The Acoustic Guitar Forum

The Acoustic Guitar Forum (https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/forums/index.php)
-   RECORD (https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=43)
-   -   Recording vocal and guitar with some separation (https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=659647)

ssjk 11-29-2022 08:29 AM

Recording vocal and guitar with some separation
 
It seems like this has likely been covered before but I couldn't find it. Suggestions or links to prior discussions welcome.


WHAT I’D LIKE TO DO

Record single guitar plus one vocal simultaneously while keeping as much separation as possible between the two tracks so that I can balance volumes and effects.



WHAT I HAVE TO WORK WITH

Studio One Artist 5
2018 Mac mini (Intel i7) with 16GB

two Oktava MK-012-01 SDCs
two Shure M58s
one MXL 990 LDC
Focusrite Scarlett 2i2

various old and newer iPads and iPhones
plenty of mic stands and cables

a 16 x 19 rectangular office

a PrimeAcoustic London 12 room treatment that can be reconfigured


WHAT I’VE TRIED

I’ve tried the following singly and in combinations with limited success:

- use the Oktava for guitar and the Shure for vocal and vice versa
- aim mics as much as possible to separate the tracks (tough given the patterns)
- use the room treatment material to physically block off the two tracks (basically a shelf at about chest level with mics above and below)


SUGGESTIONS WELCOME

buy a mic with a more focused pattern like XXX ?
build a better box to segregate the two tracks?
forget it and learn to record the tracks separately?

Thanks

standup 11-29-2022 08:49 AM

What has worked for me is to use two mics that have a Figure 8 pattern.

The mic picks up sound directly in front and directly in back of the mic, but the pickup from the sides is greatly reduced. It has a serious null.

Point the mic at the source, guitar or voice, and make sure the other source is pretty much 90 degrees from the line going from the front to the back of the mic.

A lot of large diaphragm condensers have the figure 8 pattern. I had a CAD m179 mic for several years that had it, and was not too expensive.

keith.rogers 11-29-2022 09:11 AM

This gets asked over and over, and the suggestion to use something like a pair of ribbons (almost always figure-of-8) is the solution that can be demonstrated to arguably/technically provide the most separation. But, it's best done with a couple of good mics in a larger space, IMHO, because the back of those mics will pick up everything reflected, and they are just as sensitive on the back side as the front. So, in your space, you'd want to make sure that the backs have as much distance from the nearest walls as possible. Me, I'd put the treatment right in front of you, i.e., behind the mics, if you choose to try that.

In any case, you want to use the mics you choose in a way that the thing you don't want picked up is pretty well aimed directly at the null of the other mic's pickup pattern. This rules out omni and really wide cardioid mics pretty well, and placing mics fairly close to the source is required.

Hyper/super-cardioid mics might work better if you have that option. Me, I've been satisfied with a dynamic, like the SM58 on vocals, relatively close, and a single SDC or even something like an SM57 on the guitar. Experimenting with something that places them to keep the main sound of the source away from the other mic's main pickup area. Keeping the guitar minimized in the vocal track is easier than keeping the vocal out of the guitar (for me, anyway), because a lot of [my] vocal output actually goes down, and while playing, there's always the urge to look down at the guitar neck right at the end of a phrase or just as starting to sing. (Don't do that!)

Lots of experimenting is my best recommendation. And, don't use a lot of FX if you can avoid it. Anything that affects the phase even slightly can make things get a bit weird. I use a little EQ and *maybe* compression (sometimes ducking), but rely on aux/sends for any reverb (same one for both sources), and put try to do anything else on the stereo bus.

Separately recording the tracks may be the place you end up at. I did that for a few years but while trapped at home for a while, like many, I spent much of it just trying to record myself in single takes, some even single mic stuff. You do have to give up some things, but it's a good learning process :)

Rudy4 11-29-2022 10:07 AM

You're running up against the dreaded "polar pattern problem", and Keith's answer above is through and spot on.

I CAN tell you that this is talked about extensively in one of Doug Fearn's podcasts in his excellent "My take on music recording" series. If you want to take the deep dive "Microphones" is probably a good place to start.

There's a lot to be said for doing a complete scratch track (with count in...) to capture the exact feel of your composition then recording instrument and vocal separately. It sure makes it easier if you need to comp a track due to a small problem with a errant vocal phrase or guitar riff.

I do remember reading long ago that someone had limited success using two cardiod mics oriented on a vertical axis with a baffle between them to limit bleed between the mics. That sounds at best, a bit "awkward". ;)

FrankHudson 11-29-2022 11:54 AM

As Rudy4 mentioned, the only way to get entirely discrete tracks is to track the vocal and guitar separately. Not only does this take more time, a lot of folk based music is irregular as far as measures and such and makes this harder than say a square-the-grid electronic instruments type of track. As he mentioned, you end up recording the song three times: once with the bleeding all over tracks to get the feel and structure recorded for reference, then the guitar alone (listening to that scratch track for reference, usually turned down in the mix) and then finally the vocal only pass, which sometimes can be done with just the new fresh guitar track, and other times with the scratch track mixed low.

One other trick that can help when you're recording yourself: in a computer DAW you can label sections of your recording visually on your screen so you know when the vocal phrases and so forth are set to come in.

