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Old 10-17-2013, 10:18 AM
secondstring secondstring is offline
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Default Vocals+Guitar with 2 mics?

Based on this great post from Doug Young here: http://acousticguitarforum.com/forum...0&postcount=32 I am convinced that I don't need to buy a very expensive mic.

Instead of multitracking, I usually try to sing and play at the same time. I use a large condenser mic for vocals, which currently picks up a little bit of guitar, so I plug in my Taylor and then add some of direct signal to make the guitar and vocals balance out. I usually just leave everything mixed as mono.

Two questions:
- I'm kind of interested in using a microphone for my guitar instead of the pickup. I have a SM57; would it be better/different/maybe the same to use another large condenser mic?

- I'm also interested in trying a stereo mix, but it sounds like that might require me to have 3 mics total: 1 for vocals, stereo pair for guitar, is that right?

Thanks for your help!
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Old 10-17-2013, 11:34 AM
YamaYairi YamaYairi is offline
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One mic for vocals and one for guitar is sufficient. The SM57 is not bad for guitar but if you really want to get as close as possible to the true sound of your guitar you need a good condenser mic. I have been getting wonderful results with 2 AKG C414 mics, one on my voice and one on the guitar at about the 14th fret, pointed toward the sound hole. I run them into a mixer and pan both to the center. I add reverb with Nero and let the reverb give a stereo effect. Here's an example:
https://soundcloud.com/wbendler/triad-by-david-crosby
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Old 10-17-2013, 01:41 PM
MikeBmusic MikeBmusic is offline
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I use SM57 clones (GHS) to record acoustic guitar and have been pleased with the sound - a lot depends on your recording room and how well it is treated for sound. Typically a condensor mic will give a more accurate sound, but will also pick up more room sound.
I have tried recording with the GHS SM57 and an AKG Perception 220 side-by-side pointing to the 12th fret on my guitar and can hear virtually no difference in sound.

Best suggestion is to try it and see if you like what you hear!
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Old 10-18-2013, 10:42 PM
secondstring secondstring is offline
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Thanks for all the suggestions! Been doing some more searching and it sounds like the best two mic solution may be the dual figure 8 mics that Fran suggested in another thread.

I guess they don't have to be matching large diaphragm condensers though since it won't be for stereo.
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Old 10-19-2013, 05:42 AM
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HUGE bang for buck here.....every time I use them I can't believe what I'm hearing...
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/deta...FaUWMgod3jgAMQ
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Old 10-19-2013, 08:07 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by secondstring View Post
Based on this great post from Doug Young here: http://acousticguitarforum.com/forum...0&postcount=32 I am convinced that I don't need to buy a very expensive mic.

Instead of multitracking, I usually try to sing and play at the same time. I use a large condenser mic for vocals, which currently picks up a little bit of guitar, so I plug in my Taylor and then add some of direct signal to make the guitar and vocals balance out. I usually just leave everything mixed as mono.

Two questions:
- I'm kind of interested in using a microphone for my guitar instead of the pickup. I have a SM57; would it be better/different/maybe the same to use another large condenser mic?

- I'm also interested in trying a stereo mix, but it sounds like that might require me to have 3 mics total: 1 for vocals, stereo pair for guitar, is that right?

