Mixing Multi Mic'd Fingerstyle Guitar

[PimaDreama]

I'm not an expert at recording, more of an enthusiastic knob twister. Your guitar playing is superb and I enjoyed listening to all of the versions you posted.

I think that your last, shorter version was the best raw recording. I think that the earlier suggestion of some high pass EQ to take energy out of the 60Hz - 80Hz range would help.

Also, the earlier suggestion of trying to get more air is a good one. Question is, how do you do that? Air, presence, sibilance, or whatever you want to call it lives in the 8kHz to 16kHz frequency range. You might find that taking away energy in the 800Hz to 1600Hz range is more effective than boosting frequencies in the 8-16kHz range. Sounds strange, I know. Consider creating a notch filter and sweep it slowly through the 800-1600Hz range. Listen for an opening up of the sound in the higher registers.

A touch of compression followed by a little bit of reverb will also help. Use a light touch, though.

Hope this helps.

PimaDreama

[DungBeatle]

I don't have the experience these people have, but from a listener's ear, each take got better and clearer sounding. The last one sounds very real. I learned a lot from the suggestions and solutions. A great thread!
~Bob

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by cyacoub

Ok. You guys appear to be on to something. Here is the same recording with only the spaced pair (no processing). to my ears it is still overdriven (likely recorded too hot), and a bit boomy (mics too close?), but it sounds dramatically better to my ears. Let me know what you think.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0F...ew?usp=sharing

I have to admit I am a bit disappointed as I fell for the more must be better approach, and got all these different mics thinking I would get a bigger richer sound with more mics!


I also did a very quick retake last night of a few bars following some of Rick's suggestions. I used only 2 SDC spaced pair mics, and put them about 13" from guitar. I dropped the signal down to when recording, and again turned off all processing. I'd appreciate any of your thoughts, and what version you like better, and any further suggestions to get e closer to a good sounding approach.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0F...ew?usp=sharing

Both sound much better than before. The first one is warmer (and louder - up the volume as needed post recording). The second one is thinner and more chimey sounding than I usually get. Experimentation. Still seems to me the microphone recordings have been panned in somewhat due to a little bit of a phasey sound and due to tight correlation in my phase meter. Double check your settings.

[Doug Young]

Agreed, both are much better. (And the recording's good enough now, that I actually paid attention to your playing, which is very nice!). I actually prefer the 1st of these, it's warmer sounding, but either one works. Echoing Rick, these are amazingly phase-correlated for spaced pairs, so there may be something going on here that you aren't intending that could be affecting your multi-mic results.