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Acoustic guitar

Profile picture for user chips
Submitted by chips on

Hi



i am about to start recording a project that will be mainly finger picked quiet guitar and vox.



My Neumann M149 which I was hoping to use has developed a fault and its gonna take a couple of weeks at least to get back from the servive center.



I am going to take the plunge and purchase my 2nd "high quality" (or maybe 3rd as i also own an AKG414) condensor mic.



What do you recommend ?

I cant decide whether to go for a small diaphragm (geffell M300, Neumann KM184) which I could use on acoustic



or large diaphragm (Brauner phantom anniversary edition, Soundelux U195)



What do you think ? LDC or SDC for acoustic ? and waht do you think of the above mics or can you suggest anything else in the same price range ?



Thanks

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Profile picture for user chips
chips

Thanks for the replys.

Boswell :

Budget? £700 ($1400)



Single mic or pair? : whatever is going to get me the best sound for my budget. i am open to suggestions



Are you recording this performer in the studio or live? : Studio



One-take (guitar and vox concurrently) or tracked with guitar and vocals laid down separately?

:Guitar and vox laid down seperately



I have a great river and a hamptone valve preamp.

Noise is going to be an issue as it is very quiet finger picking style guitar.



Any suggestions appreciated.

Great forum

Thanks

Thu, 10/18/2007 - 15:08 Permalink
Boswell
Boswell

Quiet finger-picked guitar: guitars are normally the province of SDCs, but with this spec and budget, I would reach for my pair of LDC Rode NT2-As and set them up in M-S. They are one of the lowest-noise quality mics around. I use them through DAV preamps, but I'm sure they would sound good through the Great River. If your budget can stretch to a U195, you are in a different league, of course, but I think you should at least try the sound of a pair of mics in M-S on guitar before settling for a single more expensive mic.



Vocals: your choice to suit the singer, but an EV RE20 is an excellent dynamic. However, to keep within the budget you could use the NT2-A or look at one of the AT range of medium-diaphragm condensers such as the AT4033A.



Don't forget you need to budget for shock mounts, and for the vocals, a pop filter.

Fri, 10/19/2007 - 02:44 Permalink
Boswell
Boswell

Yes, of course. It's a good mic. I think my point relates more to the configuration of the mics once you have one that gives reasonable results on a guitar. If you just use a single SDC when laying down a guitar track in an acoustically dead studio, in my experience you get a rather uninteresting sound. The detail is there, the range is there, but I think because it's as mono as it gets, one has got accustomed to hearing more width and life in a guitar these days.



Many years ago I started miking instruments in stereo to give them more width (obviously), but also to give me more flexibility when mixing in with vocals and also other instruments. However, I found X-Y miking did not suit many performers because they moved too much during the song. Not a lot, but too much to keep a constant spatial definition when using X-Y. That's when I tried M-S, and it solved the problem. I can use the M channel as though it were a single mono microphone, and it's much more tolerant of movement of the performer. I then add a little width and presence by bringing in some S channel into the M-S decoder. Usually not as much as full M-S could deliver, but enough to overcome the excessively mono sound of a single mic.



By the way, don't forget to track a signal from the guitar pickup as well (assuming the performer has one fitted). When it comes to mixdown, to give extra sonic flexibility, you can experiment with adding in a small amount of pickup, delayed by about 1ms to get the phasing right. If you choose to position the guitar off-centre in the mix, adding the pickup in the mirror-image position the other side of the vocal can produce an interesting effect.

Fri, 10/19/2007 - 09:30 Permalink