Post your recording acoustic setup

[Sage97]

My very simple set-up:

Computer: 2010 (or 2011?) iMac - can't remember specs but it has a big screen

MICS: Rode NTK for Vocals
Pair of Gefell M300 for guitars

DAW: Garageband

Interfaces: Apogee Duet

Preamps: None other than the Duet

External Storage HD's: 1 terabyte but can't remember the brand

Plug-in's: None

Monitors: Adam A7X

Headphones: Audio Technica M50

External Compressor: None

Cables: No earthly idea. Whatever mid priced item that GC had on sale.

Room Treatment: Built a new house and added a "bonus" 5 x 7 room in the attic. All walls double sheetrocked including floor. Actually wanted to wall it differently but the builder.....well that's another thread. Various Auralex items - bass traps on all corner ceilings, diffusers behind and above monitors. Various acoustic guitars on walls that I think add reverb...but I may just be imagining it. Found an unused foam seat padding and put it somewhere like I know exactly what I am doing.

Evolution
Recordings evolved from very amateurish to....very amateurish.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by alohachris

Aloha Doug,

Nice try. As you know, I don't know how to share music (easily), pictures or video online. Too much humbug for my brain. I guess I won't be doing it anytime soon.

Music's fun to make, but a lot better when someone hears it! You've put tons of effort into all this recording gear, you should share the results. If you can post to AGF, you can post an mp3 to soundcloud. Or create a CD and put it up on CD baby for sale. Or mail me (or one of many members here - I'm sure anyone would be glad to help) an mp3 and we'll post it for you.

[ocarolan]

Zoom H2 as USB microphone into Cakewalk Guitar Tracks software on PC. Couldn't be simpler.
Keith

[alohachris]

Mahalo Doug,

Doug, I've been sharing live music with people for half a century. I've never wanted to really do much more musically than just play for folks LIVE. I've tried to keep the business-end away, & from spoiling playing music for me. For most of my playing career, I've thought that recording was only about money. And I haven't cared about it that much - until the last few years!

I have a strange love-hate w/ recording. It goes back a long time & was honed in many studio's over time. I much prefer the connection-sharing aspect of live acoustic music - in real-time, rather than the one-way interaction street of recording.

I also rarely loved my earlier recorded music or the results all that much. So I've been in & out of it Of late, I got back into recording to play with the potential of computer-based home recording. If my hands cooperate, maybe I'll share some with friends. That's all I want out of it. However, the results must also satisfy my ears.

By always keeping a low live performance profile, always gigging on the periphery, I never attached myself to the local "scene" or any single genre, preferring solo performing. It gave me a lot of freedom in choosing when/where I wanted to play live - & for whom. I just follow that muse at its discretion.

I have always had a full-time day career. Music helps me balance that stress off. It sustains me too much spiritually to mix it up with things like sales & distribution. See? And until computer-based recording recently came online, recording my own stuff to my ears' satisfaction was simply too expensive & inconvenient.

At this stage, in the last year, I've cut back almost completely on live regular gigging. For myself & other giggers, there's been much less audience connection these past few years. And I never played live for any other reason. It's different now. I can let it go.

Now, I prefer to play alone at home, out in nature or at special parties & occasions, as I did when I first started playing - full circle. Guess it's just where I'm at this of my life now - nearly 65 y.o.. Time for the cave & more time in the ocean, Ha! It's been a big change from just a few years ago when I played out all the time, almost nightly.

Recording, & admittedly, the fun of learning about, chasing & moving through great gear, has become a solitary balancing endeavour for me now - the way gigging & other things did earlier in my life. Now, I just like to screw around with it at my leisure. It keeps me learning new stuff, good for an aging brain. So Doug, I just love going far into "alohaland" with no other intent for my recordings than just doing them. Ha!

Mostly, in my old studio, I would work at refining & experimenting with tracks. I truly believe that for me, sharing my recordings is NOT really that important. It's the playing/creation aspects that wholly embraces my soul - even if the only audience is me. Like you & everyone else on this site, a stereo recording of the pure, unprocessed sound of a well-mic'ed acoustic guitar just makes sense - on so many levels. It's basic to us.

Certainly, learning about & using great gear, & achieving that nice, natural acoustic sound on my guitars occasionally is reason enough to, well, to just do it, right?

As I try to encourage others on this site, there are lots of ways to approach recording, just as there are many different reasons for doing so.

Thank you for your generous offer(s) to help w/ my tracks, Doug. Maybe when I get fired up in a studio again, I'll give it try. Your recordings always provide a lot of inspiration to me. I trust your ears, which is rare. So has your open, above-the-call assistance to so many with their recordings. Bravo!

