Which of my mics and where for recording an acoustic

rze99

Hi I'm doing an acoustic guitar recording next week.

Using a Guild D4 NT (fairly loud and middly) with new strings sounds bold and sweet. It's just me recording and playing so I want to try to get a good set-up as soon as possible as I'll spend ALL day fiddling.

It has a Seymour Duncan acoustitube pickup in the sound hole which I plan to ignore.

I have three mics available SM57 and SM58 and an AKG C1000

I'm planning on using two of my mics:

one nearer the soundhole pointed toward the end of the fretboard

one about a foot apart and a foot away at the upper bout of the body

Which of the mics would you use in which position for best blend? I'm going via Mixer into Focusrite scarlett into a DAW.

PS I have two rooms I can use - one with wooden floors which is slightly resonant and big, and the little study which is really soundproofed dead. The study is more convenient for access to DAW

thanks

R

poopot

How many inputs on the scarlet?
if it’s just the 2 I’d go with the akg and the 57 each to their own track.

if you have 4i4 use all three mics and the pickup...

don’t forget to check the phase of each mic tho’ you may have to flip one of them.

rze99

thanks yes just the 2... which in which position... presume 57 close AKG for the upper bout?

poopot

Play about and see what sounds best... could be the 58 and the pickup give the best sound... could be the 57 and 58 etc etc... 

you won’t know till you have a crack

not much help I know!...

Cirrus

It very much depends on the sound you're going for and the context, but I'd work on the basis of finding out which one mic & placement best captures the whole instrument and only add a second mic for either another option later on or to pick up some aspect of the sound that the first mic is lacking.

My gut feeling would be to use the C1000 and really experiment with mic position to find the best balanced tone - a combination of low end body, midrange resonance and twang/zing/ string noise. Watch out for boomy low end from the soundhole, and honky midrange resonances coming from the body - quite often different frequencies are projected in different directions with different balances.

30cm in front of the neck/body join is a good place to start, but don't stop there - I found with my little GS-mini Mahogany that I get the best sound with the mic around chin height, pointing down towards the top shoulder of the body.

If the C1000 is too bright and lacks depth, try giving the SM57 a go on its own, find the best spot, then put the C1000 as close to the '57 as you can and jsut use it for top end clarity.

In case it's not implicit, I'm not a big fan of spaced pairs on acoustics for stereo - unless the space is good and the production wants a stereo spread.

rze99

Much appreciated guys...

I'm really looking for recommendations about a good starting point based on your experiences and appreciate I'll have to tweak. I'm impatient because I'd rather play and focus on the music than record perfection so I tend to want to get a good set-up and tone in an hour or two otherwise I get irritated (yeah a personality weakness).

It matters on this track because, unusually for my material, the acoustic leads the track for the first half and so is exposed. Just looking for a lovely clear clear folk/americana dreadnought style sound.

 

octatonic

I'd just go with the C1000 1-2ft away from the 12th fret.
In my experience people usually go too close with a condenser mic- experiment with distance.