Recording acoustic guitar

gtrlog · #1 12-26-2010, 11:30 AM

I 'm having trouble getting a good recorded acoustic guitar sound. I have a Martin D-18 GE and an AKG perception 200 mic. The mike seems to work great for vocals but, I'm struggling the the AC gtr sound. Any good recording mic recommendations for recording AC guitar ?

eflatminor · #2 12-26-2010, 11:38 AM

What is 'the AC guitar sound'?

Glennwillow · #3 12-26-2010, 11:45 AM

The AKG Perception 200 is a cardioid large diaphragm condenser mic. It should make a decent recording of a guitar except that the bass will tend to be boosted because of the proximity effect caused the cardioid mic design. There is a roll-off switch on the mic that you could try to see if that helps. I have found with guitar recordings made with cardioid mics that you either have to have the mic (or mics) about 24" away from the guitar to avoid the bass boost caused by the proximity effect, or else you have to roll off the bass on your EQ settings on your mixer.

You very likely already know this, but I will note here that all condenser mics require phantom power, so be sure that you have that available on your mic preamp or mixer and that it's turned on. Condenser mics don't work well without phantom power applied.

I have used large diaphragm condenser mics for guitar recording but have found that my best results come from the use of those with omni capabilities so that I don't have to deal with the proximity effect. I believe the Perception 400 uses 2 diaphragms to achieve this.

My best results have come from a pair of small diaphragm condenser mics. I mostly use a pair of Rode NT5 small diaphragm mics http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/NT5/ set up in an X-Y configuration and placed about 18-24" away from the guitar to again minimize the proximity effect. Small diaphragm condensers respond a little better to the high frequencies from an acoustic guitar and allow that sparkle to come through on the recording compared to large diaphragm mics. A good approach is to use one large diaphragm omni mic for room sound while also using a pair of small diaphragm mics in an X-Y configuration closer to the guitar (18-24"). Set the mixer for most of the sound to come from the small diaphragm mics while the large diaphragm mics adds a little room sound.

Hope this provides a little help.

Regards, Glenn

Doug Young · #4 12-26-2010, 12:29 PM

Recording in stereo with 2 mics helps a lot, usually. Just do a search for mic placement on acoustic guitar, and you will see that common setups AB/spaced pairs, XY, ORTF, and so on.

I haven't used that mic, but I see no reason it shouldn't work fine. The conventional wisdom is "small condensers", but that's just rumor. Lots of good recordings get made with large condensers, and tracks from the Beatles to Tommy Emanuel have been recorded using them. Its unlikely that most people could tell a recording made with small mics from those made with large mics. Conventional wisdom also tells you to back off to past the proximity point: 16 inches or more, and that's worth a try. That works best if you have pro-quality acoustics in your recording space. If not, close micing is probably going to work better. Try 8 inches from the 14th fret. if you have a 2nd mic, try it 8 inches from the bridge. Move and try things until it sounds good. If you've done 100 cycles of record/listen/move mics/try again, you're just getting started :-) Play something *very* short so you waste less time, and converge on a good sound faster. Also, it really helps to have a reference track, something commercially recorded who's sound you're shooting for. Something to atune your ears to.

As with so many questions on this board, if you will post a sound clip so that people hear what you currently are doing, you'll get much more accurate and meaningful advice on what you could do to improve.

kellyb · #5 12-26-2010, 04:01 PM

It would definitely help to know what you're not liking about the sound you're getting...maybe you said already.

kellyb · #6 12-26-2010, 04:05 PM

i think from your post you're looking for mic recommendations?

the perception will be a little on the thin side...for acoustic, these are great mics for the money ($2-400), and would easily pull double duty for gtr/vox

Audio Technica: 4033, 4050 (multipattern version of 4033), and 4047 (transformer, darker). Their small diaphram mics are great too...the pro 37r, if you can find one, are usually $100. The 4051 is an awesome mic, but more $.

Shure: KSM 27/32/44...all great mics.

there are bunch of others, but these are just about everywhere...