Help needed achieving guitar tone

[boing]

Hi, I'm looking for some help trying to achieve an acoustic guitar recording like the song clip below. I know some of you might recognize the song because it was a big hit about 20 years ago.



What I'm looking for is help identifying how heavily produced the guitar is. Were there possibly several mics involved and what was their positioning, close or distant and what type of room does this sound like? Could the guitar be layered several times and then panned to each side? I know many of the answers I seek might be impossible, but any help would be great as I have not been able to get my guitar to sound anything close to the clarity of this clip.

Thanks.

[rick-slo]

Hard to say. Could be double take. Post recording stereo widening, delay, reverb, etc.

[mc1]

maybe this will help:

GW: Is "Name" played with an open tuning on acoustic guitar?

RZEZNIK: Yes: [from low to high] D A E A E E [see transcription in the Feb. '96 GW] Both the top strings are high E strings. Whenever I tried tuning a regular B string up to E, it would pop. it was really tough on the tension.
I've seen guys play "Name" with regular tuning. it doesn't sound right. I even saw a transcription of "Name" in regular tuning. There's no [] way that would sound right.

http://www.musicfanclubs.org/googood...isc/GW1996.htm

[Doug Young]

Very thin sound, maybe in part due to the 2 E strings. As Rick says, hard to know for sure, but listening to each side by itself, I have another guess: 2 mics, one fairly close (a foot or two) and one really far away - maybe back 10 or 20 feet, in a fairly lively room. Pan each track hard left and right. The right track has that "recorded in a cement basement" sound, and there's a significant delay between them. If we could download the track, we could probably measure the delay and compute how many feet away the mic was placed.

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

If we could download the track, we could probably measure the delay and compute how many feet away the mic was placed.

Here ya go Doug:
http://dcoombsguitar.com/Misc/AGF23.wav

[Doug Young]

I'm measuring 21ms between the initial pick attack on the left and the one on the right. Pretty easy to see the delay when you look at the stereo track. Clearly not just a track shift, tho, the 2 sides are very different, and the right side is much messier, probably more reflections. Delaying the right track to line them up, sort of coalesces them, but not by much. There's zero phase correlation between the tracks, and trying to sync them only gets them a tiny bit closer in phase.

It could be anything, but this could indicate a mic back around 20 feet. Sure isn't a sound I'd strive for! But perhaps it works in the context of this track.

[RRuskin]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

I'm measuring 21ms between the initial pick attack on the left and the one on the right. Pretty easy to see the delay when you look at the stereo track. Clearly not just a track shift, tho, the 2 sides are very different, and the right side is much messier, probably more reflections. Delaying the right track to line them up, sort of coalesces them, but not by much. There's zero phase correlation between the tracks, and trying to sync them only gets them a tiny bit closer in phase.

It could be anything, but this could indicate a mic back around 20 feet. Sure isn't a sound I'd strive for! But perhaps it works in the context of this track.

Call me old fashioned but if I got a sound like that, I'd go looking to see what broke in my recording chain.

[boing]

Thanks for all the input! Doug, are you speculating that the right side has both an intentional 21ms delay and a much more distant mic during a separate performance when compared to the left?

Yes, this "sound" may not be all that desirable in most cases, but I have a couple tracks I'd like to record that I think might benefit from it.

[Doug Young]

No, just the distant mic (sheer speculation of course). Sound travels 1000 feet a second, or 1 ms a foot. So a mic 20 feet back will be delayed by 20 ms compared to a close mic.

You might be able to simulate it with reverb and delay ( shudder :-) )

[boing]

As a matter of fact, the band recorded a second version of that song a few years ago and I think it really killed the original appeal, what do you think?

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by boing

As a matter of fact, the band recorded a second version of that song a few years ago and I think it really killed the original appeal, what do you think?

Sounds like same recording, but different post processing.

[wcap]

I wonder whether they used a different tuning in the second recording. I could easily be mistaken, but I'm not sure I'm hearing the 12-string-like double E string sound in the second clip.

[wcap]

...or this could be what is going on I guess...

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Sounds like same recording, but different post processing.

[boing]

Here is what my dry recording sounds like (I played the original track for comparison), do you think this can be post processed to sound more like the original?

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by boing

Here is what my dry recording sounds like (I played the original track for comparison), do you think this can be post processed to sound more like the original?

No problem more like it. If I have free time in the next day or two I will give it a whirl.