Perplexed about recording acoustic guitar

[IndianaGeo]

Hi All,
I'm a bit frustrated with the results I'm getting from the following gear and I'm wondering what I might be doing wrong:

Martin HD28 with medium strings
Focusrite 2i4 1st Gen
Neumann TLM 102, (I also have an SM Beta58 but I've not tried that yet).
Logic Pro X

I've been locating the mic at the 12th fret around 20 cm away and sometimes also plug the guitar direct (Anthem pick-up) into the second channel, the mic being channel 1. I'm mainly fingerpicking and I'm finding the character of the recording doesn't sound "present" if that makes sense. Either way, the results seem "muddy" to my ears. When I play around with the EQ I find I need to pretty much get rid of the low end to make it sound even passable. Now, given that I'm using medium strings (and they're a bit old truth be told), could it be a string issue? Should I move to lighter gauge? Have any of you out there a similar set-up and how do you go about getting your best sound? Thanks in advance to anyone who responds.
IG

[johnnydobbers]

you need acoustic treatment

[rick-slo]

It would be helpful to post a link to a solo guitar recording that has a sound you would like to get in your recordings.

[jim1960]

Tell us about the room in which you're recording.

[runamuck]

Originally Posted by IndianaGeo

Hi All,
I'm a bit frustrated with the results I'm getting from the following gear and I'm wondering what I might be doing wrong:

IG

Don't record close to a wall and if possible hang a blanket behind the mic. Acoustically treating your room will make a big difference in the overall quality of your recording but if muddiness is the main issue, that's probably being caused by the proximity effect of being too close to the mic Back it off 12 -18" and also record with the high pass filter engaged.

I've never gotten a great recording from a pickup so I suggest you use the mic alone and use a touch of stereo reverb to give it some spaciousness.

If you could post a sound clip of your recording you'll probably get more specific and helpful suggestions.

[Glennwillow]

Hi George,

There could be two problems. You may need room treatment to deaden standing waves in your room, but the problem could also be that a large diaphragm cardioid condenser mic like the Neumann TLM 102 is going to be giving you a significant proximity effect at only 20 cm (about 8") from your guitar.

The first thing I would try is moving the microphone back about 18" to 24" from the guitar. At that distance, proximity effect will not be an issue. And then see if things are too boomy.

The Martin HD-28 does tend to have a lot of bass, so that could also certainly be contributing to what you are hearing.

If backing off with the microphone placement does not solve your problem, then bass traps in the corners of your room might help. Even with bass traps, if the problem is really the character of the HD-28, you may simply need to apply some equalization to filter out enough bass to get the balance you want.

I like to use small diaphragm condenser mics for guitar because they have excellent transient response and they tend to pick up a little less bass and many of these SDC mics tend to slightly emphasize the high frequencies with about a 3 db boost up around 6-10 Khz that adds a little sheen to the recording. This would work well with your HD-28. I locate these mics about 12-18" away from my guitar. Some people don't like this high frequency emphasis, but I do. An excellent set of mics for an HD-28 would be something like a pair of Rode NT5 mics or Warm Audio WA-84. I have used both of these mic pairs with excellent results. And there are dozens of other excellent choices for SDC mics, but many of these are very expensive.

In fact, for an inexpensive experiment you could purchase a pair of Behringer C2 SDC mics for only $49 and see if you like what you get from your guitar recordings. Behringer stuff gets a lot of criticism but these mics actually provide excellent value for the minimal price. Some people have compared them in sound to Neumann KM-184 which cost $1500 for a pair of mics. (I realize a person can compare any two mics, but that does not make them equal.)

But I think you should be able to get a good guitar recording with your TLM102. I think moving it back will help, though you will then be picking up more room sound. Depending on your room, that may be good or bad. And you may need to apply some subtractive EQ. You will not be adding any distortion if you remove bass in your mixdown after the recording. I recorded my Martin D-35 for many albums 30 years ago using a Sennheiser MD421, a dynamic mic which has plenty of bass and proximity effect. I just kept the mic back and used EQ to remove the bass I didn't want. The sound I get from small diaphragm condenser mics is better (I almost never use EQ on my guitar recordings), but you can get there with what you have.

- Glenn

[FrankHudson]

Given that we haven't been in your room listening to you play, nor have we heard your recordings, we're working at a severe information deficit with your problem. Folks up thread have offered good suggestions about how to generally make more perfect recordings, I don't disagree with any of them, but I suspect you may be able to get decent recordings with no hardware changes and even before room treatment.

So, rather than offering a diagnosis and treatment plan based on so little information let me suggest that you need to put on your recording engineer hat. Do you already own, or have access to borrow, a decent pair of over-ear/closed back headphones?* If so, good. If not, you can try to make do with anything, even earbuds. I want you to use the headphone out of your interface to help you find out where to place your existing microphone (and possibly your recording location). Ideally you might also deputize someone to help move the microphone.

