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What is the best way to record an acoustic guitarist who is singing and playing at the same time? I have an Royer R-121, SM81, RODE NT2, AKC C1000S, Audio-Technica 3035 and some dynamic mics

Comments

bobbo Sat, 05/21/2005 - 12:11

re

This is what i did, i used my new groove tubes gt66 mic, went through my vtb1 pre and ran it through an hhb radius 30 compressor with light settings, on a really nice ibanez acoustic. I positioned the mic about halfway up the fret board facing the sound hole. I thought it came out well, and i used the same signal chain for the vox as well with slightly different comp settings.

in my opinion i think the player and the sound of the guitar are most important.

heres a sample of that recording i just explained, i'm no pro engineer, its just a hobby, and the guy singing is a guitar player and not a singer.

http://www.songramp.com/view.ez?sampleid=31041

my 2 cents

bob

anonymous Thu, 05/26/2005 - 07:24

Or.....

It depends o.n how much you want to isolate the vox and guitar, but i've been experimenting with m/s recording and it's got some great benefits.

Here's what has worked. A 414 set in fig 8 pointed to the sides. Record this signal to two channels and reverse phase on one of them. I'm using a Rode NT2a in cardiod facing. Any fig 8 and cardiod pair will do for this. I happen to have fallen in love with the Rode - It's my baraing mic o' the year.

The just set the guy up and have 'em play. What you get is a remarkable stereo image that sound's pretty much like the person in the room. If you're room sucks or the guitar sucks this isn't a good idea.

The advantage is that you can now manipulate the stereo image by the faders on the fig 8 mic. More gain = wider image. That's cool for both solo stuff and for fitting the image into a mix.

Not for everyone, but if you haven't tried it, it's pretty cool.

TBone

zemlin Thu, 05/26/2005 - 08:54

I like to use a figure-8 on vocals - I'll direct the dead plane of the mic right at the sound hole of the guitar. I have a small (12" dia") acoustic baffle - I'll put that right up on the back side of the mic to keep room reflections out of the mic. What I do for the guitar depends on how important the guitar sound is - some folks I've recorded don't actually play that well, so I don't want a "big" sound. For that I'll take another figure-8 near the 12th fret (depending on the guitar) and direct the dead plane of that mic toward the "sound hole" of the singer - I'll put another baffle up behind that mic as well to control back-side reflections. I get great isolation on both mics.

For a bigger sound, I use an XY pair of SD mics, but keeping the vocals out can be a problem. I'd like to try an SD Blumlein pair with a baffle on the back, again and the dead axis of the pair lined up with the singer's mouth - but I need to get one more figure-8 capsule to do that.

J-3 Thu, 05/26/2005 - 10:34

Hey man, I've got some similar mics to you and I just did a session like that. Here's what I did.

R-121 MP2NV and EL8x on 12th fret (use your ear to find a nice spot)

AT 4050 (found a nice spot near the bridge, check for phase phunk with the R-121 and other mics)

TLM 103 MP2NV on vox

2 MK012's spaced pair about 15 feet away for roominess

OK. 1st make sure there is no phase phunk on the combinatino of mics.

2nd try to aim the "close" mics so that the vocal mic picks up the least amount of gtr and the gtr mics pick up the least amount of vox.

I put a little UAD comps and Plate Verb 140 (oh so sweet!!) and it sounds pretty bitchin. The client was very happy.

Try it, let us know how it turns out.