Critique of a Recording Appreciated

[D. Churchland]

Wow Doug, thanks so much for all that!

Now in answer your questions

My mic set up is sort of a broken XY pattern rather than a true XY. The two mics are both Large Diaphragm mics (An AT3035 and an AT2050) with the 3035 facing the bridge of the guitar about 13 inches or so away from the soundhole. It is facing the bridge at about a 40' angle. The 2050 was positioned closer to the soundhole and was about 10 inches away from it for more warmth I turned the 2050 to face the fingerboard at about a 50' angle.

And as for the change at 1:36 I think he did move while playing, I didn't even notice it until you pointed it out.

I did record it in a smallish room, it's about 10 ft to the ceiling, I use it because it has hardwood floors and that makes it a bit easier to control unwanted frequencies.

I think the brightleness you hear doug might just be his playing style, he uses VERY light strings with VERY low action, and he's tuning down a bit too for the DAEEAE tuning. Also, do you have an Email where I can contact you doug? if so, PM me, I'd like to discuss this further if I'm going to make an album with him then I'd like it to be the best that it can be.

[SpruceTop]

Too much reverb on the first song presentations! The playing is stunning but the reverb is too strident. Dialing-in a different reverb and tweaking it would sound better. Doug Young's remixes have a more subtle use of reverb and are more along the lines of what I like to hear in using reverb.

Regards,

SpruceTop

[Joseph Hanna]

Here's my critique.


Beautiful, wonderful, thoughtful, dynamic guitar playing by an obviously very talented person. The rest for me is semantics. Someone who plays that well is gonna be fairly easy to mix. Get a great room and a couple good mic's in the right spot and let the guy loose.

Very good stuff indeed.

Who is this?

[makikogi]

that really was some great playing. How about gating it a bit to quiet down the hissing. But yea what everyone else was saying, there's quite a bit of reverb, compression and eq out of those brighter frequencies. There's a fine line between expressive and brittle (also warm and muffled). I would definitely tweak your input gain levels. Definitely trust your ears, unifying (not sure if that's the correct term) your input level doesn't always sound best, really search for that sweet spot when adjusting your input gain.

[makikogi]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

Wow, great playing. That was so cool, I had to download the tracks and mess with them. I agree that the mix doesn't really flatter the piece. The raw tracks are better without any processing at all, and in fact perfectly fine as-is.

What mic setup did you use? The tracks aren't quite mono, but they're very close to it. Too close to be XY. Maybe you panned the mics inward in the mix?

A wider stereo image would be helpful, I think, tho this sounds quite good as-is. With playing this good, most everything else doesn't matter.

I hear a slight bit of brittleness on the highs. What mics are you using? it's not really unpleasant, and may be the way it sounded live, but it reinforces that you don't want to brighten up the mix any further.

There's something odd at 1:36 in Ryan1, a sudden shift in the image. An edit? Did he move while playing? The stereo image is different before this point, and then abruptly changes and the change continues to the end

Your levels are a tad hot, and you have some clipping in a few places. With digital, at least if you have 24 bits, there's no need to record that hot.

There's a boom at about 100Hz on some of the bass notes. Did you record this in a small room? 100 Hz is a mode point in many typical bedrooms.

Here's what I would do with these tracks (which is really very little):

http://www.dougyoungguitar.com/mp3/Ryan1_dy.mp3

What did I do?

Applied a clipping repair process
A little multi-band compression just to tame the 100Hz peaks
roll off everything below about 30Hz
A little reverb
faded the tail out so it doesn't end so abruptly

But all in all, a really nice recording, no EQ needed on the guitar other than the 100 Hz problem. I'd probably do a little more if I was really diving into this, clean up some stray noises, and listen more closely for some wolfy notes, but this is what I'd go for, I think. I might even skip the reverb.

For a more extreme example, this mix adds some stereo widening. This would sound better if it was done naturally with the mic placement, but maybe it gives an idea:

http://www.dougyoungguitar.com/mp3/R...stereoized.mp3

fun fun! me too!

http://www.box.net/shared/g2kxyhfs9k

ok just in case people were wondering...eq'd, mild compression, bit of verb, gated a bit also....sorry for the low volume, just your speakers a bit of a boost.

[Raystrack]

Fascinating thread.

I like what Doug did but also like what you tried to achieve with that 'splashy' reverb. I think that could be reintroduced after the problems of clipping etc. have been eliminated.

When Sound On Sound magazine gave my room a makeover, the editor (who records Jansch and Giltrap) advised not to use stereo X Y mic placement as any movement by the player will be accentuated - proven on this project.

When we experimented with various mics (he likes Rodes NT55s) and configurations in my room we found a single large condensor placed about 12" out from the bottom of the lower bout (and facing the saddle) gave the best tone - I noticed in a James Taylor video this was the position his engineer used as well - though he was using an SM81 from a bit further out. I guess you get less string scrape.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan0...iosos_0108.htm

I've found the worst place is to have them facing the sound hole as it's all boomy. Where the neck joins the body is another good place for a woody sound that also picks up some string noise - great for percussive strumming (see pics of Beatles' recording sessions)