Tips for recording acoustic guitar and vox at once

[drongo]

Hi folks - I haven't been on the board for a good while....I was on the board preppin ALOT and then I was getting on with it by taking my cherry in the form of three records - one record was very "hifi" (for me leastways) and the other was very lofi (one mic, kitchen and an ipod as a hard-drive) and the other (average-fi) as it was recorded in a studio in Kerala - check Drongomala and Elemental on iTunes....

Anyways - I love the whole back to basics of this thread- recording the guitarist who sings...that was my own way into music. The advice on GS is still the most badass on the web....

The reason I'm preppin again is I have a recording tomorrow of a singer songwriter. The location is an unimpressive room - a livingroom that I'll 'treat' with hardwood, bass traps and duvets!

Until hearing how his voice or guitar sounds in person I'm thinking a Coles4040 a foot or two away aimed between the 12th-15th fret

WITH

a u87 flipped round sideways on figure8 - dead lobes to guitar...although I will try the omni to see how scary the room sounds through speakers...omni maybe defeats the purpose though

AND

if the room is really scary then I'll use two Coles4040 (fig8 by default) - one on vox and one on gtr.... or do the coles as a stereo pair....,mmmmm...

choices...choices

I was going to track separately but now I think I'll go with the 'whole voodoo in one go' thing - it's just quicker and the clarity is there immediately i.e. is it great or not..

I don't think I'll get him to put headphones on either......the coffee house front row analogy someone posted was good....

Would love to see a 'refresh' of this thread with a few more picture references from the heavy hitters on the board...

cheers
Drongomala
www.flyingmountainrecords.com

[BB54]

How about a single ribbon 3-5 feet away? Works great in a good room, just get the vox/guitar mix right.

[drongo]

This session went well...thought I'd post a quick update...

We tried doing both vox and acoust together but as there was 'work' to be done on the vocals it ended up better doing them both separately....let me calmy try out my drawmer compressor aswell..

So the mics...

acoustic guitar in the living room

* u87 sounded horrible everywhere - I'm always fighting with this mic
* ended up with Coles 2-3 feet away - no compression - the dead parts of the figure 8 were pointing to the narrow side of the room to 'minmise the room. (I think in my previous post I said I'd put the coles up close - mentalist mistype)
* Oktava for schlang and fizz with compression nearer the neck.

This worked out great and we got some lovely sounds from the guitar - including the crappy cheap 4quid guitar that we used for helping vary soundworlds...

...the living room didn't seem to be a problem and even though there was a street outside we had no reall spill issues....bad weather kept the gardeners and mowers away..I think the ribbon does help in this regard though and for recoridng in less than perfect environments it's a fact that the ribbon makes life easier,......for me leastways.

Vocals - in an old coal shed - the ribbon once more suited the voice - got a vocal sound very quickly indeed..

The real lessons were :
- vox and acoustic together might be easier in a good room and if the performer is ready to go right out of the box
- choose the right type of guitar character for the song - this makes a big difference
- get the right key/tuning for the song - always always spend time up front working on the song and words
- ribbons make life easy (for fingerpickers anyway)
- u87 is driving me mental - can't find many good uses for it for male vox+gtr
- I love my Neve pre
- don't always compress the input

There is one track on the singersongwriters profile....we haven't mixed yet but yer man wanted something on his myspace I gave him something...

During the session we focussed mostly on dynamics and mood as he was without his band and it took a while to get from the stage head to the studio head.

www.myspace.com/louisoakanderson - princess demo on the tiny 4quid guitar!

Most importantly of all - the client trusted me and was ready to work - we got alot done.

That's my update!

Cheers
Drongomala

p.s. anyone want to buy a u87 - used only twice...seriously!

[Beech]

p.s. anyone want to buy a u87 - used only twice...seriously!

PM me with your bottom line and your location.

[Jazzy Alz]

Originally Posted by 22busy

Figure 8 is the way to go . . . best off axis rejection of any pattern.

Some of the photos on this page are of a live performance we recorded with an AKG C24 on guitar and U47 on vox. The songs are on the CD entitled "New Orleans Sessions".

http://www.erikaluckett.com/pages/photos.html

There are some mp3s posted in case you want to hear the results although I just tried to listen to one or two but couldn't get them to work.

http://www.erikaluckett.com/pages/nosalbum.html

Anyway, the C24 is in Fig 8. Its null is pointed at the vocalist's mouth. There was almost no vocal bleed into the guitar mic.

The U47 is in cardioid and had some vocal bleed but there were no significant comb filtering or phase problems.

I just had a listen to No. 1. Nice sound. What pre and eq are you using? Love the blues in f!

[22busy]

Thanks!

