This has been such a useful thread for me.
Probably the bottom line conclusion I've drawn is simply confirming that I'll turn my next disc over to a qualified studio. I figure it'd take another $1k to uprgrade my eqpt to an even minimally improved sound, and then I'd still be at the bottom of curve and that would only prepare me to adequately capture my own stuff, not the accompanying dudes. In the meantime, though, I'll continue to dink around for the fun of it, and, and applying what I've gleaned from this thread, this past week I've stolen a handful of hours here and there and come up with the following:
First, the guitar does and doesn't matter
. The process of critically listening to my most recent recordings really drove home how badly my Larrivee needed its frets dressed (that's the "guitar does matter" part), but impatient to get some tracks down while I waited to meet up with my luthier, I kept making runs at new tracks, only to learn that...
Second, two not great mics on a crappier guitar sound vastly better than one decent mic on one decent guitar (this is the guitar doesn't matter part): my two, large diameter condensers in various locations on my growly old 60s Harmony Sovereign sound much, much better than my older recordings of the single-miced Larrivee. Lesson for me here was how much fullness I gained by that second not great mic. I'd also been making the mistake of trying to mic the soundhole and struggling against too much treble as well as boominess, but this and other recent threads inspired me to be more adventurous with mic placement, and to move mics, rather than the eq. ...wound up putting the mics in all kinds of places until they simply sounded good, rather than putting them where I thought they "should" go...this approach inspired by posts in this and other threads noting how radically differently different techs approach micing. And...
Third, because I'm committed to singing and playing at the same time (rather than dubbing vox), I can get some much improved tracks down by using the two mics on the guitar and a *dynamic* mic on vocals...this helps me avoid the phasing problems I experienced the last time I'd tried more than two mics (for geetar and vox combined). It's not perfect or pro quality, but, again, the guitar sounds so much better. For me this is sort of like the rock climbing analogy: you become a better climber by strengthening your weakest skill, not your stronger; it might be worth degrading my vocal tracks if doing so will help me improve my guitar tracks. ...not necessarily a lesson for professional studio recordings, but useful for what I'm trying to achieve, here at home.
Anyway, I'm sure none of this interests anyone, but, for me, a great lesson inspired by this thread is: learn to use the gear you have before you buy more.
On an even more tangential note: what a great musical day y'day was: spent two or three hours dinking with this recording stuff in the morn, then hung out with my luthier friend in his shop for an hour, and spent a solid two hours rehearsing unplugged, sitting face to face with "my" harmonca player...just two gray haired dudes sitting three-four feet apart beside the woodstove, drinking beer and pounding out our tunes on the '53 Gibson L-50 I bought from an AGF a few years ago.
No better way to survive a gray, cold winter day and night here in the hinterlands.... And tho the gear is a lot of fun, it was good to wrap up the day, and week, just stripping it all down to the bare essentials and singing song after song....
