Got a Zoom H6! Looking for any and all advice. ;)

[Fleece]

My initial impressions are very favorable -- it's a nice elegant recording solution that kills several birds with one stone.

That said, I'm hoping to avoid reinventing the wheel, and am curious if my fellow acoustic players can offer some best practices regarding placement, gain levels, etc.

My initial experimentation has involved simply placing it on my desk and aiming it more or less at the 12th fret, less than 2 feet away, gain at about 7, and then normalizing it before dropping the resulting file into Ableton for tweaking.

My biggest challenge thus far is that it's bass heavy, and it picks up my breathing and string squeaks quite noticeably. Attaching the foam seems to help a bit, but I can't help but wonder if placement is the main issue. I confess that I really don't know what I'm doing.

Any tips or suggestions would be most welcome! I'm hoping to start using it with my DSLR camera, but fear it will take a lot of experimentation before I get there.

[M19]

Can't do any better than "our own" Fran Guidry and Doug Young!

http://www.homebrewedmusic.com/

http://www.dougyoungguitar.com/recording.htm

[KevWind]

My guess is the placing on the desk that is a major part of the problem (reflecting excess sounds up to the mics). Can you mount it on a mike stand with an adaptor?

[Fran Guidry]

Originally Posted by Fleece

...
My initial experimentation has involved simply placing it on my desk and aiming it more or less at the 12th fret, less than 2 feet away, gain at about 7, and then normalizing it before dropping the resulting file into Ableton for tweaking.

My biggest challenge thus far is that it's bass heavy, and it picks up my breathing and string squeaks quite noticeably. ...

Bass heavy - proximity effect, perhaps you're miking closer than you think?

Breathing and string squeak - I think the common recommendation of aiming at the 12th fret with fairly close placement might not be the best for many of us. It puts the mics close to your head and hands and is not every well balanced left to right. I'm more likely to mic like Doug does, straight out from the soundhole about 18"-24" a few inches above or below the soundhole line.

I adjust gain up until a sharp strum makes the clip light blink, then back down a fraction. This works well for my fingerstyle stuff, it might not work for a heavy strummer.

The metering on the H6 is my biggest issue with the recorder, clearly it wasn't designed for self-recorded "Look At Me Play Guitar" recording. But at least the channel/clip lights are visible and useful.

Fran

[Trevor B.]

Originally Posted by Fran Guidry

Bass heavy - proximity effect, perhaps you're miking closer than you think?

Breathing and string squeak - I think the common recommendation of aiming at the 12th fret with fairly close placement might not be the best for many of us. It puts the mics close to your head and hands and is not every well balanced left to right. I'm more likely to mic like Doug does, straight out from the soundhole about 18"-24" a few inches above or below the soundhole line.
Fran

Hey Fran,
So if someone (myself comes to mind) is recording a stereo track with a spaced pair configuration, where, ideally, would each mic be pointing?

[GHS]

I'm kind'a new to this too but I have learned some things. My Olympus LS-10 recorder has a low freq cut off switch. I guess the designers saw this problem coming, sounds a whole lot better with the lows cut. Second, if you have a line-in jack, use it. I put my mics thru a mixer then direct with 1/8" connector to the recorder. Whole world of difference with this, mixer helps a lot I guess. The foam covers are meant to help with wind noise.

[paulp1960]

Have you set it to record at 24 bits? If not you should set it for 24 bit recording.

I always record at 44.1 khz as my ears don't hear anything above about 11 khz these days.

It might be worth investing in a mic stand adapter and a mic stand which would increase your options for positioning the recorder.

If breath noise is a problem you could have the recorder pointing up at the guitar slightly from below to maximize the distance from your mouth/nose.

Coated strings might reduce the string noise you are hearing.

I wouldn't normalize the recording on the recorder. I would load it into my DAW and do any processing like removing a lot of guff below 100 hz and other fine tuning of eq.

As many others have pointed out before me if you don't have a room treated for recording and also for monitoring accurately you'll be lucky to get "pro" results but you can still have fun and learn about recording and mixing and make some decent demos.

[Fleece]

Thanks everyone for the very helpful advice and links!

The first thing I'm going to do is get a stand for it so I can get the Zoom off my desk and try some more creative positioning.

And though I love Pearse strings, I must admit they're perhaps not the best for recording -- I'm going to give Elixirs a go.

[Doug Young]

I wonder if you're more in front of the soundhole than you think. There's nothing about the Zoom itself that should be bass heavy. The recording circuitry and the mics should be quite flat. But placement can make dramatic differences. if you're really 24 inches away that shouldn't be proximity effect.

[Fran Guidry]

Originally Posted by Trevor B.

Hey Fran,
So if someone (myself comes to mind) is recording a stereo track with a spaced pair configuration, where, ideally, would each mic be pointing?

Actually, I'm not the spaced pair guy, I'm the (last of the?) coincident miking guy(s). Doug Young, sdelsolray, and rick-slo are the spaced pair gang.

When I do use a spaced pair I don't visualize it in terms of where the mic is "pointing" on the instrument. I place the mics at some spacing, probably around 15" or so depending on what I've been reading on Gearslutz (grin), then position the guitar about 18"-24" away from the mic pair, and move side to side until i hear a left-right balanced signal in a pair of isolating headphones or on a test clip. I think this is the technique Doug Young described in a recent thread as well.

Fran

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Fran Guidry

Actually, I'm not the spaced pair guy, I'm the (last of the?) coincident miking guy(s). Doug Young, sdelsolray, and rick-slo are the spaced pair gang.

When I do use a spaced pair I don't visualize it in terms of where the mic is "pointing" on the instrument. I place the mics at some spacing, probably around 15" or so depending on what I've been reading on Gearslutz (grin), then position the guitar about 18"-24" away from the mic pair, and move side to side until i hear a left-right balanced signal in a pair of isolating headphones or on a test clip. I think this is the technique Doug Young described in a recent thread as well.

Fran

Yep that's been my approach for a long time. "Spaced Pairs" can mean lots of things. Often people tell you to aim one mic at the 12th/14th fret and another below the bridge. I always found that to sound a bit unnatural and unbalanced. (But I haven't tried that in a long time, who knows, maybe I'd like it if I tried it again) I typically space the mics 15 inches apart +/- sit usually around 12 inches away from the mics and move around, watching meters till I'm balanced.

[Doug Young]

Fleece, don't know if this is useful, but here's a short clip I recorded with the H6, using the internal mics, posted some time back here. This is with a very dark guitar, and in a lowered tuning, and of course may be nothing like what you're trying to capture. This was probably with the positioning Fran and I described.

[StringFive]

Doug. As usual, your playing is just beautiful.

[Riakstonic]

Jumping in late and not as experienced as many of you folks is the H6 simular to the H4 ? I know the 6 is the newest one right ?

For breathing it's all control and beating ones self to remember that you need to control the breath ... Mental note to self every time you click on .

Same if you sing controlling your breathing not so easy at first .

I set my mic levels on H4 at 75% last song I did outside and placed on a deck table about 4ft away fingerpicking came out good .

There's also an auto level setting does yours have that ?

If you have a camera stand and the H6 has the screw hole on the back as the H4 it'll fit right in .

Again not up on H6 but play with the 90/120 degrees Mic position

My biggest issue with H4 is handling noise / case noise very sensitive .

Ok good luck