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Old 06-18-2019, 04:52 AM
sirwhale sirwhale is offline
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Join Date: May 2014
Location: Spain
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JonnyBGood View Post
Hi
I have recorded and produced two CDs featuring flamenco and classical guitar and also recorded many professional demos for clients. Some thoughts which may help:

You don’t mention one of the most important things – what are you plugging the mics into? That alone could be the cause of the poor quality recordings as everything in the signal chain affects the end result and a cheap preamp, (eg plugging straight into a PC’s motherboard soundcard or via an entry level mini mixer) will place a limit on how good the result is.

But yes, even if you use a great preamp your sound will only be as good as the mics you use to capture it and your Samson mics are basic entry level. Both the mics you mention buying are far superior (I actually recorded my CDs with cheaper mics, eg Rode NT1). I see you are opting for large diaphragms which I think will help you. However, the difference between these two mics will be negligible and far outweighed by your preamp quality and your studio abilities (mic placement, setting levels, acoustics of the room). This all assumes you are capturing at a decent bit depth and there’s not something incorrectly set up in your DAW.

Are you monitoring via headphones? This is essential to get a good sound and to set up your equipment - you need to hear what the mic is capturing whilst you try different positions (so good studio headphones that don't flatter you help also). Generally for a deeper sound and to capture more bass you will want the mic closer to the guitar as bass frequencies do not travel as far, although where you place the mic will be a factor also (eg pointing at lower bout vs 12th fret).

HTH
This is interesting. I plug my AT2020 directly, via USB, into a Macbook Pro. Despite its prestige I imagine the sound card might not be the best either. Am I right? What should I use instead?
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Christian
Guitar: Camps Primera Negra A (a flamenco guitar)
Strings: Aquila SugarAquila Rubino, Knobloch CX, Aquila Alchemia
I play: Acoustic blues & folk
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/sirwhale28/videos
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