james taylor cover

[charliethunder]

any and all comments greatly appreciated.

[jjb]

Nice performance! JT songs always sound good with just a vocal and guitar. However, I'd add a little more stereo field to the guitar (vocal is fine). Enjoyed listening.

jjb

[charliethunder]

you are very kind.
thank you for listening.
could you tell me how you would add more stereo field to the guitar??

[jjb]

One way is to record the guitar again on another track. Pan the original full left and the other track full right. Or duplicate (copy) the guitar track and offset the dup 10 to 40 ms, and pan as above. Or, you can download a stereo enhancer VST plugin like Voxengo Stereo Touch and use it as an insert or send to enhance the stereo field.

jjb

[kyleknapp]

VERY nice performance! I'd bring the guitar up a bit, though.
Lots of nice bottom end on the guitar, but the highs seem just a little dull to me, and there's a touch of "boxiness" in the lower midrange that you might try and EQ out. How did you mic the guitar?

[charliethunder]

Originally Posted by jjb

One way is to record the guitar again on another track. Pan the original full left and the other track full right. Or duplicate (copy) the guitar track and offset the dup 10 to 40 ms, and pan as above. Or, you can download a stereo enhancer VST plugin like Voxengo Stereo Touch and use it as an insert or send to enhance the stereo field.

jjb

thank you.
I am looking forward to trying the duplication methods.
(the record again way would not work good for me as I never play anything the same way twice, to say nothing of timing issues......I never play to a click track or anything like that).

[charliethunder]

Originally Posted by kyleknapp

VERY nice performance! I'd bring the guitar up a bit, though.
Lots of nice bottom end on the guitar, but the highs seem just a little dull to me, and there's a touch of "boxiness" in the lower midrange that you might try and EQ out. How did you mic the guitar?

thanks for the suggestions.
would you tell me what boxiness means???

R84 on the neck, sterling audio st55 on the body.
definitely bleed from vocal mic. pearlman tm2 (a tube mic).
the highs sound a little dull to me to.

[kyleknapp]

um, that's a bit difficult to define (kind of like w-a-r-m) - similar to "boominess" I guess - kind of where a midrange frequency gets exaggerated as if through a megaphone. I don't know if I'm describing this at all meaningfully. When I posted my first attempt at recording acoustic guitar on this forum, Brandon suggested I "yank out" around 200-400hz, which proved to be a useful starting point for future recordings. I'd try cutting a deep narrow notch with your EQ and try sliding it up and down from 100-500 hz and see if you don't find a frequency that makes an improvement.

I've never used an R84 (can't afford it) or ST55, but I'm wondering if you might get better results with a small-diaphragm condenser on the neck. Where on the neck are you aiming it, and how close? I notice (with my cheapskate selection of mics at least) that a fret or 2 up or down the neck can make a huge difference. I usually end up aiming a mic at the 12th fret, about 4-6 inches away - moving it even slightly closer to the sound hole adds boxiness (there's that word again) and reduces string clarity. If I use a spaced-pair configuration (like you are) I aim the body mic directly at the bridge. Of course this all depends on a variety of factors, including your playing style and the tonal qualities of the instrument itself.

But overall the guitar sounds pretty nice - I'd try playing with the EQ in the lower midrange, and also try EQing to bring out the highs a bit. You might try playing with reverb and/or maybe an Exciter plug-in and see if that doesn't add some sizzle to the high end.

AND, my FIRST suggestion was the biggest IMO. You're doing some very nice fingerstyle work there, I'd like to hear more of it - you could easily raise it a couple db without overpowering your vocal.