Harmonica and Acoustic slide duo tips...

[cleantone]

Hey! I have a session in a week. It is a one day thing. It originally was to be an acoustic slide blues project. I then got a call about adding bass and harmonica. Luckily the bassist got nixed. No need for that. Now we are doing it as a duo. I don't really need tips on recording the blues harmonica. I do want some feedback about recording these two together live. I was comfortable with recording the guitarist doing his thing. Adding the blues harp makes it a little different. The guy is pretty pro and will be bringing a Fender Deluxe and at least a green bullet mic. So him getting his sound will not be an issue. We will not have the luxury of iso booths not that I really think that is needed. I was originally picturing an open acoustic guitar. Probably miced in a few ways all going to tape. Now I think were doing the acoustic through an amp. The guitarist is awesome and assures me he will have a great sound via the amp. So now I am thinking that it turned into a 2 guitar cabinet session. I don't want to overstep my bounds but I want to hear them playing more organically and unamplified. If it sounds like I imagine I want to suggest recording that way. But I am not the client nor producer. What do you guys think? It may shake down to me suggesting that after we track the songs through amps to do some takes unamplified. Maybe stereo micing them playing together. Any thoughts?

[tINY]

Put an SDC somewhere between the sound hole and the bouts and just record an extra track - no need to use it.

You might try to get a DI off the bullet mic too.




-tINY

[cleantone]

I'll definitely be getting D/I tracks from both instruments. I'll probably put each amp in separate rooms so we can get some good gain without bleed. I wonder if I can make it so that I can record the amplified stuff in another room and the acoustic natural sounds in the room. I'm not sure how good a harmonica sounds in the room when your cupping a bullet mic. I guess we will have to play on the day but I want to figure out how to suggest recording naturally without amplification. I know this harp player is more of a live gritty amplified player. I feel as though this old school style acoustic slide music would be better suited with a clean open harmonica sound. Does that make sense?

[gurubuzz]

The customer is always right...most of the time..

being a harp player myself I know that a clean harp sound is boring...

I would close mic both cabs with 2 mics each.

firstly have the two players facing each other with their amps behind them OR have the guitarists amp behind the harp and vice versa if they need to hear their own instrument more... have the players about 2 meters apart with their amps a further 1 meter behind them.

Use 57s close on each amp and an LDC on each LOOSE.(check for phase of correlation by adjusting the distance of the LDC usually having the LDC 3 times the distance of the 57 will have no phase issues) , don't worry about checking phase relative to both instruments because there will be enough rejection ot the backs of the mics to not have any bleed.

make sure the backs of the mics are pointing to the opposite amps.

The 57 is for close amp sound and the LDC's are to capture a smoother bottom end, because you could find yourself with a really thin recording other wise.

Blend the 57 to LDC to taste I would blend each instruments mics to mono then pan the results a bit left and right

Also have a stereo pair in ORTF config (do a search on Wikipedia) for the room sound

encourage them to set their amps with more bass than usual as you can always trim it out later..
AND tell them to not have the amp blasting because mics are like microscopes.

encourage head phones if they have trouble hearing and come down hard on them if they try to keep turning their amps up.

I know that they want a certain sound so don't try to talk them out of using their amps.

HOWEVER do inform them of overtime hourly rates as they have complicated the setup...and it will take longer to set up and do test recordings. Make the overtime rate at least 50% more than your usual.

good luck

buzz

[cleantone]

Thanks for the input (pun intended). That is pretty much what I was thinking about doing. Except for the amp placement. I was thinking of running the amps in their own rooms for isolation and using cans. I guess using mic rejection for isolation and not having to use cans may be a good starting place. Picturing your suggested setup for the amps makes me think about the back of the amps. I did a large live session last weekend (8 players in one live room. I blanketed the back of the amps to control bleed. It seemed to work fine that day. Perhaps I'll do that again. EDIT: I thought you meant amps facing outwardly not inward. Unfortunately I only have one LDC right now. A U87. Maybe km184's will work. I was sort of planning to try 57's on each and maybe e609's at the same time to see which works better for the instrument and all that. I will record direct channels too that may come in handy in the mix. I wish I had some ribbons for this one. I haven't bought a mic in all too long. I was also thinking about ORTF or XY pair in the room. Maybe a jecklin type of baffled omni would work well.

I'll know more after I record but I am wondering about mix placement. Part of me thinks panning each (not hard) left and right will sound proper. Another part of me questions that. I cannot think of any guitar/harp duo recordings to refer to. I asked them to try to point me to anything that may be something like they are aiming for. That doesn't usually happen when I request it though. The record is mostly about the guitarist for sure.

[gurubuzz]

If it's more about the guitarist I would iso the amps and mic up the guitar too,
so you can blend in more natural sound....

More than a few tracks going through amps, for me, would get boring for my ears, so having a track or two with a bit of contrast would make for an interesting listening experience...

Your in the right track...not the left Ha Ha HA...