It was a V76 on vox and an Altec 1567 on guitar. No eq during tracking or mixing except maybe a bit of the Altec's built in eq, which is pretty subtle. I think we had an LA2A on vox because she is a very dynamic singer.

If you have time check out her guitar playing on the song Priceless. This was all done live with no overdubs.

[echorec]

Just wanted to say a big THANK YOU to you guys who suggested two mics in fig 8. I read this thread before recording today and got excellent results with a pair of U67 mics. Much better than ever before and I have done this a lot with many different mic combinations, baffles etc. Thanks again!

[zarembo]

Originally Posted by echorec

...and got excellent results with a pair of U67 mics.

oooh lucky you!

good work

[monkeyxx]

Originally Posted by zarembo

Hey Dobby,

Lately I've had success using what Jon and others describe:
creative use of null points through mic position.

Use a figure 8 on the voice and come in from the side of the singer's head and angle it so the null is pointing down at the guitar.

Same on gtr so null is pointing (hopefully) at voice. Using a fig-8 or hyper here

ALSO had great results with a MS pair. Singer can get very close to this setup...
then it becomes a matter of height so there is a good blend of voice/gtr in the M signal, bring the Sides up to taste.

However, in this setup you will have bleed so no vocal fixes here--

The pickup/di thing is a good idea but most of them do not sound very good.

I'm going to give the ORTF a try soon too--

THIS WOULD BE A GREAT QUESTION FOR THE GUEST MODS, no?

good ruck

why do you have to 'come in from the side of the singer's head' ? I thought a figure 8 pattern was shaped kind of like a peanut, kind of radially symmetrical along the 'z' axis out of x, y, and z.... am I wrong?

[brubart]

All great suggestions here -- coincident figure-eight mics, a single mic or stereo pair out front, overdub vocal and guitar separately while listening to a recording of both.

I was getting extreme phase interference with a singer/guitarist who played the guitar very quietly and liked to lean over the guitar while playing. To get a good balance I had to use a single mic below the guitar, aiming up at the mouth.

Another tip: If you are using a separate vocal mic and guitar mic, and are hearing phase interference on the vocal, try delaying the vocal track about a millisecond so that it aligns in time with the vocal leakage on the guitar track. Then the vocal tone quality changes from phasey to solid.

brubart

[Yetti]

I had a real talented guy come in to record acoustic guitar and vocal...nothing else...He didn't want headphones, just go for it.
He played 20 songs...only took about an hour and a half to track, and a few hours to mix.
I used a NTK about 10" away from his head, and a spaced pair of SM81's about 3 feet away, about 4 foot apart. Also put up a K2 in omni at the other side of the room, and mixed in a stereo spread reverb ONLY to that distant K2 room mic.
Beautiful results....The guy said he never heard himself sound so good.
The mics were spaced far enough apart to eliminate phase issues, and the bleed- blend worked great.
Most importantly, he was really good...deep rich voice, and had a beautiful sounding handmade acoustic guitar.
Easiest session I ever had, just sit back and listen.

[videoteque]

and mixed in a stereo spread reverb ONLY to that distant K2 room mic

Good idea!!!thumbsupthumbsup

[Yetti]

Originally Posted by videoteque

Good idea!!!thumbsupthumbsup

Thanks!
I find that adding reverb ONLY to the room mic (or mics) works very well for many things.... This technique preseves the clarity and dynamics of sound from the closer mics, and the blended in depth seems much more "real" than adding reverb to the close mics.
I hope you give it a try.

[monkeyxx]

Originally Posted by monkeyxx

why do you have to 'come in from the side of the singer's head' ? I thought a figure 8 pattern was shaped kind of like a peanut, kind of radially symmetrical along the 'z' axis out of x, y, and z.... am I wrong?

anybody?

[zemlin]

It sounds like they're talking about a setup similar to what I used in this session. The figure-8 vocal mic "comes in from the side", but diaphragm is directly in front of the singer. By rotating the mic in the shock mount I was able to fine-tune the dead plane position to minimize guitar bleed.

Ignore the gray baffle - this was many years ago, and the baffle was ineffective.

[monkeyxx]

aha, I see, looks like that position is ideal for easy tweaking of the dead plane, by just twisting the mic in the shockmount, like you said

[Alan Smith]

Hello all,

I tracked a writers session a few months ago. The company posted a vid compilation that shows the different rooms in the house we used to record.

Most sessions were acoustic git/vocals, or grandP/acoustic git/vox.

Everything was miked with 57s or 58s (57s under the piano and on some guitars)

Mics and Di's ran first into a Focusrite Octopre LE, then to a DBX 1046, out to a mackie onyx and finally into Mbox Mini.

The sessions were basically demos with no release planned, but they did come out nice!

Let me know what you think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0vtwVqSys4