Thanks for your help!
There is an alternative to stereo mic'ing it is not true stereo but does in fact give you the wider sound stage of stereo ( without having to worry about the phase issues in multi mic recording) and that is (depending on which DAW you are using ) make the single mono recording of vocal and guitar, then duplicate the track. Now with two identical tracks pan one left and one right. This will give you a louder but still mono and in the center sound. Then just slip ( or physically move one track in time very slightly) this will then give a delayed effect and will also allow you make the sound as wide as you like ( depending on how far left and right you pan the individual tracks) This is something you could try now and thus give you more time to see if in fact you want to eventually use multiple mics etc.
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Old 10-19-2013, 08:22 AM
MikeBmusic MikeBmusic is offline
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Not to be disagreeable with KevWind, but don't do the 'double the track and delay one side by a small fraction' method. Unless you are lucky, it usually sounds like crap. You can create phase issues. Instead, add a slight touch of reverb or delay to the recorded track. EQ accordingly, it will sound warmer and better.
For true 'doubling' to fill out the sound, record a second track of just guitar, pan it to one side slightly and put the volume much lower than the track with main guitar and vocal. Add a touch of reverb on the same buss as the original track.
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Old 10-19-2013, 03:26 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeBmusic View Post
Not to be disagreeable with KevWind, but don't do the 'double the track and delay one side by a small fraction' method. Unless you are lucky, it usually sounds like crap. You can create phase issues. Instead, add a slight touch of reverb or delay to the recorded track. EQ accordingly, it will sound warmer and better.
For true 'doubling' to fill out the sound, record a second track of just guitar, pan it to one side slightly and put the volume much lower than the track with main guitar and vocal. Add a touch of reverb on the same buss as the original track.
Not disagreeable at all but also not necessarily entirely correct. Or in other words there are simply too many variables to make most generalized statements completely accurate .

For examples the statement:
With slipping a duped track in time "You can create phase issues" is potentially correct, of course it is also true anytime you introduce any stereo time domain effect as well such as delays, reverbs, etc. . While it is true that a mono time domain effect on a mono track is not going to have phase cancelation issues and it certainly if done well might sound warmer and "better" (what ever that means) it is also true that a mono effect even well done, will do little to nothing to widen the sound stage.

And since it is true that any time you add a stereo time domain effect manually or electronic or stereo recording technique you are introducing phase differences, the question is how much and if it will becomes an issue of the degradation of the sound.

And speaking of mono, while most people understand that recording a single acoustic instrument with multi mic's has the potential to create phase issues. It is less well know that recording a single instrument with a single mic can depending on the room reflections also have phase issues . In other words just about everything in recording is relative to variable circumstance.

I don't think slipping a track and having it sound good is a matter of luck, any more than multi mic'ing or using time domain effects . I think it's a matter trying it and listening. Any time you are dealing with a duped mono track you can easily check what is happening buy panning both tracks back to center and listen for a noticeable degrading like thinning, distinct lack of bass etc. In my experience slipping a duped track only becomes an "issue" if you slip delay the track by too little such that you do get the waveforms relatively opposite each other on the same vibration...aprox ( 2 to 6 mls ) or too much where you start to get a warbled comb filtering affect or actual noticeable left to right obvious difference. However slipping a duped track aprox. (15 mls to 20 mls) will usually not create such noticeable issues, and will not sound degraded when panned back to center. And will give you the ability to have as wide sound stage as you desire. And IMO will sound a bit more interesting and or stereo'ish, than just panning time synced(un slipped) duped tracks. But to each there own and of course the proof is in the trying it for your self.

As MikeB said double tracking is a great way to fill out a mono guitar sound but honestly it is going to be just as much or more a matter of "luck" to sound good, than slipping a track. To pull off a close enough dead nuts second take (unless your especially gifted) is going to take a considerable amount of luck or considerable amount of practice. To nail each element of your performance sufficiently close enough on two different takes, to sound good and to not sound like two different takes is easer said than done. Not to mention one of reasons a double track sounds good is in fact the slight time domain differences ( not unlike slipping a track ) and like slipping a track a double track with significant enough time differences, is in fact going to also "sound like crap" Not that it isn't doable, it is of course done all the time but it does take some practice and getting used to. I would recommend trying any or all of the suggested techniques but I think dismissing out of hand, slipping a track is highly subjective at best.
Once again the proof will be in trying it.
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Last edited by KevWind; 10-19-2013 at 06:54 PM.
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Old 10-19-2013, 07:11 PM
MikeBmusic MikeBmusic is offline
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The advantage of recording a second track is the minor differences in playing between the two tracks, this is what gives more fullness. Of course if you screw up with timing badly, it doesn't sound as good.

