

wouldn't it be a nice idea to record yourself singing and playing (maybe with just one mic), keep that as a 'guide' track and then do the vocals and the guitar seperately again?
absolutely clean without any bleed.

I mean: listen to Iron Maiden. they have a lot of strange tempo-changes (and a lot of the time these changes suck) but I don't think they record all the vocals and instruments at the same time (say live).