Setup your mic as you started with your interface, and now start trying modifying the position while you play your guitar. As already suggested, definitely try moving the mic farther away. You also could try making sure you have the mics side address "hot point" pointing away from your guitar's soundhole, which is a black hole of woofy low end. Even try moving the mic higher. You could try moving the mic way farther out, particularly if your room isn't ugly sounding. A dread like yours should be able easily project at 6 feet out or more. You seem to be trusting the good rule of thumb about "mic at 12th fret" or it's close cousin "where the neck joins the body" but you and your guitar and your room may vary. I've even had luck sometimes with odd positions like pointed down at the 12th fret-ish area from above the guitar at the tail end of the guitar. Consider all the 3D of your room as you do this while listening.

The key point of all this is to hear what you'll be recording (which will vary considerably depending on mic positions), which is why the over the ear/closed back headphones are best. Having someone else move the mic at your suggestion based on your ear's "feedback" listening on the phones may allow you to zero in on "just right" more easily.

Room treatment has already been recommended, but unless your room is particularly bad or your expectations are higher than mine, you should be able to get something presentable.

Logic has nice built in EQ feature. It's not unusual to want to cut some low end (below 80-100hz) on acoustic guitar as there's usually nothing particularly musical there for most players/pieces/guitars.

.
*The AKG K240 headphone set is about as inexpensive and any if you want to buy such a thing.

[IndianaGeo]

Okay guys/gals, All great advice. Thank you very much for your replies. As some have said, it's now clear to me that I've not provided enough info or samples. I'll have to get to this tomorrow (posting a sample). In the meantime, know that I'm taking on board the likely possibility that the room I'm recording in is not at all optimal. There's no sound insulation and the room has, I believe, concrete walls. It's a rather large bedroom. I'm an expat living in Europe and concrete walls are common where I am. Thank you again and hopefully I can post something useful tomorrow.

IG

[LakewoodM32Fan]

I too am a novice at recording, so I'm very much enjoying and appreciative of the advice here. My brief experiences to add to the conversation:

1. If "just like the guitar" is the desired tonal outcome, I agree that you need to go only with the mic. Even the best sounding pickups sound don't come close to a good mic. And trust me, you have a good (arguably a great) mic. Certainly for home recording I'd classify it as great.

2. Agree about backing it off. I just bought (like literally yesterday) a pair of AKG C214 which I'm pairing with my Zoom H8 (which I'll use either as the recorder, or if I'm near my computer, as the input device to Logic Pro). First time recording with an LDC, coming from a week with sE8s SDCs. I wanted to hear the difference. There is definitely more "air" with the LDC, and I was surprised at how relatively easily I got a pretty good sound, just setting one C214 up pointed at the 12th fret, about 14" away. I expected to have to fiddle with it a lot (and I'll still experiment for "optimum" sound) but just that initial setting seemed to be pretty darned good.

3. Room treatment: I'm going to be of no help here since I don't have any. I live in an apartment and record in my bedroom which has no treatment, but has quite a bit of stuff in it which acts as natural dampeners.

Honestly, the AKG C214 is considered to be a cheaper alternative to your 102, so you should be able to get as good if not better quality recordings than me given the quality of your gear (you're also using a dedicated audio interface which likely has better preamps than my Zoom H8).

I did find my sE8s to be a bit boomy when they were about 8" away from the guitar and pointed at the space just below the 12-14th fret and behind the bridge, so when I re-hook those mics up I'm going to try the high pass filter at 80hz to see if it helps. I did not find my first test recording of the K214 to need any HPF, although one is available on the mic should I choose to try it.

[anton]

Your gear is plenty good, if you can post a link of a recording of yours, and/or a picture of your setup and general surrounding space that might be the next best step.

[KevWind]

Yes to echo others (in theory) Your gear should be capable of reproducing balanced and "present" recordings .

Also as noted try to make your posts more in formative and more detailed

For example "it's a rather large bedroom " is only quasi-informative, and is not detailed.

" get rid of the low end" is too vague, What are the actual details of your EQ'ing process. (which is a very big deal in informing the path to "presence")

As mentioned detail your monitoring situation.

As someone mentioned having a target or "reference track " something published that you like the sound of, and you can as a desired goal to shoot for.
Both to inform us but also to use right in your sessions . So you can mute and unmute to compare back and forth, between your goal and your current real time results .

In general a lack of presence or flat-'ish 2 dimensional sound, as opposed to fuller more 3 dimensional (right there in the room) can be an issue of several factors and sometimes in combinations.

