Thread: Acoustic Guitar And Vocal Song - Positively Ignored

The second mix is better. The guitar is warmer. A little buzzy for my taste. Buzz is OK, but it could use some more body. Maybe a microphone closer to 12th fret. The double tracking is a little distracting in headphones, maybe you could pan them a little more toward center.

The vocals still have the lip smacking noise. If you want to keep it in, maybe bring it down a little in level? The vocals also sound pretty heavily EQ'ed. Maybe that's what you are going for. If not, try cutting from the guitar instead of boosting on the vocals. Do you have a low pass filter on them?

I know you said ignore the auto tune, but I can't. Maybe move the pitch detection threshold up a little so the tails don't get mutilated. Or feed it a cue track.

Over all it also sounds very empty. Some reverb may help, and some saturation on the vocals. Or get the rest of the band in their for parts of the song. Another option is to put it up on www.kompoz.com and let someone else add to it.

How does it sound with no eq at all? (nothing boosted or cut)

Did you apply any eq while tracking?

I'm learning about all of this as I go along, too (training my ears) so for what it is worth...

It is possible that you are trying to compensate for frequency issues that are too much for post-processing eq? In other words, if the guitar itself doesn't have much low end, and if the mic position was up on the treble side, etc, etc... then you can boost all you want and it still won't quite get there.

And don't worry about Greener... he must have had a bad run-in with a sock puppet as a child? ;)

Sounds worse than with it. No eq while tracking. I think I'm just going to leave it as is for now as he has 6 songs to do and I don't have a lot of time on my hands. Thanks everyone though for all of their input!

Are you happy with the tone you are getting from the guitar? If you are recording 6 songs, then spend some more time on microphone placement. Put some headphones on, and move the microphone around while your buddy plays. It sounds to me like you have the microphone right over the sound hole picking up the string buzz and picking noises. You should consider moving closer to the 12th fret, or at least further from the guitar. The MXL 990 should work fairly well for guitar. Backing it into the room about 12" will help fill out the mix as well, just keep an ear out for the small room sound.

Thanks for sharing your recording. I enjoyed listening.

I'm with Gecko on this. I think you need to play with mic placement. I would try a mic as far as 24" away from the body of the guitar. It sounds really thin to me. It may just be the guitar but I have gotten passable tracks from a piece of junk that I rescued from a garbage can. Play with the distance. The guitar body needs room to breathe. You don't want the boominess of the soundhole but you still want to hear the wood.

Yep. You should really try to get the sound you want up front, without any eq during tracking. You mentioned that the track sounds worse without eq. There's your problem. Use eq after only if you need to make small tweaks to get a part to sit better in the mix (or use extreme settings as special effects, I guess). Ideally, at least.

Of course, we're being kinda picky here - the track sounds good to me now - but it could be better. ;)

Ok I will try that headphone trick for the next one. I don't think it is the guitar its a breedlove ad-something or another (highend though.) I had the mic about 8 in. away from the 12th fret pointing 30 degrees off axis toward the neck. I will try all of the suggestions though. Thanks again!

Originally Posted by punkrocker

I had the mic about 8 in. away from the 12th fret pointing 30 degrees off axis toward the neck.

The twelfth fret is on the neck. Do you mean bridge or head stock?

That is completely the opposite of what it sounded like to me. I was way off. could you post a track of the guitar dry?How does it sound dry?