Live Acoustic sound vs Recorded sound

PANDAPANDELO · #1 09-21-2019, 06:33 AM

Hi there, everybody!

I have a Martin HD28 with a HFN passive in it, and sometimes I record my live sound with my QSC Touchmix8. My recorded vocals are great! But, unfortunately, my acoustic sound recorded is horrible. Lifeless, poor... just a bad acoustic sound, overall. The weird thing is that live, my acoustic sound is great!

I have already recorded my acoustic sound with a LR Baggs M80, and the sund was bad, too. Way worse than the live sound. Just as it occurs to me now, with the HFN.

Do you guys have any idea of what could I do, or is if it is normal?

Thank you!

stevecuss · #2 09-21-2019, 07:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PANDAPANDELO

Hi there, everybody!

I have a Martin HD28 with a HFN passive in it, and sometimes I record my live sound with my QSC Touchmix8. My recorded vocals are great! But, unfortunately, my acoustic sound recorded is horrible. Lifeless, poor... just a bad acoustic sound, overall. The weird thing is that live, my acoustic sound is great!

I have already recorded my acoustic sound with a LR Baggs M80, and the sund was bad, too. Way worse than the live sound. Just as it occurs to me now, with the HFN.

Do you guys have any idea of what could I do, or is if it is normal?

Thank you!

That is pretty normal. We're dealing with 3 dynamics here: live sound, professionally recorded sound in a studio or professional live setting, and recording your pickup.

Live sound: you love the sound of your pickup live. That's a huge win, but it is designed specifically for that purpose and not for recording.

Prof studio or live: involves very expensive high end mics, preamps and effects like compressors etc.

So you're probably comparing your recorded pickup sound to those two above and being disappointed. If you stuck a decent mic in front of your guitar, with decent preamp etc and JUST recorded it with your live vocal (which is using a decent mic) and didn't send that signal out live at all, you'd probably be much happier with your recorded acoustic sound.

When I was first learning all this stuff, I walked into a guitar store with Ashley Cleveland's "Big Town" cd and asked them to sell me a pickup that made my guitar sound like her acoustic on that album. They laughed good naturedly and explained the 6 figures of equipment that probably went into her recorded acoustic sound.

KevWind · #3 09-21-2019, 07:48 AM

First you should probably list all the components you are using to record and then playback/monitor your recorded sound as any and all of these can and will affect the result.

Second this thread probably belongs in the record section to get more and more targeted replies . I can move it if you like . Kev

Woodstock School Of Music · #4 09-21-2019, 07:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PANDAPANDELO

Hi there, everybody!

I have a Martin HD28 with a HFN passive in it, and sometimes I record my live sound with my QSC Touchmix8. My recorded vocals are great! But, unfortunately, my acoustic sound recorded is horrible. Lifeless, poor... just a bad acoustic sound, overall. The weird thing is that live, my acoustic sound is great!

I have already recorded my acoustic sound with a LR Baggs M80, and the sund was bad, too. Way worse than the live sound. Just as it occurs to me now, with the HFN.

Do you guys have any idea of what could I do, or is if it is normal?

Thank you!

A pickup recorded direct often sounds exactly like you described

PANDAPANDELO · #5 09-21-2019, 08:14 AM

KevWind, please! Can you move my thread, please? Thank you very much!

Ah... and thank you all for the feedback! I liked the suggestion, stevecuss!

GuitarLuva · #6 09-21-2019, 08:32 AM

I'm also really happy with my live plugged in sound with the HFN. I haven't recorded an actual song using the HFN, but when I'm messing around playing through my DAW I use a waves plugin called Apex Exciter and it does wonders for the pickup sound IMO. I'm pretty sure you can get the same thing in a pedal.

KevWind · #7 09-21-2019, 08:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PANDAPANDELO

KevWind, please! Can you move my thread, please? Thank you very much!

Ah... and thank you all for the feedback! I liked the suggestion, stevecuss!

Yes no problem

Brent Hahn · #8 09-21-2019, 09:36 AM

The room you're recording in matters a lot.

shufflebeat · #9 09-22-2019, 08:58 AM

The dry pickup sound is often horrible to listen to when isolated but can be greatly improved by the use of convolution reverb. A little ironically, the upside is that the drier and less complex the original sound, the more useful it can be in triggering a complex IR, as used with convolution reverb.

I'm a Cockos Reaper user and fan and find the Reaverb plugin is perfect for this application. Try for free, buy for incredibly cheap, by the way.