2 things you didn't mention..

With a good room you can back off more and preserve the tone to keep that 184 from being strident.

And your preamp can help the color a lot. A focusrite red gives great sparkle, a Great river is just solid all around, a buzz audio is very forward and jumps off the speaker...and so on.

Try an ORTF pair of 184's or 451's

Good luck!

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

WIth regard to Decca Tree or "ORTF" setups... aren't those kinds of config's designed for recording large ensembles in a big hall? i.e., your basic classical recording setup. I'm not really going for that.... I'm looking for a very forward, present guitar tone with some stereo-ization to it, but without a lot of room ambience. IIRC, the wide spacings used with the Decca and ORTF setups are intended to get wide coverage across a large ensemble, while capturing plenty of room ambience as well.

Bear, have you ever tried M-S on acoustic? The M-S thing I've always found intriguing, but I don't have a figure 8 mic in my arsenal right now. I've always wanted to try this, though. Can anyone report on the effectiveness of M-S on acoustic guitar in your experience?

Kevin, I agree that pre's can make a huge diff, and frankly I don't have a mic pre in my rig right now that I am lovin' on acoustic. I've got Manley, Focusrite and 1073 pre's to play with right now, of which only the Focusrite really gives me the kind of "forward" tone that I'm looking for on acoustic. I'm tempted to pick up a 2 channel Hardy or Great River unit to fill the gap. Whaddya think?

I have a session today and will play around some more. Thanks for the tips all!

Never tried a hardy...but the GR is great on most everything. Hi's to lows it is just solid. All you will hear is the mic with it...Your right, the manley and 1073 are too soft for acoustic.

The Buzz audio pre is my other favorite acoustic preamp. Good for anything you want in your face..

WIth regard to Decca Tree or "ORTF" setups... aren't those kinds of config's designed for recording large ensembles in a big hall? i.e., your basic classical recording setup. I'm not really going for that.... I'm looking for a very forward, present guitar tone with some stereo-ization to it, but without a lot of room ambience. IIRC, the wide spacings used with the Decca and ORTF setups are intended to get wide coverage across a large ensemble, while capturing plenty of room ambience as well.
The spacing of ORTF has not much to do with the width of the actual ensemble. The spacing is in order to capture interaural time differencies to "simulate" stereo perceiption. If you have an ORTF close to the guitar you will capture about the same amount of ambience as with a single mic. Your guitar will sound "unnaturally" wide but that may be what you are after.
Enjoy your session ! :)

Matthias

Well if you want a little bit of stereo image, but dont want a lot of room ambience, try using a really short delay (around 40ms) almost at the same level as the original signal, and try different levels on the delay. R&B recordings do this a lot. Makes the sound clear and upfront.

Joz

Joz, you forgot to mention panning the 2 signals. You could pan them to whatever degree gives the desired spread. But at 40ms it might get a bit "nervous" like a slap-back type echo. I usually start with the delay at 1ms, both sides panned hard L/R, and increase the delay to get the desired width. I usually don't need more than about 15-20ms. End up with 10-11ms most of the time.

That said, I'm all for XY pair positioned a couple feet away in a well controlled room.

If you do use cardioid, you may want to angle them so there is less intersection of the patterns on the side near the sound source, and more intersection on the opposite side of the M mic.
Kind of like a XY, but in reverse, or aimed away from the sound source. The more intersection with the M mic, the more the out of phase mic will "push" the M signal to the opposite side.

.....the 'over the shoulder' with any good quality smallcapsule condenser and another at the 12th fret in close with a large diaphram 'out front' and mixed as the 'center' of the two others in wide-panned stereo seems to work for me.....also get a damn good acoustic...my taylor and the old gibson j-45 work real good.... :cool:

An XY or AB pair of 451s, KM84s, 414s, M149s or U87s with a quality stereo pre, a good player, fresh strings, in a good space usually works fine for me.

I typically start with a XY pair about 18-24 inches out. It's worth spending a couple of minutes to find the right distance and position. Too close and it's boomy and needs too much EQ. Too far away and there's not enough signal/presence, and too much ambiance. Finding the best angle between the mics and the guitar makes a diff, too. Move quickly, and once you've found it, try to get the track down in a quick take or two.

When mixing acoustic guitars in a busy R&B or pop track, don't hesitate to use high pass filtering from, say, 160Hz-320Hz on down.

Jon

This doesn't cover the stereo aspect...but...if you want an amazing, punchy Agtr, with lot's of body, not boomy and definition try this:

Use a sm57 about 8"-12" +or- from the sound hole; on the top side of the sound hole. Use some headphones and make it's final position based upon how much string/body ballance you want. Run into your 1073 and if you've got one...an 1176. Now to tape. The sm57 mimimizes the boom,enhances them mids(basically what an Agtr is anyway,"mid's") and allows you to add a bit of top from the 1073 (If you need it). Sounds lo-fi, but I have been able to blow quite a few skeptics away with the ol' sm57 & a Neve/1176.

