Beginner needing help recording acoustic guitar and vocal together with two mics.

[min7b5]

Originally Posted by one1002

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I would like to get into recording myself playing and singing for cover songs with my acoustic guitar..
1. Using ONE mic to record BOTH vocal and acoustic guitar at the same time...

I’m no expert -just a guy drinking coffee and spouting off on the AGF again this morning.. But I personally would focus on using just one microphone for both. Using two microphones on a singing acoustic guitarist is a notoriously difficult thing to do well. There’s a good limited podcast called “Somewhere Sound,” where during the pandemic this young guy somehow gets basically all the biggest name engineers of our time on there to talk about, among other things, about how they mic and treat every instrument. And just about all of them when asked about recording a singing acoustic guitar player started with a sigh before talking about how tricky that is to do well. It’s not just the bleed (which is often cool, but usually not here) but also the phase…

And than here’s a random over-budget suggestion If I was a singer/acoustic guitar player (not interested in making solo stereo instrumental guitar recordings) and wanted to make videos at home to share online and maybe do gigs too, I’d personally save longer and get a single used Ear Trumpet Labs Edwina and use it as demonstrated in that single mic Neumann video someone mentioned. Sounds great, picks up somewhat less of the room than other condensers.. And again, bonus; you’d have a great, simple and proven live rig to boot.. Maybe there's a lower priced single mic like that, I don't know.

[Al Acuff]

The Neumann video series on recording a singer songwriter covers the standard microphone choices and positions. BUT keep in mind that the Neumann videos are shot and recorded in a beautiful large recording studio. The performer is far away from the walls. The room has a nice ambience.

If you are recording voice and guitar in a typical home studio you are much more limited. The one mic method and the dueling figure eight method aren't practical if you have walls nearby due to slap echoes and comb filtering. Dynamic microphones designed for stage use can produce excellent results.

[min7b5]

If someone also just happened to be a member of the subscription site Puremix, I just rewatched the short video https://puremix.com/library/tutorial...ngwriter-1-mic different approaches to recording a singer/acoustic guitarist with just one mic. Lots of good A/B'ing of Different distances, gobo/no gobos, small room vslarge room, cardioid/omni... Great stuff.