Isolating acoustic & vocals

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Let's say someone was recording (both sound & vision) themselves playing their acoustic and singing (at the same time).

Vocal mic is a Rode NT1A.  Does the job nicely.

Acoustic has a blended piezo & internal mic/pickup.

Both are plugged into the DAW via a 2input interface.

The trouble is that the vocal mic also picks up some of the natural sound of the acoustic, such that any DAW processing of the vocal track is also applied to that element of the guitar sound which is captured on the vocal track.

Any tips for minimising that  overspill of guitar into vocals?
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Comments

  • poopotpoopot Frets: 9098
    Use a more directional vocal mic.
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  • SnagsSnags Frets: 5326
    Or cheat - record the vocal and guitar tracks in isolation, then when recording the video play them back so you're in time, do a clap sync, and then cut the audio from the video feed when you join them together. But that's a bit of a faff.
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  • spark240spark240 Frets: 2073
    Snags said:
    Or cheat - record the vocal and guitar tracks in isolation, then when recording the video play them back so you're in time, do a clap sync, and then cut the audio from the video feed when you join them together. But that's a bit of a faff.
    This is best unless you have very directional mics,


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  • mrkbmrkb Frets: 6637
    edited August 2021
    Izotope rx8 rebalance application might be able to minimise the guitar picked in the vocal track. If you send me the vocal file Im happy to see what it can do.
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  • TTonyTTony Frets: 27344
    spark240 said:
    Snags said:
    Or cheat - record the vocal and guitar tracks in isolation, then when recording the video play them back so you're in time, do a clap sync, and then cut the audio from the video feed when you join them together. But that's a bit of a faff.
    This is best unless you have very directional mics,
    The audio and video are recorded on different devices, so I'm getting quite adept at the clap sync technique now! 

    But I'm not so good at (essentially) miming for the camera.  I will admit that not all my takes are equally perfect. so either getting two perfect - or equally imperfect -  versions to stitch together could take me quite a while ...


    I was wondering whether some sort of physical sound barrier would work.  Probably something like a small perspex sheet  fixed underneath the mic, which is the direction from which most of the acoustic sound must be coming?

    A very small version of the isolation booths that drummers sometimes sit in.
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  • Winny_PoohWinny_Pooh Frets: 7731
    Swap the nt1a out for a hyper/super cardiod dynamic like the electrovoice nd767a or Audix om5 and then experiment with positioning.

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  • GrangousierGrangousier Frets: 2621
    There is a bit of RX that allows you de-bleed recordings, though in my experience it does have artefacts, so it works best on things that are in a busier mix. I've been recording with a Shure KSM9, which is very directional (my flat is on a very busy street, so I need something to reject the traffic noise outside), but never quite lost the bleed of the guitar (mostly I record vocals separately, but I do live guide vocals and guitars). If you did have a hypercardoid mic, though, you could experiment with pointing it up, past the guitar and having something absorbent behind you, so it's not picking up reflections of the guitar sound. 

    That said, you could send the guitar track and the vocal track to a bus, flip the phase on the guitar track and filter out all the mids and bass, so it's just the percussive highs. Bring in the guitar track slowly to see whether it attenuates the more distracting bits. (This is only theoretical on my part, as I'm in the other room from my proper computer so I can't try it.)

    And, of course, the guitar track is running at the same time as the vocal track, so the spillover will be masked a lot of the time - the question is whether, if you just have guitar and vocal, you actually want the two to be in different sound-spaces. We're actually used to bleed in the vocal track in a lot of, especially older, recordings. 
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  • Try bringing the mic into your position from the side so the mic is horizontal and tilt the front of the mic upwards slightly. This will help, but won’t be totally perfect.  
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  • octatonicoctatonic Frets: 33725
    Track them separately.
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  • BezzerBezzer Frets: 581
    You’ll never manage it I’m sorry to say. You can use side chained gates to eliminate guitar from vocal in the gaps but not in the take. And as has been said the restoration plugins will leave artifacts which is a bare mix will be obvious.

    You’re presenting both together in a video format though so I wouldn’t worry too much. Try to eliminate as much as you can with mic positioning and then try to make it sound good in the DAW. Make sure there are no phase issues etc.
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  • Danny1969Danny1969 Frets: 10356
    Record both as a performance, then retrack the vocal using the one with the bleed as a template. Phrase it the same and it will then be a good video match while being treatable as well. 
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  • DavidRDavidR Frets: 728
    edited August 2021
    If bad miming was good enough for Kurt Cobain it's good enough for you!

    I assume you already know about this stuff - 

    Microphone polar patterns explained: Bi-directional (yourfreesounds.com)

    - as regards the directionality of cardioid mics.

    And I'm not sure it will help anyway. Multi tracks as suggested above will work. Just be prepared to be Kurt rather than Cliff!!

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    (Apologies to Danny1969 above. I just gave you a LOL whilst trying to type in a smiley. My bad. Blame it on the Moretti !) 
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  • StuckfastStuckfast Frets: 2393
    A bit of guitar spill onto the vocal mic shouldn't be a massive problem. Vocal spill onto guitar mics is usually much more of an issue.

    Try applying heavy processing on the send from the vocal to the reverb, rather than processing the vocal itself. You can roll all the top off that signal and use a transient shaper to reduce the pick noise.
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  • SpringywheelSpringywheel Frets: 941
    edited August 2021
    Unless you can acquire a more directional mic, just do separate takes
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  • SnagsSnags Frets: 5326
    Don't mime when you're doing the video.

    Have the recorded audio playing (with a count in of some kind) and sing along - it's much, much easier to sing the same thing with the same phrasing when you're actually playing along to it as opposed to trying to either remember, or fake it.

    Most times it'll be close enough for jazz. You can always use cut-aways for any bits that are really off :)
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