Detailed Recording Of Acoustic Guitar PDF

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The academic works provides detailed information about microphone choice and positioning. Photographs of microphone placement and their justification are provided....

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CWK 2.2 Recording Atanas Georgiev 1. Equipment -Guitar At first I did some research and managed to find out which are the best microphones to record acoustic guitar. Well-known sound engineers like Eddie Kramer, Mike Clinik and Bob Bullock suggest the AKG C451B and the SM57 as these microphones provide flat frequency response and brightness. Accordingly I did two test recordings with both of the microphones and decided to use the AKG C451B as it sounded better to me. The AKG has a bright-sounding and an essential boost of 4dB up at 12kHz, which is especially what we need for the acoustic guitar. In addition there is also a sub 200Hz roll-off, which removes the chances of proximity-effect bass boost when close miking. What is more is that the microphone has a pretty wide frequency response range from 20Hz to 20kHz and its polar pattern is cardioid. The guitar was recorded using the “XY” technique placed 4 inches away from the bridge.

-Vocal Furthermore, I had to find a really good microphone for the vocal as it is one of the most important parts of the track. There are many good vocal microphones but the Shure SM58 and the Neumann u87 are known for their high-quality and I decided to try them both. The SM58 with its specific frequency response (50Hz-15Hz) is built especially for vocals and has a bright

midrange and bass roll-off. Its pickup pattern is cardioid and the mic is dynamic. Unfortunately I have mentioned that the sensitivity of the Shure mic is not as good as Neumann’s u87 and this fact made me use the Neumann’s product. The Neumann u87 is a condenser microphone which is known for its warm and fantastic characteristics designed for vocals. The bigger sensitivity comes from the large dual-diaphragm capsule which has three directional patterns. Therefore for this recording I used the cardioid pattern. It also provides switches to change the dB roll-off which is quite useful in some occasions. The frequency response of the Neumann u87 is also wider than the SM58’s as it is 20Hz-20kHz. I recorded the vocal in with high-pass filter enabled to remove any unwanted low frequencies. The position of the mic was set at the height of the vocalist.

-Electric Guitar For the recording of the electric guitar I have used AKG 414 condenser microphone which has a flatter frequency response and is commonly used to record solo instruments. What is more is that boosts the midrange frequencies from 5Khz-15kHz and catches the most of the instrument’s harmonies. In order to record the Marshall amp we had to find the sweetest point where the white noise is limited and the signal is clean.

-Bass guitar The bass guitar was recorded using the The Rooster amplifier in the Factory studio 192. In order to record it we had to use the patch bay and send the signal from the amplifier to the DAW. This DI recording was a really good idea as the bass sounds much more clear recorded this way as there are no alias frequencies and distortion. The rooster also provides specific gain effects and amplifying functions which made the bass sound even more intelligible.

-Drums The recording of the drums is always one of the most complicated things as it involves a lot of microphones and the signals have to be in phase. To record the drums I set the drum kit tuning the kick and snare drum so they do not clash. Moon gel was also placed on the drums to reduce the vibrations and make the sound snappier. To make it the overall sound of the drums equal I

decided to use the Audix drumkit. The kick drum was miked with the D6 which is especially built for recordings of bass.

Furthermore to record the snare I placed Shure SM57 on the top and AKG C414 on the bottom. The idea was to have a little bit different sound on the snare in order to have more presence in the mix. Those microphones are both used for drums as they catch the snappy sound of the snare in more intelligible way.

At the end I had to place two microphones for the overheads. I decided to use the Glyn Johns technique as he has been the sound engineer of the Eagles and it would be nice to implement his technique in our cover project. I placed one of the Audix ADX51 on the left side of the drummer pointing at the snare drum whereas the other one was placed on the right hand-side of the drummer. Most importantly was that they were at equal distance from the center of the snare drum which is the core of this technique. To finalize the drum miking I have used the U87 as a room microphone to add more of the drums dynamics to the stereo image.

2. Audio Effects and Mixing The audio processing after the recording is an essential part of the whole track. The recording of the guitar was made by sending the signal to the Distressor in the factory studio and then back to the DAW in order to apply compression and decrease the dynamic range. There was also EQ applied through the mixing desk to make space and remove the unwanted frequencies. Therefore as the recording was made in stereo I panned the guitars with about -20 and +20 to left and right respectively.

Furthermore the drums were also equalized using the mixing desk in the drum tank so they don’t clash in the mix. The overhead tracks were panned to the left and right (-30, +30) as well as the snare top and snare bottom (-17, +17) tracks respectively to make the picture wider. Accordingly all of the drums were grouped and compressed in Logic so they have a better presence in the mix.

Most importantly the vocal was send to the DBX160 and compression was applied with a ratio of 2.1 and threshold level higher than the output level to make sure the harmonies are not lost.In addition several bus tracks were created in Logic X and some plugins were inserted. On the first bus big hall reverb from the space designer was inserted. The vocal signal was sent to this bus channel to make the picture of the center even bigger. In order to make sure it has a nice presence in the mix high-pass filter was applied using the EQ on the bus channel. To achieve a deeper movement of the sound one delay bus was created also created. It was essential part to attenuate the low frequencies of this bus using EQ with the idea to make space for the main sounds. The electric solo guitar was also sent to the bus but with less gain. Looking forward to make the stereo picture even bigger and wider, I created two buses with small hall reverb and two buses with delay. Both channels of the acoustic guitar were sent to the buses and the effects were panned to the left and right respectively (-35, +35). In order to achieve more intelligible sound EQ was applied on all of the buses removing the low frequencies around 200Hz. At the end the track was mixed, making sure the vocal is the leading sound whereas the acoustic guitar and the drums are placed widely in the stereo image. The bass guitar was placed in the center as it is mono and omnidirectional. The solo electric guitar was also in the center with the idea to replace the vocal and fill in the whole picture.

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