YMMV

Reaper allows you to switch your in-process mix to MONO for checking phase issues, no need to change all your pan settings.
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Last edited by MikeBmusic; 10-21-2013 at 02:57 PM.
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Old 10-21-2013, 10:20 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by secondstring View Post
Thanks for all the suggestions! Been doing some more searching and it sounds like the best two mic solution may be the dual figure 8 mics that Fran suggested in another thread.

I guess they don't have to be matching large diaphragm condensers though since it won't be for stereo.
Hi secondstring...

Another fun thing to do with a pair of figure 8s is pull a mid-side recording of your guitar and vocal simultaneously.

Mid-side recording (and processing) produces a binaural stereo recording and has worked well for me with small ensembles, and bluegrass singers/groups who focus on playing and singing at the same time.

It certainly is less sensitive to movement on the part of the artist(s) while recording. And you can adjust the width of the stereo field afterwards.

I've used it on myself playing guitars and recording vocals at the same time.


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Old 10-22-2013, 10:04 AM
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Thanks, I hadn't heard of mid-side recording before. I will have to try it the next time I record something.
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Old 10-22-2013, 10:30 AM
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There's a tutorial on mid-side as well as one on dual figure 8s on the Homebrewed Music blog.

The big advantage of the two figure 8 method comes when you want to treat the parts separately and/or replace parts. With careful positioning, mics with well controlled patterns, and reasonable damping of early reflections, you can get amazing separation between the parts. The mics don't need to be matched, as you noted.

With all respect to LJ, I wouldn't expect that you'll actually get a binaural recording using mid-side. Binaural refers to a mic setup that closely emulates human ears on a human head, with the intention of delivering the result over headphones. It uses a baffle similar in size and shape to a typical human head, and in advanced systems includes modeling of the ear around the mics. Mid-side delivers coincident stereo, very similar to XY and Blumlein arrays.

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Old 10-22-2013, 10:53 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fran Guidry View Post
...With all respect to LJ, I wouldn't expect that you'll actually get a binaural recording using mid-side. Binaural refers to a mic setup that closely emulates human ears on a human head, with the intention of delivering the result over headphones. It uses a baffle similar in size and shape to a typical human head, and in advanced systems includes modeling of the ear around the mics. Mid-side delivers coincident stereo, very similar to XY and Blumlein arrays.
Hi Fran...

No disrespect taken, and thanks for the correction. I like what I hear when we record that way.

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Old 10-23-2013, 02:58 AM
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With my single condenser mic, I tried using the SM57 for vocals and using the figure 8 on the guitar, pointing the null at my vocals.

The guitar track sounded pretty good to my ears, and had a similar amount of separation to the instrumental track in Fran's video. The SM57 also seemed to do a pretty good job at picking up the vocals and minimizing the guitar, though maybe not quite as much as the figure 8.

When I tried just recording the vocals with the figure 8, the guitar was definitely minimized. I noticed if I looked down while I was playing and singing, the volume varied a lot. Is that also normal? The SM57 didn't have this problem quite as much.
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Old 10-23-2013, 10:35 AM
Fran Guidry Fran Guidry is offline
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With my single condenser mic, I tried using the SM57 for vocals and using the figure 8 on the guitar, pointing the null at my vocals.

The guitar track sounded pretty good to my ears, and had a similar amount of separation to the instrumental track in Fran's video. The SM57 also seemed to do a pretty good job at picking up the vocals and minimizing the guitar, though maybe not quite as much as the figure 8.

When I tried just recording the vocals with the figure 8, the guitar was definitely minimized. I noticed if I looked down while I was playing and singing, the volume varied a lot. Is that also normal? The SM57 didn't have this problem quite as much.
The pattern on the fig8 is tighter and sharper than on the 57, so moving off axis is more noticeable.

When you're aiming the 57 for the vocal, try aiming its null at the guitar. This will put the mic in an odd position, you'll be singing across it rather than into it, but you'll pick up a bit more separation and you might like the tone.

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