My most indispensable plug-in for Recording Acoustic Guitar

[Kenny B]

Recently while recording DCN’s acoustic guitar, I decided to take a chance to see if a better mix could be done. I contacted Doug Young for some help and he was gracious enough to do a fantastic sounding mix down of the raw files and afterwards point to some of the plug-ins he has been using.

It just so happens that I was aware of my mix downs not sounding that good or having an imbalance in sound which I could not attribute to anything in particular. Basically, I had been using three mics with the center mic being used to compensate for some very off sounding phase and timing issues. Doug mixed down with just two mics and used an array of plug-ins to control the EQ, Compression, Reverb, and Limiting. But most importantly, he corrected my phase and timing issues with the plug-in Auto Align 2 by Sound Radix.

I have since bought this plug-in and have found it indispensable for recording acoustic guitar with multiple mics. In fact, perhaps the only time I would not use this plug-in would be if I was only using one mic. I call it indispensable because I could easily swap out any of the other plug-ins and still get a good sound. There are dozens of great plug-ins that do EQ, Compression, Reverb, Limiting, etc. But if your source has phase/timing issues, all bets are off in achieving a great sound.

I won’t go into the details on how Auto Align 2 works, but it does a great job or fixing mic placement issues that otherwise might go unnoticed.

Going forward, I am in the process of remastering many of the tracks I have recorded in the past and will continue to use this plug-in on my future recordings. The difference it makes is really amazing. I went back to just using two mics and really have to once again give a big shout out to Doug Young for being so helpful and free with his time and expertise.

[rick-slo]

About $389 for plug-in. Demo plug-in available? Recording before and after plug-in use if available would be nice to listen to.

[Doug Young]

It's kind of hard to create a demo of this, Rick. But you can imagine, and I guess one could be contrived (or maybe Kenny can post a bit of the before/after of the one he's describing). If you have mics out of phase, then this plugin will align them, with the improvement you expect - the exact effect will depend on the exact phase offset you had. If the mics are already properly placed and aligned, then it's going to have no impact. Especially noticeable if summing to mono, of course, but also noticeable in stereo if the problem is bad enough.

For me, one of the nice features is that it tells you in samples, or distance (inches or cm) how far off the mics are. So you can use it as a learning tool. If you discover your mics are 2 inches off, you can use the plugin to correct that, or move the mic! So over time, I've used the plugin less - I usually check it at least when I use more than 2 mics, but ideally it tells me all is well. In some ways, you can get this same info from a correlation meter, tho those tend to bounce around, which might be less handy than just a report that overall one mic is 2ms behind the other (and of course, push a button to fix it if you want).

It's really handy with multiple sources, 3 or more mics, just because of the added complexity, and especially if you record with a DI, since the pickup's pretty sure to be mis-aligned with external mics. I think the company's target is drums, where phasing issues get crazy with mic'd up drum sets.

[jim1960]

Agreed. I've been singing the praises of Auto-Align here for a lot of years. I'm still using the original version but I don't think the results differ very much between the original and A-A2. I had no clue as to how much sound I was losing when I recorded anything in stereo. The first time I used A-A I was pretty shocked to hear thin tracks come alive with so much heft. An amazing plugin, for sure!

[rick-slo]

With two mike stereo recording at least it's easy enough to time adjust by ear to the point where is sounds best. More than two mikes I have not experimented with.

[shufflebeat]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

With two mike stereo recording at least it's easy enough to time adjust by ear to the point where is sounds best. More than two mikes I have not experimented with.

I've had lots of fun (+/-) aligning bodhran (drum) mics in Reaper. A couple of mics on one drum is a challenge, any more than that would be 3d chess, for which I'm not equipped.

[Cocobolo Kid]

I bought Melda MAutoAlign, which has a similar feature set. It is on sale now for $27.

Like Doug mentioned above, MAutoAlign will also tell you in samples, or distance (inches or cm) how far off the mics are from being in proper phase. It is extremely easy to use too: just insert it on every track, open one of the instances, click "analyze" to see/hear the results, and then use "bypass all" to hear the difference between the unaligned (original) and phase-aligned tracks.

https://www.meldaproduction.com/MAutoAlign

[min7b5]

Very cool. I've wondered about this plugin quite a bit recently myself. I'm curious if it works on a stereo track or do need to have each mic on it's own track?

[keith.rogers]

Originally Posted by Cocobolo Kid

I bought Melda MAutoAlign, which has a similar feature set. It is on sale now for $27.

Like Doug mentioned above, MAutoAlign will also tell you in samples, or distance (inches or cm) how far off the mics are from being in proper phase. It is extremely easy to use too: just insert it on every track, open one of the instances, click "analyze" to see/hear the results, and then use "bypass all" to hear the difference between the unaligned (original) and phase-aligned tracks.
...

$25 at Sweetwater right now (though maybe added tax equals it out?).

I wonder if it would help with 2 mics on guitar + vocal, where there's always a bit of bleed. I have noticed when I go back and listen to a couple of old experiments that a single mic, [luckily] placed in a good spot, seems to have a little better "heft" quality, even in mono, than some of those 2 mic experiments, though, of course, I've changed everything.... I'm kind of itching to try this just to see what it does on those.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by min7b5

Very cool. I've wondered about this plugin quite a bit recently myself. I'm curious if it works on a stereo track or do need to have each mic on it's own track?

No, it won't adjust one side of a stereo track. I mostly use it myself when recording with more than 2 mics and have more channels. If needed, I can use iZotope RX, which has a similar feature that will handle a stereo track.

[dcn]

Hi everybody! This is Diogo (dcn) the guy in the lucky position to have Ken close by to record with.

Below is an example of a recording from that session w/ Ken, in which Doug tweaked the mix with Auto-Align 2. This is an original tune I wrote late last year.

Big thanks again to Ken and Doug for their generosity and expertise.

[DupleMeter]

I use AutoAlign Post a lot for movies/shorts. it's awesome & just about the only way to keep 2 moving sources aligned (in the case of movies, a boom & a LAV). I have used it to fix recordings I've gotten from others, but I have to point out that when you are recording, you need to check the phase relationship in multi mic setups & adjust before you hit record.

So, I would never say this is a must for mixing. In fact, if you are using it often in mixes...you probably need to work on your recording technique.

Not trying to be mean, just pointing out the reality that recording properly is a learned skill.

[kellyb]

Originally Posted by keith.rogers

$25 at Sweetwater right now (though maybe added tax equals it out?).

Can't thank you enough for the heads up on this!

[strangersfaces]

Has anyone compared/used both Autoalign and MAutoAlign to learn advantages of one over the other?

[RodB]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

No, it won't adjust one side of a stereo track. I mostly use it myself when recording with more than 2 mics and have more channels. If needed, I can use iZotope RX, which has a similar feature that will handle a stereo track.

I have MAutoAlign and thought this was the case as well at first, I record separate tracks so wasn't too concerned and like to have control over all changes so tend to do all correction if any manually.

Seeing this post I was curious and it seems it will do a stereo track by inserting 2 instances on the same track then selecting one to L the other to R.