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-   -   Mixing solo fingerstyle guitar (https://www.acousticguitarforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=239758)

DarkestDreaming 01-29-2012 11:28 PM

Doug,
I was trying to hunt down the source of the hum and it was indeed the onboard pickup. I tried pointing it in different directions and turning off other offending noise-makers but the only way i can silence it is if i trun off the pickup gain pot. Nothing happens when i back down the mic pot. Any ideas how to get rid of it?

Fichtezc 01-29-2012 11:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkestDreaming (Post 2917029)
Doug,
I was trying to hunt down the source of the hum and it was indeed the onboard pickup. I tried pointing it in different directions and turning off other offending noise-makers but the only way i can silence it is if i trun off the pickup gain pot. Nothing happens when i back down the mic pot. Any ideas how to get rid of it?


Sounds like it might be a grounding issue?

Doug Young 01-29-2012 11:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkestDreaming (Post 2917029)
Doug,
I was trying to hunt down the source of the hum and it was indeed the onboard pickup. I tried pointing it in different directions and turning off other offending noise-makers but the only way i can silence it is if i trun off the pickup gain pot. Nothing happens when i back down the mic pot. Any ideas how to get rid of it?

Well, I'd try another preamp or amp and see if it's still there. That will tell you if it's the pickup itself or the preamp. I'd also try a different guitar cord. If it's the pickup, check your wiring, make sure everything's grounded well. If it's the preamp, try plugging into another outlet, or even some place other than your house to see if it's something about your house wiring, or something causing hum in your house. You just have to try things to isolate it, then you can figure out what to do to change it. It's not bad for live use, just a bit too obvious for a clean recording.

DarkestDreaming 01-30-2012 04:28 AM

fich, I have a pz-pre with a ground lift. I'll try that 1st.

Thanks guys, looks like i got some more searching to do

Smurf 01-30-2012 10:59 AM

I use the SIR1 and the Bricasti M7 IRs. The link to the Acousticas site thru Rekkerd seems to be down or gone, but you can still grab them from Samplcity.

The Clear Ambiance is a mainstay for me no matter what I am working on...:D

I also have to mention the Valhalla Room & Shimmer reverb's......just flat out fantastic for the $50 IMHO. :cool:

SimplyLuo 01-30-2012 02:48 PM

This is how Antoine explained his setup to me, for those still wondering about it:

I use a pair of Rode NTK mics that go in a Millennia HV-3C, as well as the pick-up of the guitar(K&K trinity system mini) only for the bass. Recorded through a Motu sound card to Logic Pro in my Mac.

I have a pair of old spot lights from tv station for lighting and I use a sony HD handycam. Do the editing in Final cut express.

I have a black fabric for background and I place the 2 mics so you don't see them in the frame. One is above pointing at the end of the fretboard and the other is pointing at the bridge, just after the lower bout of the guitar.

Doug Young 01-30-2012 04:46 PM

Makes perfect sense, and this is a very common approach. Mics, with a bit of pickup blended in for a little more solid bass. Works very well. Pickup alone? Not so well.

DarkestDreaming 01-30-2012 09:24 PM

SimplyLuo, thanks for sharing! It's a helpful resource for me :)

Doug Young 01-31-2012 12:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SimplyLuo (Post 2917684)
I place the 2 mics so you don't see them in the frame. One is above pointing at the end of the fretboard and the other is pointing at the bridge, just after the lower bout of the guitar.

By the way, this is an important point, depending on your priorities. When you're shooting video, you may decide to place the mics in a location optimized for the look, not the sound. I usually do this as well, so you see no mics in a lot of my You Tube videos. I could get a better sound if I didn't worry about looks and focused on sound. You obviously choose "sound" when you're recording a CD or non-video track, in which case the placement Antoine describes here may or may not be what you want.

DarkestDreaming 01-31-2012 03:10 AM

thanks Doug, I'll keep that in mind

Trevor B. 11-09-2014 03:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Young (Post 2913014)

Here's a cute example of the hazards of home recording and how RX can help. This was just some test I was doing, nothing that was a keeper, but I ended up keeping it as a memory, since my long time cat, Missy passed away last year. Listen to her at 4 seconds in on the tail of this tune. (Cats, wives, neighbor's cars, airplanes - they always pop up on right on the quiet tail, don't they? :-)

Meow on tail

You can see the meow in RX (selected):

http://www.dougyoungguitar.com/mp3/meow.jpg

Click the "repair" button and it's gone:

http://www.dougyoungguitar.com/mp3/no_meow.jpg

And now check out how the fixed track sounds:

No Meow!

RX is clearly an amazing program but I really like the cat's meow in the mix!!!

bbrown 11-12-2014 11:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DarkestDreaming (Post 2912427)
The video was comprehensive and your explanations were thorough. Just clarifying my question for the other readers :)

Also, i dont use most of the plug-ins described in your video and when I full-screen it I cant see the parameters as it is rather pixelated. I guess thats secondary anyway since most of it is experimenting anyway, like you mentioned.