I've got some acoustic guitar sounds I'm very happy with in the following way.

- put brand spanking new strings on the guitar. Seriously, old strings will make more difference than any mics or mic technique. From my experience acoustic strings start loosing their sheen quickly and after about a week probably aren't worth recording if the acoustic guitar plays any kind of upfront presence in a song.
- Take a large diaphragm condensor and point at the 12-15th fret from about 6 inches away. This will be more "sparkly" flavor of the acoustic. I used a TLM103. Take an SM57 and capture the box, normally pointing it behind the soundhole somewhere. be careful to not get too much strumming noise on this second mic. I happened to use an SM57 on the takes I really liked, but I think the real flavor comes from the TLM103.
- Once the mics are place relatively in position, give the player the headphones and have him or her move around subtly until they recognize where the "sweet spot" for the mic setup is. Seriously, leaning an inch or two forward/sideways is all the difference in the world.

Shane

I get great results with small diaphragm mics in XY. I put them around the 18th fret, which minimizes boom. I go 8-12" for the guitar and I get a very present big acoustic sound. I totally agree about strings. Within a day or two on the guitar is best. Great River pre sounds great on acoustic, but I just did a record where I used the console pres with this set-up and it opens up the whole band. I usually use AT Pro37R or Shure SM81. The AT is more present; the Sm81 is a little warmer.

If you want a more Jimmy Page sound, go mono and use a slower compressor. The over the shoulder, Chet Atkins thing is good for this. If I'm going mono, I will often move the mic to different spots on a song to song basis.

Have Fun and good luck!
:D

I had a good experience with a vintage C24 once...

I often use one output of my Royer SF12 for mono acc.

Never tried MS, dumb I know, must get round to that soon..

I like wearing headphones when aranging the mic, I suppose you could do that too with 2 mic's.

:)

If isolation isn't a big deal, you might want to consider trying omnis. Finding the stereo image you're looking for might be a bit of a placement task but you can get some presence without the boominess of cardioid proximity. KM183s would do nicely; or, if you want more beef, a larger diaphragm omni in front of the sound hole and a small diaphragm @ the 12th fret. Needs a friendly room and absolutely no competition, but the sound can be both present and very natural.

Just a thought.

IR

Holy cow... some great info up there!

Thanks for all the tips guys. During my gtr session the other day, I messed around with some alternate mic spacings but ultimately came back to the XY pair of KM184's. I dunno, gonna need some more foolin' around to figure out the whole phasing thing. Some very useful looking tips in this thread, however. Look forward to trying 'em out! Thanks again!

Kev, I took your advice and am auditioning one of those 2-ch Buzz Audio mic pre's. Sounds pretty damn excellent. Very 'forward' and transparent. As usual, I am fairly stunned by the drastic diff's in tone that accompany different pre's. The Buzz is definitely a different beastie compared to my 'warmer/fuzzier' Manley's and 1073's. It always surprises me how dramatic a difference you get, 'just' by switching pre's. Highly educational.

Will try out some of the above techniques and report back. Thx again all!

Just caught up with this thread.I'm currently working on a project using M-S for acoustic Guitar.I'm using a Rode NTK as the centre,about 16 inches out from 12th fret-ish,and a jm478 as the figure 8.I needed to muck about with the room a bit,but it works great solo and in the mix,and of course no phase problems whatsoever.As always,the guitar and the player are the most important elements.I use this arrangement increasingly for percussion and also some backing vocals.Its very real.
Regards,Dave Lewis.

posted December 15, 2001 08:12 PM                   
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've got some acoustic guitar sounds I'm very happy with in the following way.

- put brand spanking new strings on the guitar. Seriously, old strings will make more difference than any mics or mic technique. From my experience acoustic strings start loosing their sheen quickly and after about a week probably aren't worth recording if the acoustic guitar plays any kind of upfront presence in a song.
------------------
For me this is more like three hours! And the first one is the best. But I play pretty vigorously, like a Tony Rice or Steve Stills or Pete Townshend (acoustic) thing....
Can't wait to try some of these techniques.
Now how about in a room live with an upright piano?
Ted

Ted,

I agree about the brightness of the first few hours with new strings, but to me that's almost too bright. After the strings have settled in a tad I find the first few days of new strings sound the best, but are still usable
for longer than that, at least for what I do.

