Acoustic Guitar:Room options:Help!!

[EnSkorSang]

I'm having big problems recording my acoustic guitars: 12 string + normal.
There are potentially 3 rooms in my house in which I could record - please help me choose which one and offer techniques on how to get the best sound before I smash eveyrthing up

1) My bedroom - a small room about 6ft x 12ft, with a fair bit of clutter in it - bookcase, bed, wardrobe, desk. This cannot be moved out. Ive heard clutter is good for making a dead sound (??) so is it a better to have a small room (to minimize reflections?) or....
2) a bigger, emptier room...would still need to record dead as its got naffy reverb (carpeted floor, beamed cieling, wierd walls) Not much in this one and its about twice the size of my bedroom.

and finally

3) Conservatory. This room has REVERB...quite a lot. But it also seems to be a fairly nice reverb - kinda like when your in the shower your voice sounds better type of thing. Its about 6ft x 15ft, tiled floor, big window, french doors, basically all hard surfaces. The only problem is their is more outside noise coming through..

I have one mic - MXL 990. Not the greatest mic with it, but I have got good results for other things. (cardiod, freq range 30hz-20khz, equiv noise: 20db) This is the first time however I have wanted acoustic guitar to really stand out in the mix and its faults are clearly showing...

After Ive chosen my room...how about placement? should i get really close or move the mic away. I seem to get better results from having it about 12th fret, fairly close.

Finally - when recording the dead sound (if i choose one of the first 2 rooms) is it better to get in a corner of a room and plaster it in blankets etc, or stand right in the middle?

please help!!

[the.blode]

I'd be trying the conservatory if I were you.
Carpeted floor = bad acoustic guitar sound (generally)

Smaller rooms' resonant modes are further apart than equivalent room modes in larger rooms, so the overall response is more skewed. glass and other hard surfaces might be reflective at higher frequencies, but unless they're sufficiently thick, a lot of low frequencies will just diffract right through them.

[brandondrury]

so is it a better to have a small room (to minimize reflections?)

Small rooms do not minimize reflections. The size of the room has little to do with the number of reflections in that room.

With that said, it would take less clutter to deaden a small room.

If it was me, I'd try recording in all 3 rooms and see what happens. Maybe you could attach the 3 examples here.

After Ive chosen my room...how about placement? should i get really close or move the mic away. I seem to get better results from having it about 12th fret, fairly close.

Depends heavily on the guitar, mic, and the desired tone. I start at about 18" back on the 12th fret and go from there. If it's thin, I move closer or towards the soundhole. If it's boomy, I move towards the nut or move the mic higher, or futher away.

Carpeted floor = bad acoustic guitar sound (generally)

I've used a rug for acoustics to kill some wierd, boxy reflections and it wasn't too bad. It wasn't anything like what carpet does for drum sounds (YUCK!).

Brandon

[EnSkorSang]

I recorded in all 3 as reccomended, and the problem appeared to solve itself; In the conservatory the rain is VERY loud and I wanna crack so wont wait for a sunny day in the downstairs room there is too much disruption from people moving about in the house, so unfotunately I am confined to upstairs due to non-sound related issues. I'll post a clip of my efforts in 'reviews' soon.
Thanks for help.

[brandondrury]

It appears that reality is the biggest determiner of recorded tone in the home recording world.

Brandon

[EnSkorSang]

well I for one am fed up of damned reality