Tracking Acoustic Guitar

00:00:06
Good morning children! Today, we're going to talk about recording acoustic guitar, with our resident hit maker Nelson, who's also our resident Lenny Kravitz look-alike.

00:00:16
We're gonna do two things.

00:00:17
First, we're gonna try a bunch of placements with the same microphone, and try and find the best possible placement for this guitar.

00:00:23
Then, at that placement, we'll try different microphones to see just how important the microphone is.

00:00:28
So! How hard can it be? One guitar, one microphone.

00:00:33
It's actually kinda hard, because the whole design of the instrument, having this big case, and a smaller hole, is designed to project the sound of the instrument out.

00:00:40
I see a lot of people do this...

00:00:44
which, instinctively, makes a lot of sense, that's where the sound is, right? So, Nelson please...

00:01:10
Thank you.

00:01:12
Well that's hard, because, what are you gonna do with this? If you put it in your mix, all you're gonna hear is "Mmmm." So, what most people do is they do that, and then they high-pass the guitar, and it starts sounding thin, and it's not optimal.

00:01:24
So there's several possibilities here.

00:01:26
For example, we could do this: we could push the microphone back, and still point at the hole.

00:01:31
And it sounds like this...

00:01:55
Ok! Well, that's better, but it's not very focused, and you get more of the room.

00:02:00
So if your room's not good, this is not gonna be good.

00:02:03
But it's an interesting sound.

00:02:05
You don't have to record everything so close.

00:02:07
Everybody records everything very close, but you don't have to.

00:02:10
If you record it a little bit far away, you'll find it'll work better in the mix, but here's the trick...

00:02:14
When you listen to the guitar in solo, it's always gonna be scary to record it far away, if you're not used to that sound.

00:02:21
What you have to do is record the guitar within the mix.

00:02:25
Have the mix playing, and listen to the positioning of the mic within the mix, and then you'll find that you won't be as scared as putting the microphone further away.

00:02:32
Good trick. Now check this out.

00:02:34
What I see done a lot too is this.

00:02:37
Point, you know, where... just where the case ends, the body of the guitar.

00:02:43
It sounds like this.

00:03:05
Obviously, it's brighter, which is useful if that's what you're looking for, but I still hear some weird resonance coming from the hole over there.

00:03:13
What would happen if I'm pushing that back, going to the same position as we were, far away from the hole, but put it in front of the neck? And it sounds like this.

00:03:43
That's cool! I like that, because it's got a good balance of the brightness, enough distance that I know I'm not gonna have to make some sort of weird trick to push the guitar back in the mix.

00:03:53
I don't get as much resonance, but maybe I'm lacking a little presence.

00:03:56
Or if your room sucks, then you won't be able to get this good sound.

00:04:00
So I'd like to propose something else. How about we try this? Something like that, which is a hybrid between looking at the body of the guitar, looking at the neck, and being a little closer. It sounds like this.

00:04:38
That's super useful for me, for something when you need more presence on the guitar, maybe the guitar is the only instrument in the middle of your mix, and you need something really in your face, this is good, because it limits the amount of boom from the bottom, and then it gives you the "twing" from the pick, and from the strings, but you don't get weird resonances, or a lot less of them.

00:04:59
I like this position.

00:05:01
Now, bear in mind, with a different guitar, and a different player, everything's different. But those are the basic principles.

00:05:08
If you mike here, you'll get a lot of boom.

00:05:12
If you mike back, you get less boom, but you get more room, it's a little fuzzy.

00:05:16
If you mike here, you get a lot of "twing", and still some resonance from the boom.

00:05:21
If you mike here, that's kind of useful, but it's a little further away in the mix.

00:05:26
And this is an interesting principle. Why is this different from the rest? It's because of the angle. You're using the pattern of the microphone.

00:05:33
This is a cardioid microphone.

00:05:35
You're using the pattern of the microphone to cut out the stuff that you don't want as much, and to focus on what you want.

00:05:41
So that's one possibility. I like this.

00:05:43
So we're gonna get this, for this guitar, and this player, this is good for what I'm looking for for my song now.

00:05:50
What if I had been in a different mood this morning and picked out a different microphone? This is a Studio Project C4, which is pretty much as affordable as you can get for a small diaphragm condenser.

00:06:01
Let's try a big diaphragm condenser.

00:06:04
Let's do that! So let me switch the microphone, I'll be right back.

00:06:12
So this is a large diaphragm condenser, as opposed to the small diaphragm condenser we had before.

00:06:17
This is an ifet 47 by Soundeluxe, no longer made.

00:06:21
Let's see what the difference is. I'm putting it in the same position as the last position we had with the small diaphragm condenser.

00:06:27
Go ahead Lenny! Obviously, it's a lot smoother, it's not as bright and peaky, it's also boomier, and maybe not as useable, depending on the kind of music you wanna do.

00:06:59
Maybe we should try it on the sound hole, to see what it does there.

00:07:04
Here we go... Go ahead! I feel that these two positions are gonna be very hard to use in the mix, they're too boomy, this mic generates too much bass for this guitar.

00:07:36
Maybe it's worth a try to just put it further away, like this, and see if we get something useable out of that. Let's try.

00:08:04
That's not bad, for a more distant sound, maybe a comping sound, way in the back, or maybe two in stereo in the back, but it's not a featured sound, unless I start EQing it.

00:08:14
And I'd rather find a sound with the microphone, rather than with an EQ.

00:08:19
So why don't we try a third microphone, like for example a run-of-the-mill, $80, Shure 57? Let's try that.

00:08:30
Alright. So let's see how this sounds...

00:08:32
in our winner spot so far.

00:09:02
So that's definitely more lo-fi, you don't get as much detail, which could be a problem, or a good thing, because since you get less details, you hear less of the problems too.

00:09:11
You don't hear as much "twing", and everything is kind of like blurred over, which could be very useful. Let's try this here.

00:09:21
And a little further out.

00:09:23
Check it out, this may be interesting.

00:09:49
So that's too boomy, but I really like what it does to the pick sound, because it really kind of like... not compresses it, but makes it a little smoother.

00:10:00
So, again, as always, there's not one answer.

00:10:03
There is what you want it to sound like in your song, and then there's guidelines to get there.

00:10:09
If you want a really bright in your face sound, we saw that a small diaphragm condenser, pointing straight at the joint between the body and the neck works good.

00:10:28
If you want something a little smoother, maybe a large diaphragm condenser, with that angled position, a little bit away from the joint of the body and the neck, that works good.

00:10:47
If you want something a little more lo-fi, a little blurrier, with less attack, then a 57 in that same position works great.

00:11:04
It depends on the song, it depends on your guitar, it depends on your player, it depends on what you have for breakfast that morning, it really is a question of your vision.

00:11:12
Those are the guidelines. Thank you Lenny! Et voilà!