Merry Christmas, Shane

I think it was Harvey Gerhst who suggested this micing techinque, that I use all the time. Put a small diaphram cardiod mic condenser @ about a 45 degree angle perpendicular with the 12th fret facing the soundhole....8-12" from the fretboard. Place a large diaphram OMNI (small diaphram works great too) right next to the players right ear. The sound is very natural and the mono compatibility seems very good to me also. For mic pre's it's either Millennia Media or Great River, with the Millennia being slightly more accurate. If it's a pop tune I'll go to a pair of 1176's, if it's classical no compression. The tone of this technique is better than most anything else I have tried.

Nathan,
this is probably a stupid question but the omni,
close to right ear of m., is aimed down to
the guitar ?
Thanks, Jo

Originally posted by dynamo12:
Nathan,
this is probably a stupid question but the omni,
close to right ear of m., is aimed down to
the guitar ?

I tend to have it (the capsule) parallel with the players head, which usually ends up being a 30-45 degree angle aimed wherever the players eyes generally are.

This is all very cool information. I think I should add, however, that for me the guitar itself is the biggest factor in a great acoustic guitar sound. The player is a big part of the deal too, but a great player with a lame gtr can only sound so good regardless of the mic setup. I always try to have an incredible sounding acoustic around for recording. It really makes all the difference. I'd also add that this doesn't always hold true for electrics, basses, or even drums. I've managed to make cheap drums, basses, ect., sound cool with recording techniques, but it's always been been a drag when the guitar player wants to play his brand new Takamine.

Originally posted by atlasproaudio:

I tend to have it (the capsule) parallel with the players head, which usually ends up being a 30-45 degree angle aimed wherever the players eyes generally are.

This begs a certain question which I have long wondered about. Even with "purely" omni patterned mics, like the Earthworks QTCs, it DOES make a difference in the sound which way the mic is pointed. Yet, one would imply from the name that it shouldn't. I imagine that the acoustic shadow of the microphone body plays a large part in the difference, especially from sound coming directly from the rear of the mic. But the Earthworks have a flat screen over the capsule, open in one dimension only, as opposed to a spherical grill, so one would think sounds coming directly from the side would also be somewhat attenuated, either in frequency response or volume or both. Are there other factors also contributing to the difference in "off-axis" sounds? Is there a such thing as a true omni-dimensional microphone? Is this a question for Stephen Paul?

Stephen is qualified to answer that a million more times than I am, but the Omni that is by the players ear actually sounds more realistic than the cardiod in front of the guitar. I usually use a BLUE refurbed U47 for the Omni BTW, or sometimes an MBHO small diaphram omni. The omni is very airy but as an acoustic classical player that's where I am used to hearing a guitar (behind it). Even at 12" from the bridge there is still some proximity effect from the Cardiod MBHO (603 w/KA200) or Neumann (KM84) that I use. But I really think the magic lies in the combo of the two together filling in what the other lacks in a certain character.

Well, you have to admit, at least from a linguistic point of view, asking "which direction should you point an omnidirectional mic?" smacks of an oxymoron! :roll:

most omni mikes are not truly omnidirectional above 8Khz but get progressively more directional
as frequency rises. DPA 4003's are a good example.
I do on location recording of classical
and we use 2 4003's with Millennia's as main pair.
You still have to find the sweet spot for this array since if you are too high you pick up the maximum amount of unpleasant upper midrange and high frequency sound from the first desks of the string sections-resulting in a harsh/metallic sound. lowering down the array a few inches can make a huge difference in the sound quality.
You have to find the right height so that you get an overall picture of the orchestra without the scratchyness of strings.
The case of acoustic guitar can be different, in a certain way, but since the technique involves another mike and you are looking for a good combination of the two, the way you aim the omni can lead to some differences in the final result.
Jo

Originally posted by McSnare:
This is all very cool information. I think I should add, however, that for me the guitar itself is the biggest factor in a great acoustic guitar sound. The player is a big part of the deal too, but a great player with a lame gtr can only sound so good regardless of the mic setup.

McSnare - so true. After a certain point it seems most electric guitars can sound pretty good, with the more expensive ones tending to just look prettier. $400 electrics can sound pretty similar to $1000 electrics. Not so with acoustics though. The $1000 acoustic is worlds apart from the $400 model. I've got my Larivee picked out, and it'll upgrade my sound a ton, but still getting by with my cheap Washburn acoustic at the moment.

Strangely, am very happy with my $200 used Yamaha electric.