Mahalo a Nui, Doug!

alohachris

[Jeff Scott]

Mine is real basic these days, a pair of Audio Technica 4021s into a Marantz PMD661 to GarageBand.

A long time ago I had use of some nice old mics: Neumann U67s, U87s, KM84s, AKG 414s, 451s, 426b, Schoeps Colettes, , Altec "shaker" mics, 44BX, 77DX, WE 639B, into a modular Ward-Beck 12x4 console to a choice of recorders: Ampex 300, 350, 440 (several different versions) ATR104, Reverb by AKG, monitors by ADS.

[Rick Shepherd]

Alohachris, Although I am 52 years old now, I can appreciate what you said about the way you go about your music now. Things definitely change, don't they?

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by alohachris

Certainly, learning about & using great gear, & achieving that nice, natural acoustic sound on my guitars occasionally is reason enough to, well, to just do it, right?

Well, the beauty of doing music as a hobby is that whatever makes you happy is cool. I certainly enjoy just sitting at home and playing for myself.

But let me just encourage others, even if doesn't apply to you, Chris, to share the music somehow. The cool thing about the internet is that you don't have to go spend every night in a bar to connect with people and share music.

Maybe it's just me, but "publishing" something makes it real to me. Music, especially, is meant to be heard. There's a certain "if a tree falls in the woods" aspect to music if no one but the performer ever hears it. I'm kind of a nut about creating things and having them take off and fly without me. I've written quite a few books, tons of articles, way too much software, recorded CDs, made videos. There's a moment where you share it, where you get to say "it's done", and it lives on without you, and it's almost like it has a life of its own, and I had nothing to do with it. I really enjoy that moment of letting the finished product fly away, and that's important to me. So, no, I wouldn't be happy just recording something no one ever hears. I certainly have stuff I've recorded that I've never released, but those are failures, stuff I'm not happy enough with to want to share - if I don't enjoy it, I can't imagine anyone else will. On the other hand, if I am happy with something, I sort of imagine there's someone out there, somewhere, who might also enjoy it, so I want to share it.

There's also a "helping others" aspect. With you specifically, Chris, you expend a lot of effort helping others pick gear, which is fantastic. It'd be even more educational if you demonstrated what all that nice gear helps you do. You clearly enjoy teaching people, and showing why the gear you advocate is better by demonstrating the results you can achieve with it would be enlightening to many people, I'm sure. I don't mean to badger you, but really, if you have anything to share, I'd share it. Playing live is fine, I enjoy it, but you can reach an entire world with your music without even lugging your gear into the gig!

In any case, there's a lot of nice recording setups described on this thread, I hope everyone will use them to post more music, whether it's here on AGF, on a CD, or You Tube, or whatever.

[Rick Shepherd]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

There's also a "helping others" aspect. With you specifically, Chris, you expend a lot of effort helping others pick gear, which is fantastic. It'd be even more educational if you demonstrated what all that nice gear helps you do. You clearly enjoy teaching people, and showing why the gear you advocate is better by demonstrating the results you can achieve with it would be enlightening to many people, I'm sure. I don't mean to badger you, but really, if you have anything to share, I'd share it. Playing live is fine, I enjoy it, but you can reach an entire world with your music without even lugging your gear into the gig!

Chris, I would love to hear your music!

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by alohachris

Aloha Friends,


Kev, having seen both your basement & 'Jeffersons' studio's now, I can say that you really know how to set up a high quality, great pro level, & very esthetically pleasing recording space in any kind of space. Nice work!

Of course, I am thrilled, after last summer's close call (unreal: within feet of his house) with the Colorado fires, that you even have a recording studio, let alone a home. Ha! Talk about blessings.

In that domestic regard, my situation has dramatically changed as well. I had to leave my great, mountaintop, rainforest home of many years last summer. Personal reasons. Just had to.

That meant breaking down & putting into storage a whole house, a full-on guitar-making shop & most of my recording studio until my next home finds me. House-sitting at the beach for a friend on sabbatical now.

Hey thanks for the kind words
Sorry to here about moving, always a hassel. Even though time may well prove it to be one of those things that, in retrospect becomes simply part of the process of change ,a new color in the Tapestry of ones life.

I suppose my perspective is a bit unusual to most, in that moving has proved be an integral part of my life for the the past 45 years, including the last 30 of married life. Since my wife I got married and moved to Wyoming, we have moved 14 times. The purchase of our place in Colorado makes it our 24 th. real estate transaction in 30 yrs.

Restless spirit, who knows ? I guess our "Tapestry" has loads of color. It's just who we are and what we did.

