Recording Acoustic Guitars.

[JD01]

I just use my AKG C1000S about 20cm off the 12 - 14th Fret. Seems to work pretty well.

I play naked to avoid clothing noise.

[WhiskeyJack]

I play naked to avoid clothing noise.

Sure ya do. You keep telling yourself that.

[Armistice]

I just use my AKG C1000S about 20cm off the 12 - 14th Fret. Seems to work pretty well.

I play naked to avoid clothing noise.

And now you have a child on the way. See where that got you?

[vomitHatSteve]

I just use my AKG C1000S about 20cm off the 12 - 14th Fret. Seems to work pretty well.

I play naked to avoid clothing noise.

And now you have a child on the way. See where that got you?

Half man/half Ovation

[Greg_L]

I play nearly naked all the time. 75% of anything any of you have ever heard from me recorded here at home was done in just underwear and shoes. That's why my shit is so good. I start with good tones and good looks.

[Armistice]

I'm currently wrestling with whether I can really track rock tunes whilst wearing ugg boots. Doesn't seem very rock 'n' roll, but nice and warm!

[vomitHatSteve]

I play nearly naked all the time. 75% of anything any of you have ever heard from me recorded here at home was done in just underwear and shoes. That's why my shit is so good. I start with good tones and good looks.

So the fact that Lipstick portrayed you as a shirtless luchador is probably accurate then!

[Greg_L]

So the fact that Lipstick portrayed you as a shirtless luchador is probably accurate then!

Well, usually, yes, you'd be right, but I believe I tracked that stuff in the winter so I probably had clothes on.

[WhiskeyJack]

Ok dudes, coming back to this thread as it seems to just make sense versus starting a new one.

Some of my olden times way way back buddies have requested me and my other friend re-record an old song we did that has really grown on their kids. Apparently the kids sing it all the time and their wives quite like it. Actually Greg suggested rerecording it as an option as well for the first song writing challenge.

https://therecordingrebels.com/viewtopi ... ord#p56877

That's the original, so i spent a few good hours mucking around with mic placements and spots in the room and came up with what i feel is probably my best effort yet at capturing an acoustic. For whatever reason i just always liked my LDC about a foot off my 12th fret. I usually did this dead on but in this instance i i have the capsule above the neck and pointed down at the 12th fret. Still about a foot away.

The second mic was interesting to me. I almost always record an acoustic with my LDC, and then either a dynamic mic or DI out of a real bad habit. . The dynamic mic and Di almost always get scraped and i punt it out. they just make mess or sound so shitty they make the one good track worse. It turns out i was doing it wrong all along with the previous placements. For this track i used the e906 as the dynamic and it is sort of in front of the sound hole, but slightly above it, pointed / angled in such a way it targets that piece of real estate on the body between the bridge and the bottom edge of the guitar. I was pleasantly surprised. I used to put the 57 right at the bridge about a foot away and dead on axis. Always garbage. But this turned out really well.

Yes it is only one chord.

Here some pics and link to the sound file.





Raw track. no eq, no comp, no in the box edits at all. au natural.

[JD01]

So, when you have the guitar up the right way are the mics effectively flipped.
Did you record this when you got back from a Bay City Rollers tribute evening?

[musicturtle]

Sounds good [mention]WhiskeyJack[/mention]. I am assuming the levels from each mic are equal here. Could be my headphones but the low end seems to stick out a bit much to me, but a good overall sound that can be tidied up with some EQ.

On another note, I knew you were left handed but I never knew you played upside down as well. Very cool. I teach ukulele at school and left handers always complain that I make them play right handed. I say that the strings are in the wrong order for them and that they will have more options when they want to buy one if they play right handed. I guess that's not a problem for you.

Also, your studio looks good in the background, color me jealous. It looks like a great place to escape to, it's been so hot and humid here in Nashville that my garage is almost uninhabitable.

[Greg_L]

Raw track. no eq, no comp, no in the box edits at all. au natural.

Sounds okay to me.

[rayc]

Sounds fine to me - if you're not adding bass then the bottom end is good filler. Now finish it!

[vomitHatSteve]

It seems pretty clean and clear to me. Depending on your mix, I could see it working fine.

[WhiskeyJack]

Sounds fine to me - if you're not adding bass then the bottom end is good filler. Now finish it!

Yes thanks Ray, It will get finished. My buddy is working on his vocal parts this week. It's hopefully going to be a more put together polished carbon copy version of the original i linked to. So it's just guitar and vocals. Possibly a shaker?

Oh here is something for you and maybe [mention]Armistice[/mention] could help me understand. I noticed when trying to find a click track to play along with things were all fucked up when using a 4/4 for this. I ended up setting the BPM to 85 and the signature thing (?) in reaper to 8/8?? I don't even know if an 8/8 is wordly thing but it produced a click track that worked for me when i needed it. I'll be the first to admit that that stuff is well beyond me skill level or understanding so for me to go farming for something that isn't 4/4 was new to me.

And this is my problem, stuff comes out of me and my fingers but i'll be damned if i know what it is i am doing.

Thanks Greg and VHS for checking it out.

[Armistice]

I don't use Reaper metronome generated click tracks, I use my VST drum kit so it sounds a bit less like a boring click... The tune is in 4/4 as far as I'm concerned, so I'd leave it at that in Reaper but probably use a half note cymbal as my click all the way through as the bit where it goes uptempo would be better played against the faster beat.

Never tried 8/4 or 8/8, but I expect in Reaper it's just going to affect the grid display if the BPM is the same. And probably the metronome, which as I said, I don't use. Don't even know where it is.

Your Canuck version of Kumbaya My Lord sounds pretty good though WJ. So whatever works!

[rayc]

I don't use the Reaper click track either - for some reason it freaks me out. Like Mr Smith I use a simple drum prog, (I take it from BIAB), to work against. The faster bit means it'd be easier to just half note the whole thing - I thought the song - perfect for squids.

[musicturtle]

I don't use the Reaper click track either - for some reason it freaks me out. Like Mr Smith I use a simple drum prog, (I take it from BIAB), to work against. The faster bit means it'd be easier to just half note the whole thing - I thought the song - perfect for squids.

Yeah click tracks can be hard to play to because they are so very not musical. A simple drum pattern that fits with the song sometimes works better for me as well.

[WhiskeyJack]

[BBvideo=560,315]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU3evWbLH1U[/BBvideo]


What a fantastic technique!!!! I REALLY like how it came together. It sounds awesome and full. The big question for me is would that technique be sort of over kill if say you had an acoustic mixed in with a couple loud over driven guitars hard panned left and right? Pissibly narrowing the stereo field of the two duplicated tracks might clean it up and keep some of that fullness?

And what a weird stereo thing going on there. that blew my mind. It still doesn't make a lick of sense to me what so ever but i think if i watch it again and pay full attention while not at work it may more sense. Crazy man. Great video [mention]Tadpui[/mention] !!!

[liv_rong]

Man, I miss a lot of stuff around here!

[mention]WhiskeyJack[/mention], I just stick an LDC approximately a foot in front of the sound hole and aim it at approximately the 12th fret. Even though I have a cheap acoustic it has worked well enough for me. If only I could record my snare so easily

This is a snippet of a raw track from that two chord song challenge, the last time I recorded an acoustic. And definetly the last time I changed the strings on the guitar