Best companion mic for a Zoom H4N?

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by justonwo

Great suggestions. So you're saying to try aligning the mics horizontally with the sound hole and vertically with the top edge of the guitar? Adjust to taste to get the stereo balance correct?

Right, I'd start there at least. If you try other spots, you can turn the Zoom to try to get a balanced sound.

So I've always tried to adjust the levels to just hit 0 dB at the loudest point in my song.

Nope, that gets done in mastering. The idea of maximizing levels comes from the days of tape, where you had to record hot to maximize signal to noise ratio. With digital, the most important thing is to not clip. You can go quite low and still be fine. Shoot for your maximum peak being maybe -6db, average level around -20db +/-. You need to leave headroom for an unexpected extra loud note. Even when mixing, you typically keep levels low. When I send stuff to a mastering engineer, it's usually still around -6db peak. That gives him room to work, if he needs to boost something. The very last step in mixing/mastering is to bring the song up to release levels. Till then, don't try to max out, try to avoid being too hot.

[justonwo]

Wow, this is such great advice. I'm excited to get home and try out some different techniques. I'll try to post some before/after comparisons.

[justonwo]

One last question before I go test things again . . . my Red Bear thumb pick, which I love for it's responsiveness/strength, it's a super stiff thumb pick . . . and I'm guessing that's why it's more inclined to make little clicking sounds as it makes contact with the strings. Normally, that doesn't bother me so much when I'm playing, but it shows up somewhat prominently on a recording. Does that mean I need to use a softer pick or is there some way to minimize picking noise with mic placement or other tricks?

[Doug Young]

Recording tends to reveal all those noises we didn't realize we were making. I don't know of any recording tricks for this, but maybe someone else has ideas.

[justonwo]

Well, the overall sound is definitely improving just by normalizing both channels and then remixing.

http://www.jus-tone.com/misc/recordi...anik_Picks.mp3

and

http://www.jus-tone.com/misc/recordi...ranik_Pick.mp3

Compared to this relatively quiet and subdued recording I was getting earlier.

http://www.jus-tone.com/misc/recordi..._Man_Blues.mp3

This is all still with the recording at the 12 fret and the unbalanced levels. I'm going to have to play around with the mic placement to improve the overall sound quality and to limit the pick noise.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by justonwo

Compared to this relatively quiet and subdued recording I was getting earlier.

http://www.jus-tone.com/misc/recordi..._Man_Blues.mp3

This sounds like mono? Do you gave the original raw file?

[Fran Guidry]

One of the things I found that really improved my recordings was learning the importance of the playback volume knob.

My first inclination was to judge the success of a recording on how loud it was, because louder recordings sound fuller, richer, better in every way right up to the point of distortion.

But trying to maximize tracking volume brings on a bunch of other problems and adds a lot of unnecessary stress. Analog audio was recorded with the average level around -20 dBFS and the analog parts of our digital recording chain are still optimized around that level.

So the great trick is to record at a level that seems very quiet ... and turn up the volume on playback. When you normalize, you're doing essentially the same thing as turning up the playback volume, but you're using it to disguise another problem - mic placement and balance. So keep the levels down, turn up the playback volume, and hear and address the issue of getting a balanced signal. When you use stereo array like XY think of yourself as miking the space rather than the instrument. Put the mics where a pair of ears would hear a good balanced sound. This is just another way of saying the same thing Doug has suggested.

When you get into using separate mics you can experiment more readily with "miking the instrument" instead of miking the space.

Fran

[justonwo]

So, wait, you're suggesting that the sound not be normalizing at the very end of the recording? It sounds like Doug is saying that I should record at a low level and then normalize as a very last step. Fran, are you saying to keep the recording low and also master it low so that I need to turn way up on my stereo? Or are you suggesting the same thing as Doug and I'm just misunderstanding you?