As the Jefferson Airplane lyrics say " life is change, how it differs from the rocks"

[Joseph Hanna]

Hey Chris,

I fling sessions around the general Los Angeles area all day, every day. I've got several ways I can grab sessions from you I'd be more than happy to take some of your Logic sessions and get em in shape to post. I'll even help mix em if you're inclined??

[Cocobolo Kid]

Here is my acoustic guitar recording setup:



John

[alohachris]

Aloha John,

Very informative. Nice pictures of a well-organized & complete, pro-level, home rig set up. Great guitars. Great list of pro level recording gear.

Just curious, How do you like & how do you apply the Izotope Ozone 5? I've been interested in that plug-in. What sets it apart?

Big Beneteau fan here. Actually all the luthiers listed are first-rate. How do you like your Engleman/BRW Beneteau?

I see you're an Evidence cable fan too. I've had good luck with those on my vocals & can hear a difference.

What kind of music are you producing?

Mahalo for sharing your rig John.

A Hui Hou!
alohachris

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Cocobolo Kid

Here is my acoustic guitar recording setup:




John

John nice set up, hey what Kind of desk chair is that ?

[Cocobolo Kid]

Originally Posted by KevWind

John nice set up, hey what Kind of desk chair is that ?

It's a Herman Miller Aeron chair. It's very, very comfortable and durable. The arms rotate a little to the outside too, which is nice for playing guitar. I bought mine locally in Tucson, but they are very easy to find online. Here is a link:
http://store.hermanmiller.com/Produc...mpaign=Seating
When I bought mine, they came in three sizes, so I would recommend going to a store that stocks them to try them out before buying. I bought the middle size. I've had mine for 8 years and it still looks new. I highly recommend it.

By the way KevWind, I love what you did with your attic/penthouse space.

John

[Cocobolo Kid]

Originally Posted by alohachris

Aloha John,

Very informative. Nice pictures of a well-organized & complete, pro-level, home rig set up. Great guitars. Great list of pro level recording gear.

Just curious, How do you like & how do you apply the Izotope Ozone 5? I've been interested in that plug-in. What sets it apart?

Big Beneteau fan here. Actually all the luthiers listed are first-rate. How do you like your Engleman/BRW Beneteau?

I see you're an Evidence cable fan too. I've had good luck with those on my vocals & can hear a difference.

What kind of music are you producing?

Mahalo for sharing your rig John.

A Hui Hou!
alohachris

Thanks for the kind words Chris.

Part of my day job sometimes involves audio enhancement, so unfortunately I've been using my home setup for that more than recording my guitar playing. Plus, I'm probably like a lot of people and am never quite happy with my playing. I'm always striving and practicing to become a better player. However, I do plan on recording a few songs in January, so I will post some links to this thread when I have them uploaded.

Ozone 5 is a nice plugin. I bought it mainly for the metering and for using it to master any future recordings I do. I've used it a few times already in my audio enhancement endeavors and it worked nicely. It has a bit of a learning curve like most software. My go-to plugins, however, are the Universal Audio UAD-2 EQ's, compressors and mastering plugins.

I too am a big fan of Evidence Audio mic cables. I was skeptical at first, until I bought a cable to compare with my Mogami cables. I just recently bought two more 25' Evidence Audio cables for my main mics. They just arrived a few days ago, so I can't wait to try them out. I'm a high end cable junkie and these cables look and feel marvelous. They weigh several times more than my 25' Mogamis and I'm guessing the difference is all high grade copper!

My Beneteau Concert Standard in Englemann/Brazilian is a keeper for sure. This was a custom build for me, and Marc was a pleasure to work with. He's such a nice guy and an outstanding luthier. I think his guitars are a bargain for the money; well underpriced for someone who has made over 800 guitars by hand and keeps getting better every year. Marc built mine for fingerstyle, so it's highly responsive, has huge dynamics, and has a complex, woody tone. The bass is full, the midrange is fat, and the trebles sing with plenty of overtones (still great definition but the overtones are fantastic for solo guitar - I requested a guitar with plenty of overtones). Everything about the guitar is first class.

By the way Chris, I'm envious of your mic locker. I've been drooling over a stereo set of the Schoeps CMC 6, but I'm unsure which capsules would work best in my smallish room. I've heard some of Doug Young's tracks recorded with the Schoeps and they sound fantastic. On paper, I'm leaning toward the new MK22 open cardoid capsules, but I'm just not sure. At this point, I play and record mainly for my own enjoyment and the Schoeps are a big investment. If you get the MK22's please let me know how they compare to the other capsules for recording solo acoustic guitar.

Merry Christmas,
John