And it would also be good just to hear what other solo guitarists do to 'process' their recordings: be it some combination of EQ, compression, reverb, limiter, etc. How do they do it, what order, etc.

I think that's a very good question.

Doug Young 11-12-2014 01:49 PM

I suspect what would be most useful would be if people posted recordings and then "here's how I got the sound". There's no set recipe, it's more about understanding what each potential processing step does and applying it to achieve what you want in the order needed to achieve it. EQ's a good example, you can't really say "always do this...", it's a matter of listening, and making what ever corrections or enhancements the specific track needs. A good solo guitar recording should ideally (IMO) need virtually no EQ. As far as order, again, it depends on what you want to achieve. Applying compression then EQ achieves something different than EQ then compression. For me, the goal with solo fingerstyle guitar is to sound fairly "natural", so the number of effects is pretty small with settings that have very subtle impact. Someone else might want flangers run thru chorus run thru distortion - it's all in the sound you want, and how you choose to create it.

rockabilly69 11-12-2014 02:57 PM

My favorite microphone set up for recording acoustic guitar is M/S (mid-side). For M/S recoding you use a figure 8 microphone pointing left and right, and one cardoid

(sometimes you can get away with an omnidirectional) microphone pointing right at the source. The capsules of the microphones are lined up right on top of each

other and equidistant to the source. For a starting point I generally point them at the neck joint of the guitar. Then I close my eyes and move my guitar around while

playing until I hear what I want to hear in my headphones. Then I hit record. After recording the two tracks, you clone the one figure 8 microphone track, and flip the phase

of the new cloned track. You now have 3 tracks (fig 8 track, cloned fig 8 track, mid track). You then then pan the original fig 8 track hard left, and the cloned track hard right.

The mid track in panned directly center. In the mix you bring up the sides till they balance with the center track. The soundstage of M/S recording sounds very natural to

me and very open. The Rode Classic II was the mid mic set to one-click away from cardoid (towards omni), and the Neumann u89 as the side mic set to Fig 8.



I used my stereo Drawmer 1960 pre/comp for both microphones, and each channel was set to 4:1 compression with a fast attack, and med release.



For the slide track I just used the the Rode Classic II, and cloned that track. I panned each one of those about 50% left and right. I also used a Waves R-Comp compressor and

a PuigTech EQ plug-in on these two channels. Over the whole mix I used a Slate Digital VCC plug-in (set to Trident) and a Waves Reverb.

This is what it sounds like... (better listen on headphones or monitors to hear the lowend and spread of the channels).


https://soundcloud.com/daniel-weldon-1/g-string


here's the Nowland SJ guitar I used...

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...69/photo12.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...69/photo22.jpg

here's the mics and preamps...

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...annmidside.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...y69/photo3.jpg

Doug Young 11-12-2014 03:13 PM

MS is very cool. Just a suggestion: I find it easier to record to a stereo track and then just use one of the many MS decoder plugins to do all the phase flip/copy channel stuff for you automatically. That leaves you with a stereo track that you can continue to process with other plugins that expect to work across a stereo track. Most MS plugins will let you vary the width, and manipulate the MS signal easily, and you don't have to go to all the trouble of manually setting up the tracks.

rockabilly69 11-12-2014 03:48 PM

Hey Doug I agree with you, but I was just giving the basics for the guy asking about our favorite mic techniques. This way the guy can try it without having a decoder, and sometimes I just like to process the individual tracks:)

Doug Young 11-12-2014 04:34 PM

Agreed, it's a good idea to know what's actually happening. The biggest obstacle to people trying MS is probably the rarity of figure-8 mics. They tend to be pricey - not many people have a U89 lying around, and their use is a little more exotic than most day-to-day recording, so you get into a chicken and egg problem. You don't know about the cool things you can do with one because you don't have one, so you can't discover the cool things you can do with one (or 2) :-)

rockabilly69 11-12-2014 06:03 PM

Yes figure 8 mics are expensive:) And yes u89's are really expensive. But if I was to help somebody just getting into recording, here's a M/S set of mics that are cheap and work great together, and I would totally recommend.

The CAD M179 with a CAD CM217. Check out the reviews on these budget mics and you could do M/S with these and use them also on many other sources.

CAD M179 (B&H has these for $130) this may be one of the best bang for the buck deals out there!

CAD CM217 (these sell for around $50)

Doug Young 11-12-2014 09:16 PM

Nice sense of space on your track. The background track seems extremely wide, but it all works well together for me!

Here's a very short MS example I posted a long time ago on a different thread. Very basic, no processing, just the raw MS-decoded track of one guitar:

http://www.dougyoungguitar.com/mp3/MS_sample.mp3

rockabilly69 11-12-2014 09:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Young (Post 4221987)
Nice sense of space on your track. The background track seems extremely wide, but it all works well together for me!

Here's a very short MS example I posted a long time ago on a different thread. Very basic, no processing, just the raw MS-decoded track of one guitar:

http://www.dougyoungguitar.com/mp3/MS_sample.mp3

I love the way your track fills up the stereo field.


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