[Doug Young]

I think Fran's saying the same thing as me. You don't need to worry about the level until you "release" the track. If you have a CD put out, that means having it mixed and mastered. If it's posting it here as an mp3, bring it up then. But you don't have to worry about hitting 0 db while recording. I would worry about balance while recording, instead of trying to fix the relative balance later. You can always fine tune with the pan control, if it's off by a tiny bit, but you want to get very close to balanced with mic placement.

[justonwo]

Ok, I've got it. Yeah, those tracks above are just an attempt to fix bad recordings since I haven't had time to try these tricks you have mentioned. I will definitely try playing around with mic placement and lower levels. Perhaps that will help to mitigate picking noise as well.

Just so I'm clear, is "normalizing" the standard process for bringing the level up when you're finally done, or is some other technique used for that?

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by justonwo

Just so I'm clear, is "normalizing" the standard process for bringing the level up when you're finally done, or is some other technique used for that?

"Normalizing" is a feature of many DAWs. It's an automated process just scans your file, finds the highest peak, and then turns up the whole file so that that peak is 0 db (or whatever value you specify). You can also just increase the gain manually, watching any peak meter you have. I almost never "normalize". The main message here, th,o, is to not even worry about getting the recording loud - that's the last step, when you're happy with everything, just so when people play your track it's about the same level as other things.

[justonwo]

Well, I played around with mic placement and balance a little bit this evening and things definitely seem to be moving in the right direction. The playing is somewhat rushed and sloppy . . . trying to pay more attention to the sound than anything.

My favorite locations were at the upper edge and lower edge of the guitar, horizontally aligned with the sound hole. I think I prefer the lower edge since it's not as woofy. Quite a learning curve here.

Lower Edge of Guitar

Upper Edge of Guitar

[Doug Young]

I think you're on the right track, sounding pretty good. You might post mp3s instead of wav (46M each!) to get more people to listen. Every guitar's different, so you have to find the sweet spot. You can move up and down, and also adjust the distance from the guitar to eliminate boominess. At this point, I've probably spent hundreds and hundreds of hours, recording, listening, moving the mic an inch and doing it again. It definitely takes time and experimenting. With the builtin H4N mics, you're limited to X/Y (tho try the wide setting on the mics as well as the narrower). If you go to external mics, then you add in dozens of different possibilities to experiment with - more time! But you're sounding pretty good, balance is good, levels are ok - you're still pretty hot on the louder parts, but not overdriving at least.

[justonwo]

Thank so much for helping through some of the basics. Getting "permission" to move the mic around is a big help, I think.

I guess the question is, how much should I expect the sound quality to improve if I get, say, a couple of Peluso CEMC6 mics to try different techniques. Is it a significant improvement or relatively modest? Worth the investment or should I focus on the H4n mics?

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by justonwo

Thank so much for helping through some of the basics. Getting "permission" to move the mic around is a big help, I think.

Yep, don't get locked in. Try everything :-)

I guess the question is, how much should I expect the sound quality to improve if I get, say, a couple of Peluso CEMC6 mics to try different techniques. Is it a significant improvement or relatively modest? Worth the investment or should I focus on the H4n mics?

It's hard to argue against the increase in quality, I mean the mics in the Zoom probably cost a few bucks. That said, I think they sound pretty good, and depending on what you want to do with your recordings, could be all you ever need. The most easily noticeable advantage of using external mics is all the other mic placement options you get. Spaced pairs, ORTF, the over-the-shoulder thing that's been discussed in another thread, MS, on and on, you can't do with the fixed X/Y mics. On the other than, that just gives you more work to do, and more ways to mess up. I'd think for solo guitar you could get close enough to a professional sounding recording that only experts would notice - and maybe not even then - with the built-in mics. There's so much more to learn about mixing, editing, reverb, EQ, not to mention focusing on getting a great performance with the recorder running, you could easily make the case for waiting until you feel like you've done all you can do with the built-in mics, and need something more. Of course, if you see yourself being serious about recording, and have the cash, nothing wrong with getting some mics that will serve you well in the long run. For solo guitar, adding upgraded mics to the Zoom is probably a better bang-for-the-buck investment than diving into other hardware, like preamps and converters and so on.