Signal chain for the best acoustic guitar sound you ever got?

[boboji]

Me > Goodall Rosewood Standard > Geffell M300 ORTF> John Hardy M1>
Alesis Hd-24 add a tinky little bit of chorus and verb.

Just the tinyest amount of chorus is really cool on fingerstyle!!!!!!

[BradD]

For me it has been a Martin HD28 to KM-184s, one pointed at the 12th fret and the other pointed at the bridge about 18-24 inches away, through a Great River MP2NV into a Rosetta 800.

[PRobb]

My 1958 D-18 in a beautiful live room, a pair of 184s into Martech MSS-10s.

[bjm007]

Martin HD-28

AKG 451 about 8" - 10" away

U87 to taste for ambience

Great River MP2-NV

Apogee Rosetta 800

[cstanley]

I like the john hardys as well, my fav setups have been:

km184 --> JH M1 --> tape
AKG 480 w/CK61 capsule --> JH M1 --> tape

one couple feet right in front of hte sound hole,
one aligned with the headstock pointing down the
fretboard to the 12th fret.

Manley Gold Reference - halfway between card & omni mode --> JH M1
this is if you have a good room & like warmer (slower transients?)
sound of a LDC

trouble i have is you get the perfect sound, then the
guitarist shifts & moves a few inches & the perfect
sound dissappears.

i really like the john hardy's, i'm surprised they don't
get mentioned more here.

john is a hella entertaining guy to talk to at aes shows as well

-carl

[Robert Sands]

This thread is great and one of the reasons why this forum is important.

I don't know that I've gotten my acoustic guitar recording to the stage of greatness yet - still working on it. My setup on most of the things I do is my Martin OM42 (a smaller OOO size Rosewood body guitar to cut down on the boominess of a dread) into a pair of KM 184's - one at the 12th fret pointing towards the soundhole and the other mic slightly below and slightly in back of the bridge. Both mics are about 10 inches from the guitar. Sounds like a lot of you guys are further away from the guitar so I'm going to try that approach. The mics go thru an Amek DMCL with just a touch of its compressor. I record into DP. When done I will then use UAD1 Cambridge EQ to sculpt the sound and the UAD LA2A for compression. Like I said, I'm still experimenting and a thread like this one is gold to me!!!

[DigitMus]

Tacoma dreadnaut (I forget the model - mid 90s USA made) > Brauner Valvet BE > Crane Song Spider. In the mix it was treated with HEDD > Trakker (Air Optical) > IBIS > HEDD (Pentode on 4), with just a touch of KSP8 Abbey Piano Hall.

Scott

[lane thaw]

D18 into pair of Gefells 930's in X/Y into Cranesong Flamingo, to trakker, into Radar. But I sold the Flamingo and Trakker, so &#@#$. Today it will be same setup into a Thermionic Earlybird. I'll report back if anyone is interested.

[Berolzheimer]

One of the best acoustic sounds I ever got was a Seagull guitar into, believe it or not, an at-4033-Mackie 32x8- (maybe) dbx160x-Fostex 16track 1/2 inch recorder, plus a little of the piezo pickup on another track, then mixed through the Mackie again. Oh yeah, in an amazingly great sounding very live little room.

[Musikvilla]

AKG 451 -> Hardy M1 -> Focusrite Red 3. Kicks serious ass!

[vernier]

Best guitar I've heard anywhere (this side of Buffalo Springfield) is a D19 on my Martin.

[edvdr76]

I use an 87 through a Focusrite Red 6 compressed with a Summit DCL 200 at the hole. I then place a 451 through an Avalon 737 (pre only) then also compressed through a Summit DCL 200.thumbsup

[doorknocker]

I mostly use my Chandler LTD-1 for acoustic guitar but recently I got really good results with the following chain for a fingerpicked part I did:

- Gibson '59 LG-2
- KM 84
- Chandler TG-2
- LTD-1 (EQ only, about +2 @ 100hz and + 1@ 12k)
- LA-3A
- UA 2192 to PT

The TG-2 and the EQ of the LTD-1 seem to work together really well, at least they did for the song at hand.

[JSVice]

I've gotten lots of great acoustic sounds, but I recently had this setup:
McPherson 4.5 > Royer 121 and Soundelux U99 in M/S > Great River MP2NV > Apogee AD16X

[funka]

For the moment, Larrivee guitar with Peluso CMC6 + AT4050 in UA 2-610 preamp => aurora16 ADAT => RME digiface => Nuendo.

[robot gigante]

One sound I liked was- old Martin D18 - Brauner VM-1 - A Designs MP2 - Cranesong HEDD.

Another chain (fingerstyle) was a Taylor Anniversary model (forget which year)- R84 - TG Channel - HEDD.

[Joost]

Interesting. I see some of you recorded with just one mic. Do you think recording stereo is necessary for recording solo acoustic guitar? I have tried M/S, XY, NOS, ORTF stereo recording and found no big improvement over a good mono placement (14th fret where the neck meets the body).


What is your opinion?

[doorknocker]

Originally Posted by Joost

Interesting. I see some of you recorded with just one mic. Do you think recording stereo is necessary for recording solo acoustic guitar? I have tried M/S, XY, NOS, ORTF stereo recording and found no big improvement over a good mono placement (14th fret where the neck meets the body).
What is your opinion?

I really like mono acoustic guitars but it's always in context of a full arrangement at least a 2 guitars/voice setting. I also experimented with multing a mono acoustic guitar with one ch uncompressed and one ch flattened by a LA-3A though I haven't really used it in a production yet.

[Joost]

Originally Posted by doorknocker

I really like mono acoustic guitars but it's always in context of a full arrangement at least a 2 guitars/voice setting. I also experimented with multing a mono acoustic guitar with one ch uncompressed and one ch flattened by a LA-3A though I haven't really used it in a production yet.

Cool idea! What was the effect? Maybe I trying an LA-2A on the left channel and Fairchild on the right would be interesting as well!

I have a hard time chosing anyway ...or the 1176LN, sh** I need 3 channels

[doorknocker]

Originally Posted by Joost

Cool idea! What was the effect?

I thought that it added a lot of beef and drive much like parallel drum or vocal compression. I'm kinda old-school and try to put an acoustic in a track whenever I can.
I only got one outboard EQ so far (on the LTD-1) but I plan to add some 500 modules soon and I guess EQ-ing the mult is essential.

[robot gigante]

Originally Posted by Joost

Interesting. I see some of you recorded with just one mic. Do you think recording stereo is necessary for recording solo acoustic guitar? I have tried M/S, XY, NOS, ORTF stereo recording and found no big improvement over a good mono placement (14th fret where the neck meets the body).


What is your opinion?

Not a big fan of stereo myself, although sometimes I'll do it. I'd rather record the guitar mono and then create a stereo space around it with subtle verbs, delays, etc. When it's a nice room I might use a room mic or two in addition to the mono mic on the guitar. But that's just me.