First and foremost as mentioned room reflections especially in the mid's and lows, can definitely create (often unheard ) mud, and is often one of the biggest factors in robbing from presence. For which acoustic panels fixed or movable are arguably the easiest solution


Beyond that ,,,, lack of "air" , or more specifically a lack upper mid and high presence or detail in the mic itself often the case with dynamic mics BUT ( Probably not the case with a Neumann 102), given it has a slight rise at 6kHz ) and while arguably may not be quite as present as some of Neumanns more expensive mics, it should yield good results. Also I would look into a shock mount if you don't have one

Lack of high end detail from the source. Yes dead strings definitely . Yes mic'ing too close and suffering a proximity based extra boomy low end can rob presence.

Lack of upper mid and or high end detail in the (guitar itself ). In general I do not think a D28 is particularly noted or famous for finger picking (particularly with flesh only) And IMO the D28 while being a great guitar for certain things, like being famous as banjo competitive in string groups (especially Blue Grass) and also for "sitting well" as a rhythm feature in multi instrument arrangements, it does this very well by not being as detailed or present in the upper mid's and high end as other guitars. But that being said, no doubt some people do get great solo performance with a D28. I would if I were you, find an example of a solo D28 performance to use as a reference.

[Brent Hahn]

Lots of good thoughts so far.

Besides being a player I'm an engineer-for-hire (there are at least a couple others here) and I've experienced enough Martin D's to feel comfortable saying that, as tonally balanced as they are in your lap, that balance can seem out of whack in recordings. They can be boomy.

With a single mic, the spot where the balance is right is usually at least a couple feet away, which is further than you'd be with most other guitars. At that distance, you hear a lot of room reflections, so the sound of the room matters more.

[IndianaGeo]

Hi Everyone.
Thanks so much for the replies. I can tell you are all much further along in recording knowledge that I am. I've put together a small sample to demonstrate the tones i'm getting at the moment. I confess, my room and physical set up isn't ideal... I'm in a large bedroom with concrete walls and some kind of wooden ceiling which serves as a barrier to a narrow lofty area above me for storage. This wooden ceiling only coverers 1/2 of the room. The further side of the room has quite high walls, maybe 14 feet high. Lovely view outside the windows to the Pyrenees though. My set up has got to be pretty bad as I'm merely laying the TLM 102 near the edge of a glass table (no mic stand, shock absorption stand). The mic is about 12-14 inches away from the 12th fret or so on this recording. I've duplicated the track and panned the signals fully left and right. Here you go: https://soundcloud.com/geo714/mic_test_agf

Edit: Oh someone asked for a reference track.. I really hadn't given it much thought although I should have. I pulled something from Billie Eilish here. I think this is what I mean by "present".. to a more or less degree. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXiYvaeKzM4 You know.. that sort of intimate vibe.. guitar and voice. Or maybe like Ryan Adams here:... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeDZCixQpvo

Many thanks.
IG

[shufflebeat]

As well as all the other good advice:

Try putting the mic outside your knee (right knee assuming you're r/h and sitting down) pointing at the top behind the saddle and towards your fingers. This avoids the worst of the mud, produced a much tighter midrange and soft presence which responds well to EQ.

All of this is guitar, room and technique dependent but a great basis for exploration.

[LakewoodM32Fan]

Okay those two recordings weren't really great examples of mic'd guitar recordings. Nothing wrong with Eilish, but there's so much vocal in that it's hard to really get a sense of what you want your acoustic to sound like, and Adams is straight using his on board pickup through an amp with some kind of distortion or other effect(s) on it, so unless you're going to mimic his signal chain, a mic'd guitar will not sound like that at all.

I listened to your recording and for fingerpicking it doesn't sound too muddy or muffled. Granted I mostly use a pick so I'm used to a sharper attack. But it's not like you've got the Nick Drake Dead Strings tone (I'm a fan of that, btw).

You did mention you had old strings. Without knowing what you're definition of old is, I would think if they're old and *dead* you'd hear that in the room while playing, so you would expect your mic to record that as well.

However if your strings sound lively in room, and vastly different in the recording, then you need to make some changes. As we've all said, your mic should be plenty good to capture the sound you want. Experiment with mic placement and directionality. Moving it further away will decrease the proximity effect, but will also lower it's recording volume so you may have to turn your preamp up (and make sure you've disengaged any pads your mic may have if the volume is still very low). If moving it 12" or more away still makes it sound boomy or muddy, then experiment with mic angling, so you're pointed at the 12th fret but slightly away from the soundhole.

But to be honest your recording doesn't sound too out of line with someone playing old strings fingerstyle. If you were using a thick pick with new Elixirs, you'd have a problem.

EDIT: also based on the recording you made, I'm assuming you played primarily with the pads of your fingers and thumb vs. having grown out your nails. That's how I play fingerstyle since I can't grow my nails out for work reasons. If you were using your nails for a sharp attack, then yes something is also off in the recording.