RE: Acoustic-Guitar Miking
Of late, when I’m recording an acoustic guitar for a song in which it will be either the only instrument or the dominant one, I’ve had a lot of success using a spaced-pair stereo-miking scheme, with one mic pointing at the guitar body between the sound hole and the bridge, and the other pointing at the neck around the 7th fret. I align both mics on the vertical plane and angle them outward by about 20-degrees. Those are rough placements, and I move the mics around a little to find their sweet spots before settling on final positioning. I’ve used this setup mainly for fingerpicked parts rather than strummed ones. For mics, I’m using a pair of Røde NT-4 cardioid pencil condensers through an FMR Audio Really Nice Preamp (which is a great 2-channel preamp for the money). I record them to two separate mono tracks (which I pan L&R) so that I can play around with the individual levels in the mix. I really like the nice wide sound that you get with the spaced-pair placement. I tried using an X-Y configuration, but I found the image was too narrow, especially for a solo fingerpicked part. For those out there who are stereo-miking acoustics, I’m curious to know what configurations are working out best for you?
June 15th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
I record exactly that way with a pair of geffel 930’s but sometimes I will add a third mic right behind and above my head and blend that in the mix…especially spatially interesting for head phone fans.Peace.
June 28th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
It seems odd that a mic is typically pointed at the neck; the 12th fret seems common, while you are aiming at the 7th. Who would’ve guessed that there is much sound coming from the neck? It is counter-intuitive, that’s all. Obviously, it works!
Mike,
Did you ever try something like Wave S1 to widen the image from X/Y mics? The supposed advantage is the avoidance of phase issues. Well, I guess that you aren’t having phasing problems.
manalive,
I’m having a hard time figuring out how using 3 mics is more interesting spatially (in headphones). Again, counter-intuitive…
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