Help with vocal/guitar recording technique

anonymous 11 February 2007

i'm fairly new to recording, but i've put together a very small home studio to record some of the groups i'm in. most of the research i've read online says when it comes to the quality of recording, use your ears. the biggest problem with that, as both a musician and being the one recording, is that your ears can lie to you

so, i've posted a couple of recordings, and i would just like to get the communities thoughts on them. (there are no bad words on these recordings, and they are just vocals and finger picked guitar.)

http://www.bmuze.com/cgi-bin/pmuze/index.pl?action=play::upload/jeremy/two&title=Crude&artist=Stephen%20Mathys&trackId=54

What i'm most interested in hearing about is:

* is my use of compression on the vocals and guitar appropriate? i used 3:1 on the guitar and 10:1 on the vocals, with -11db threshold.
* do the vocals and guitar sound like, well, good vocals and good guitar? the guy i recorded (it's not me in the recordings) was using a 000 body style santa cruz guitar, mic'ed with a r0de nt1000. i used a Shure sm7 dynamic mic for the vocals.
* is there too much noise? when i normalized the individual tracks, did i bring it up too much?
* how's the eq? i was listening to some of these recordings in my wifes car today, and i thought it maybe could use an additional boost in some of the upper ranges. how does it sound to you guys? am i smoking crack?

thanks for takin a look, and i really look forward to hearing some feedback. cheers!

Comments

I think you need to get the talent closer to the vocal mic. Som

zemlin Sun, 02/11/2007 - 16:36

I think you need to get the talent closer to the vocal mic. Some proximity effect might help fill out the vocal. I'd like to hear more vocal too.

IMHO, the guitar work is begging another mic - stereo mic it baby.
Here's a track I recorded with a Figure-8 Studio Projects C3 on Vox and an XY pair of AKG Bluelines on the guitar. A little width in the guitar is a good thing for a solo acoustic.

http://www.cheap-tracks.com/mp3/kiser_guitar_sample.mp3
(Not me playing or singing!!!)

I know that isn't answering the specific questions you layed out, but this is what came to mind as I listened.

thanks for the critique! for stereo micing, i have two question

anonymous Sun, 02/11/2007 - 17:29

thanks for the critique! for stereo micing, i have two questions (cause i am a serious noob):

* are you talking about using two very close mics aimed at the same position of the guitar, or two aimed at different positions (like at the 12th fret and the tail, etc)
* do you have a preference for condenser or dynamic for stereo micing

thanks for the advice, and rock on!

There are a lot of different ways to mic a guitar - I have gravi

zemlin Sun, 02/11/2007 - 19:47

There are a lot of different ways to mic a guitar - I have gravitated toward XY, with small diaphragm condensers. That's where the two microphone capsules are as close together as you can get them and angled at 90 degrees. Pan them left and right - the sample above was recorded with the mics about a foot from the sound hole of the guitar - straight out. That's not a formula - that's just where it sounded the best. The next guitar I record might be different.