Full bodied acoustic guitar.....

[elmagoo]

So in the process of creating a second SpiderValve / Trion example I liked the riff so much I've created a full track out of it. In the process I also decided to upgrade a few components, hence why it's been taking me so long to get it together . In the process though, I tracked a few acoustic tracks today and found, at least in my opinion, a really great way to get a good, full bodied acoustic guitar tone. I wanted to share the info, and see what you thought..

The details:
- CuBase 4, E-MU 1820m interface
- Focusrite ISA 428 pre pack (4 mic pre's in one unit)
- Trion 7000 Ribbon mic
- Rode NT1A condenser mic
- sE Electronics Reflexion Filter
- Taylor 310CE acoustic
- Recorded at 48K 32bit in my bedroom studio
- MP3 is at 192kbps from CuBase

The sounds is a blend of 3 signals:
- Trion 7000 with the Reflexion Filter aimed at the sound hole
- Rode NT1A aimed at the 12th fret position
- Direct out from the Taylor

All inputs go through the ISA 428, using the impedance matching as such:

- Trion on high
- NT1A on ISA110 setting
- Direct on medium

Both mics are about 6-8 inches off the guitar (just enough room for my hands to play).

I took 3 takes, bounced all 3 takes down to a single track each with the prefered blend (which is basically all 3 signals almost even in level), and then I comp'd this final take from the 3. Aside from this, there is no EQ or compression, or FX. Just the bare end result .

This is just a small riff in the whole song. I've pretty much tracked everything except for whatever the lead element is going to be. Meaning I don't know if I want to write lyrics for it, or make a guitar instrumental out of it. I'll probably mix what I have anyways and post the whole thing up here when I'm done.

Enjoy

Benson

[thesilentdrummer]

That's a really nice sound. It would be nice to hear all the sources individually before we hear a combined.

[elmagoo]

Originally Posted by thesilentdrummer

That's a really nice sound. It would be nice to hear all the sources individually before we hear a combined.

I can put them up tonight when I get home .

[elmagoo]

So here are the individual mic tracks that make up the whole thing. Since the original clip I posted was comp'd from 3 different takes, the playing will of course be different . I've included another 'combined' version though so you can hear this take in reference to the individual mics.

The NT1A captures the majority of the overall sound, with the direct getting more the highs, and the ribbon (Trion) getting the mid-lows and lows.

Benson

[Face]

f in a cotton f in a............I love it.

[thesilentdrummer]

wow. Its really cool to hear all that stuff come together. Each input has a different character that the others don't have. The DI starts getting iffy when you play chords and stuff, but as you said, it gets the highs nice and crisp. The NT1a gets the middle of the sound. It is overall the "best" alone in my opinion, but when you throw in that trion, you get the low end. Well done.

[elmagoo]

Thanks guys, glad you like it. I figured the idea would be worth sharing as I know we don't all have nice big chambers in our places, so capturing acoustic has always been tricky in a bedroom .

I would definitely give a recommendation to the reflexion filter as it really helped to isolate the ribbon mic. It's a figure of 8 pattern, so the filter helped to keep any reflections and noise from entering the back side of the mic. I didn't use anything on the NT1A, so it gets a bit of room sound.

I think one other thing that helped was driving the pre-amp as much as I could per channel. So I had the preamp set great for picking, but I couldn't do any hard strumming with this setting as it would clip the inputs going into the computer. I had to turn the pre-amp down to allow for the peaks while strumming, and it didn't quite capture as much air or presence as the picking settings did. It's still good, but not quite the same. It's the first time I really wished for an out-board compressor to help contain the peaks so I could drive the pre-amp better .

Benson

[guitar junkie]

I still don't like DI guitar sounds, and the fret noise I get from them, what does both signals panned hard left and hard right, from the mics while leaving out the DI give you? and have you checked the phase on these signals?

[elmagoo]

Originally Posted by guitar junkie

I still don't like DI guitar sounds, and the fret noise I get from them, what does both signals panned hard left and hard right, from the mics while leaving out the DI give you? and have you checked the phase on these signals?

I haven't tried using just the two mic signals, but I used to use just the NT1A and the direct. The direct just adds some clarity to the signal, to my ears anyways (it is of course subjective .

As for phase issues, there's none that I can detect. The mics were setup pretty much parrallel to each other, both equal distance from the guitar (about 6 - 8 inches). Hence the sound should have been hitting both mics at the same time. The blended / all recording is the bounce of all of the signals into a single track, so if there are any phase issues they should be present in these sample recordings.

Benson

[albrat]

Hi
Its really very good. I would like to try it once.