Fingerstyle guitar with Neve style preamp

[lukegard22]

Okay friends, if you follow the link below, it should take you to a Google Drive file which is an mp3 I exported.
I am noodling between some bad flatpicking and bad fingerpicking.
Link to Audio

The mics are positioned like so - one close mic'd at the 16th fret, angled a little towards the soundhole; one above, aiming down, angled at the left shoulder of the upper bout. Sort of like the mic position discussed here.
This is the best position I have found for my big and boomy dreadnought. Brings out some high end clarity, but maintains the true tone of a dreadnought.
My dread, a D-18 style guitar, is strung up with Elixir Nickels, which are dry, yet have a jangle on the top end.

Mics are 440 MBHOs, into a Neve Portico 5012, gain at 24db, into the bypass channels of Steinberg UR44. I've added about 8db or so of gain in Ableton. No post processing other than the gain bump.
My room is not awesome, so the noise (birds, "hum") is the best I can do, currently. (As an aside, I'm open to acoustic treatment suggestions.)

Hope this helps anyone decide. I'm pretty stoked at how great the Neve sounds. Will be getting lots of use on my second album.

P.S. I am open to - and welcome - your audio critique and feedback. My goal for mic'ing and mixing the guitar is for it to feel like you're sitting in front of me and listening. Let me know what you think of the recording, not the playing, because it was pretty lazy playing.

[rockabilly69]

Originally Posted by sdelsolray

After years of trying numerous preamps for recording acoustic fingerstyle guitar, these are the two that have remained in my rack, a Pendulum MDP-1a and a dbx 786.

I was going to buy one of those DBX786 preamps but right before the guy shipped it he changed his mind! When they first were introduced they were very expensive preamps!!! I have the compressor made from the same series, the DBX160s, and it is one of the best comps I've ever used for transparent compression...


https://web.archive.org/web/20150606...ticles/dbx.htm

[jim1960]

Originally Posted by lukegard22

Okay friends, if you follow the link below, it should take you to a Google Drive file which is an mp3 I exported.
I am noodling between some bad flatpicking and bad fingerpicking.
Link to Audio

That sounds pretty **** good, Luke. My personal taste wants a bit more clarity in the low end but those highs sound nice and creamy to me without any shrillness at all.

Originally Posted by lukegard22

P.S. I am open to - and welcome - your audio critique and feedback. My goal for mic'ing and mixing the guitar is for it to feel like you're sitting in front of me and listening. Let me know what you think of the recording, not the playing, because it was pretty lazy playing.

Do you have bass traps in your room? If not, that might be a good next step to take and it will be cheaper than your new preamp.

[Trevor B.]

I hear quite a bit of low end rumble. The mids and highs sound fine. Have you applied a high pass filter?

[lukegard22]

Originally Posted by Trevor B.

I hear quite a bit of low end rumble. The mids and highs sound fine. Have you applied a high pass filter?

I think in the demo I had a HPF at 100.
I was messing around the other day and had the HPF cranked all the way to 250. That cut some rumble, but I felt the guitar suffered from it. 175 was a good happy medium.
I guess I need to look into spending some bucks on bass traps.

[Doug Young]

Bass traps and room treatment are always a good idea, but I don't hear a lot of room sound, or particularly anything I'd call rumble. The bass is perhaps just a tad strong (personal taste, I kind of like it). I think what people are hearing is proximity effect. You might just back mics up by an inch or 2. (Of course, then you may start hearing more room sound). I would avoid high-pass filters while tracking for solo guitar. You can always cut the bass in the mix, no reason to lock yourself permanently into a choice during tracking for a solo guitar tune.

[Scott Whigham]

That sounds great to me - you can hear the character of the guitar very well in that recording. First time I’ve heard of MBHO - always love/hate learning about “new to me” gear that sounds good 😀

[AcousticDreams]

Some people refer to MBHO microphones as the Poor man's Schoeps. Unfortunately in the USA there is only one place to get them(Dales Pro Audio)...and that makes demoing them a bit difficult. The European distributors such as No Hype Audio, you can purchase them for far less.

Personally I think you recording was very nice. Got that Beefy sound of a Dreadnought. As Doug mentioned, if desiring a little less low end, possibly backing up the 440's a few inches. Cardiods are well known for Proximity effect.

For myself, I sincerely hope to be purchasing some Schoeps. There off axis rejection is seemingly the best. However, very expensive.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by Trevor B.

I hear quite a bit of low end rumble.

I think of "rumble" as being ambient low end, not low end coming from the guitar. Is that what you're hearing?