Acoustic Guitar Mix

Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2002 5:59 am

The best way to make the Ac. guitar to sound brighter. To play 2 times and then L/R? Or to record it stereo? any Tricks/Opinions?

Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2002 8:40 am

I just saw your website, you have a nice studio, nice gear too.

The best you can do is try the search function on top of the page, there's a lot of info about recording acoustic guitar.

Also try the search function of www.musicplayer.com (forums) and you will get tons of info.

Hope this helps.

Have fun! :tu:

Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2002 12:56 am

Here are a few...

1. Play a bright sounding guitar.
2. New strings.
3. Use a softer pick.
4. Strum closer to the bridge.
5. Use a bright sounding mic.
6. Play with mic position.

Double tracking won't really make it sound brighter if you have a relatively dull sound to begin with. But you could slap an aggressive HPF across one of the tracks and blend that in to taste. Oh ya,

7. Dump all/some of the low end using either a shelving EQ or HPF. (This one's really just a last-resort kinda thing.)

Hope that helps.

Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2002 2:43 am

Try pointing a cardioid pattern mic toward 12th fret. This is the position where you have greatest number of harmonics. Be careful to avoid hole, where you will have lots of booming freqs.

Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2002 9:07 am

New strings!
Ted

Posted: Sat Mar 02, 2002 10:37 am

New strings? Thank you Man!!Now I know why!! You know my strings must be more than 20 years old. Thank you!!! :w:

Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2002 11:13 am

I got really bright resulting strings by using a gefell umt70s, about 12 inches away, pointing to the area between the soundhole and the fret. The mic is set aprox. a couple inches above string height, and the point the mic towards the strings (the mic will be slightly angled).

If you get too much coming from the soundhole, you can angle it away a bit. Don't move it around too much - very small position differences can make a huge difference.

Looking at mics' specs can really help you find what you are looking for - for example, the gefell's cardioid pattern has a slight treble boost around 7k, and the omni pattern about 2.5db around 10k. Who would haev thought that patterns are just there to increase or decrease room/space in your track? Smile

Actually as I am trying to mix the song right now, it's almost too bright for me... <img border="0" alt="[retard]" title="" src="graemlins/retard.gif" />

Juergen

Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2002 6:51 pm

I play rough, so my strings only last about an hour! After that, it's oK live to finish the set, but for recording, I'll be moving the mics when all I need is more new strings.
I have a very rich sounding rosewood guitar, like a D28, so I really like the D'Addario strings, medium guage (plenty of metal mass to resonate!). Many other good brands (for instance Martin) seem designed to make the sound richer, which is too much in my case.
After the treble goes, the intonation goes next. I only really have workable intonation with brand new strings.
Ted

Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2002 4:44 am

If I'm mixing a tune tracked elsewhere where the acoustic sounds buried in the mids but needs to cut thru the rest of the tracks, I sparingly cut between 250-500 and bump at 3-4k (for brilliance) and 10-12k (for air), then adjust the compression so that the transients on the attack comes thru.

My vote as well for using a bright-sounding guitar with new strings (even a week old is too old for tracking to my ears). A lot of guitar players complain about the cost of new strings every week for each of their guitars; I point out that $10 for new strings is a sound investment considering the $50 a hour they're shelling out to cut the tracks.

This topic sponsored by: