Recording acoustic guitar
 

The Ribbon mics continue to impress with a great new acoustic session from Graham Hodge CHECK IT OUT. The BIG IDEA is to run a studio recording materclass weekend. Look out for details!!!!!!!!!

 
Recording Acoustic Guitar
Recording Acoustic Part 2
Recording Nylon strung
Choosing microphones
Stereo 1: XY coincident
Stereo 2: Blumlein Pair
Stereo 3: Middle-Side
Stereo 6: Binaural

Recording Nylon Strung Guitar

This video shows how to record a nylon strung acoustic guitar and you can follow professional studio engineer John Spence as he continues the session from the previous two acoustic guitar pages. The techniques are basically the same but this time we have used a variety of different mics and you can download the individual tracks and play them in Cubase or the DAW of your choice. Have a go at mixing these files with some EQ, compression and any effects and if you are particularly pleased with the end result then send us your mix and we will post it up on the page. Have fun! 

 

How to record a nylon strung guitar

This video looks at recording the nylon strung acoustic guitar but as you can see the recording techniques are pretty much the same as recording a steel strung. The crucial bit of equipment we keep banging on about is your ears. Listen to the guitar in the room and move the mics around until it sounds good. OK, brilliant and expensive mics and preamps are the stock in trade of big studios and the gear obsessives out there but if this video shows you anything it shows you that the player is the most important element in getting a great sound. Graham found this guitar thrown away in a skip (Dumpster for our transatlantic friends). It is split along the body and repaired with Gaffa tape (Duct Tape) and he can't remember when he last changed the strings but Graham knows how to play and that's the thing that carries this recording.


Because we can, we have stuck 6 different mics in front of the guitar. A big expensive ribbon, a large diaphragm condenser, 3 small diaphragm condensers and finally a classic cheap dynamic mic. Mic shoot outs like this are a waste of time in many ways because you can't get each mic in exactly the right spot and its obvious that they are going to all sound "different". That doesnt mean "bad or good" it means different. On a different day on a different session with a different player with a different guitar in a different room you would favour a different mic.
Down load the tracks and have a listen to the separate mics and you should be able to hear instantly the difference between the AEA ribbon and the Shure sm57 but can you really say for certain which of the small diaphragm mics is which?

What this multimike session does do brilliantly is highlights the problems you can have with phase when using more than one mic. Solo each mic and have a listen and of course individually they all sound fine. Now with the NT5 in solo add to it the Sm57 and immediately you hear that the two mics are badly out of phase and the sound becomes thin and "Phasey". Now do the same but this time with the NT5 and the Shure SM81. Again big problems but if you check the NT5 against the other 3 mics,the AEA ribbon, the AT 4047 and the Neumann KM84 they are all pretty good. They will be slightly out of phase but not enough to wreck your sound if you mix them together.

Now check the 4047 and the SM57. Can you hear that they are out of phase with each other but nowhere near as bad as the previous examples? It's a good lesson in that if you are ever thinking of using more than one mic on a sound you must check the phase. Phase seems to be a big problem for people starting off recording and we are planning to do an in depth video all about Phase but in the meantime check out video6 on the Recording Acoustic Part 2 page.

So two questions. First up does the cheap 50 quid dynamic sm57 sound dreadful? Of course not. It's a brilliant classic workhorse mic and if that's all you've got then use your ears and by putting it in the right place you will get a good recording. Secondly which mic is featured on the video clip?
AEA R84 Ribbon Audio Technica AT 4047sv
Neumann KM84 Rode NT5
Shure SM57 Shure SM81

("Careful with that axe Eugene")

 


 
 
Microphones and recording 2008. Recording Acoustic Guitar