Shane

I got a Collings acoustic that is a joy to record. Cost about $2500 new and sounded like it had been played for years. After about five years the thing is very nice indeed.
This thing is all about tone, and offers a very suprising amount of volume and projection, which helps a lot. The only caveat is, it doesn't have the super-easy Les Paul style neck that the Taylors and Larivee's use, so it can be a bit of a challenge for someone to play without a bit of practice. Anybody who wants to record acoustic with me, they're playing the Collings if I can possibly manage it.
It's interesting to note that some acoustics seem designed to sound best from the player's perspective, while some (like the Collings) are designed to throw sound at the audience.
Ted

I just read this whole thread, lots of different techniques. Here's my $0.02.

We also record that Craig David "type" sound a lot over here, and heres how we do it. First off, my favorite guitar for that sound is a Takamine E series. We have a few of them 6 and 12 strings, also some Martins, but the Tak gives us that really up front, but not too bright tone.
Second, new strings, but played for at least an hour by the guitarist.
Third, one Neuman M-149 set about 6 inches away from the hole and about 4 inches up the fret side, but aiming at the hole. Just enough brightness, just enough mids. We roll off at 100hz.
Third Avalon 737SP pre amp. Focusrite Red 7 sounds good too, but Avaoln with that compression set light kicks it right.

We track through Apogee into Pro Tools, but that's our chain, and it sounds beautiful, crisp, and in your face. No Verb, slight EQ later, if any. If we need to spread it, we use a little delay on a stereo Aux and pan out. We have a semi dead room for the tracking, no wood floor for that one.

We do use the TLM-103 if we want a brighter thinner sound, more solid rhythem strumming in background, but if going for picking individual notes, like the R&B stuff, we've found it best in mono with that set up. ;)

A big thumbs up for the Buzz MA2.2 for the pre for great accoustic tracks. I use a pair of AT 4033,s into the Buzz. I bring one in from the fret board side and one from the body side and adjust for the tone I'm looking for. Sometimes they are as close as 8" and sometimes as far back as 20". It depends on the player and guitar.
New strings played for a while are also in order, as someone suggested. I also add an AKG 535EB alot coming in from the centre and angled down at the bass strings, if I want real punch. If I want the sound to be huge I add a U87 about 24-30 inches back in a figure 8 pattern and I get some nice shimmer from the front of the guitar and a nice natural verb from the back of the pattern, if the room is good. Mostly I point the 87 at the 12th fret and have the back of the pattern pointing up into the ceiling corner of the room I use for accoustic stuff. Has a nice high ceilng and gives back a great verb that is subtle but big. I find this works alot better than the U87 in omni. I just mix those four mics to taste. I also do the delay on one side thing sometimes but I agree that 40 ms is too much for my taste 8-12 ms works better for me. But I find the verb I get from the back of the 87 figure 8 makes this unneccesary most of the time. I get some great solo accoustic sounds from this setup an if it doesn't work in a mix I have alot of options to work with, I can drop any of the mics or mix and match until it sits right.Flipping the phase on any of the tracks can sometimes add a neat twist. Often in a fuller mix, the 535 with a taste of the U87 works great. If I need to really punch through the 535 with the 4033 on the fret side, all dry, can really cut. Or if I want it really wide the 2 4033s hard l and r works well. Take care Logan

Craig Davids guitar-an old nylon(with a TC reverb) and a Yamaha nylon semi-acoustic. Recorded with a RodeNT2 mic through a Soundtracs Topaz board. The sound is a mixture of acoustic and DI. The Craig David guitar sound is mostly Mark Hill post-production skills.

mcsnare wrote:
"I think I should add, however, that for me the guitar itself is the biggest factor in a great acoustic guitar sound"

right you are, i just bought a 30 yr old maton ($au150, 'coz it was scratched...eh?), and the beautiful thing sounds like it's bathing in the most expensive reverb the money can buy

also, smaller-bodied acoustics tend record better in my experience, but players (esp male) often won't carry them

I've been using a U87 21" from sound hole aiming down, not directly in front (too boomy) and then a pair of km184's 63" from sound hole also aiming down. U87 dead center, and km184's anywhere from 20-100 depending on song. I think the principles will work with other good mics. Mostly the guitar is the biggest factor though...get a Taylor ;)

Hey all-- just wanted to say "thanks" for a treasure trove of great tips! I will get around to trying a few more of these in the coming weeks.... but in the meantime, let me say that this kind of selfless outpouring of knowledge makes me truly feel blessed to be working in this business. Thanks again and happy 2002!

See, everytime a Taylor walks in here, I give it a chance, but I end up digging around for a mic/pre combination that imparts some kind of character to it. Most of them sound like really well researched 'average ideal' acoustic guitar reproductions.

The small diaphragm Oktavas can be a little bit punchy, gritty, dark on the extreme top, and lo-fi, and they seem to love Taylors.

Originally posted by Justyn:

...get a Taylor ;)