Good engineers get acceptable results with the two figure 8 mic methods, but as already mentioned, it's more difficult in smaller spaces. I can get a similar level of separation using the iRig Acoustic Stage small clip in microphone. You can still hear the vocal bleeding into the iRig microphone, but it's faint, and the recording quality, even in an untreaded small space is decent.

min7b5 11-29-2022 12:19 PM

I think this is one of the very hardest things to do. As a recording podcast and magazine junkie; listening/reading to interviews with engineers this is seemingly always the one question where everyone pauses and sighs before answering... I guess if were me recording someone and they had their parts down, and they had a good natural balance, I'd shoot for finding a great spot to get both with one large diaphragm cardiod mic. I've heard this many times and think it can be great with a big fat phase-free sound. And I'm just imaging that one could use a mid/side array or a room mic pair if they wanted a wider image, but you'd still not have any independence in post. Could be a good goal to practice towards. For me personally I'm not a fan of recording the parts separately in terms of the end result not having that natural interaction and inflection -but I'm a stick in the mud when it comes to pretty much any over-dubbing :halo:

Rudy4 11-29-2022 02:22 PM

On a somewhat related tangent, after watching Giles Martin discuss "De-mixing" technology in the short clip below I had a passing thought on how long it would be before there was a "home version" of this available as a plug in.

Imagine, as a solo home recordist, being able to lay down a guitar / vocal using a single microphone and then being able to split the vocal and guitar into two separate and distinct tracks...

Mark my words, it's coming, folks! ;)


DupleMeter 11-29-2022 03:01 PM

As mentioned, there's always the Figure-8 trick.

Another way to do things is with a LDC on the vocals with an SDC on the guitar, but aim them so that there is a right angle/90º separation between each capsule. I've done this over the past couple of years in these situations & it's been better for me than the figure-8 technique.

You will never get completely clean audio in both mics. There will always be bleed, so the goal is to make the bleed as minimal as possible, but also not to have it cause issues (phase, off-axis coloration).

DupleMeter 11-29-2022 03:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rudy4 (Post 7136194)
On a somewhat related tangent, after watching Giles Martin discuss "De-mixing" technology in the short clip below I had a passing thought on how long it would be before there was a "home version" of this available as a plug in.

Imagine, as a solo home recordist, being able to lay down a guitar / vocal using a single microphone and then being able to split the vocal and guitar into two separate and distinct tracks...

Mark my words, it's coming, folks! ;)



It's already here: RX Music Rebalance. It's ok, but if you push it too much you can hear it working.

Rudy4 11-29-2022 04:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DupleMeter (Post 7136218)
It's already here: RX Music Rebalance. It's ok, but if you push it too much you can hear it working.

I believe Abby Road's De-Mix must be something a bit more advanced than RX's offering.

DupleMeter 11-29-2022 05:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rudy4 (Post 7136295)
I believe Abby Road's De-Mix must be something a bit more advanced than RX's offering.


It is, and it's a service they offer right now. I don't know they will ever release it as a plugin. The technology is a closely guarded secret. Plus, it's a revenue stream for them.

https://www.abbeyroad.com/de-mix

Chipotle 11-29-2022 10:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DupleMeter (Post 7136217)
Another way to do things is with a LDC on the vocals with an SDC on the guitar, but aim them so that there is a right angle/90º separation between each capsule. I've done this over the past couple of years in these situations & it's been better for me than the figure-8 technique.

I've had similar results, in not-so-great small rooms at home. The fig-8 just picked up too much room on the back side. The video below was done in a 10x11' room with some acoustic treatment, LDC (Shure KSM44) on the vocal and SDC (Line Audio CM4) on the guitar, just like DupleMeter says. The mics weren't quite pointing 90 degrees apart, but as close as I could get (hard to see but the LDC is actually angled up towards my mouth, and the SDC just out of frame at the bottom is pointing towards the lower edge of the guitar).

The separation wasn't complete, but still good enough to let me balance the guitar and vocal and add some light effects, even with a heavy strumming piece.


ssjk 11-30-2022 08:22 AM

Thanks to all for the responses. Looks like I have the gear to try again with a few of the options suggested. So I'll do that and see if I can get something 'good enough' before buying anything.

I especially appreciate the details on placement, both the mic positioning and angles and the location of the mics and baffles.

JK

KevWind 11-30-2022 08:44 AM

In terms of working with the gear you have as noted you are not going to get total separation unless you record vocal and guitar separately .

I would think that trying to put any kind of baffle between the guitar and your mouth would be very cumbersome at best .

But as noted the mic position can help mitigate bleed


I would recommend the The LDC on vocal and the Oktava/s on guitar

Besides laying the vocal mic over at and angle from the vertical .....What I have experimented with in the past was booming the LDC in from the side lower than the mouth,, and rolling it up 45 degrees or more ( to get the guitar into the off axis)

Then get the SDC/ s pointed at down angle and fairly close to the guitar .

Here is the LDC position I was talking where it is rolled up at a 45 angle and I am singing across and above it
Now because the ribbons are side addressed and on a single stand with a stereo bar, they are spaced pair upright as opposed to what I would do now which is two separate stands bring them in horizontal also and have the null facing up towards my mouth


https://i.imgur.com/9lW3VBM.png

keith.rogers 11-30-2022 09:10 AM

2 Attachment(s)
Just one more follow-up, since others have posted pics/vids, I'll include a couple here that show what is kind of a minimalist separation setup. I do these things by myself, so there's no real sound-check, and once done, I'll usually think, "oh, I should have put the X mic here and the Y mic there," but, it's usually "good enough" for my purposes.

I will add that it's a bit easier, for me, to isolate if I play/sing standing up, but I don't always get the best playing that way, while it is better for singing. So when I track separately, I will play sitting, and sing standing. (But, I digress...)

Another related point, even though one of these pics shows me with a mandolin, let me advise you that there is simply NO way to isolate a mandolin, especially if it's doing "chop" style rhythm. That's going to be in every track, even the other guitar player on the other side of a gobo. Really loud, and annoying little instrument :).

p.s. both of these show an SM58 on vox and SDC on the instrument.


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 09:05 AM.

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
Copyright ©2000 - 2022, The Acoustic Guitar Forum

vB Ad Management by =RedTyger=