getting THAT Acoustic guitar sound

[shambolic]

Hi all, first post on this forum. I have been struggling for some time now tryin to get a suitable strumming sound recording from acoustic guitar. The sound i would like to get close to is that 70's Bowie type sound or something like 'wonderwall's' intro by Oasis- a light shimmery sound. I have been able to get a good fingerpicking sound out of my yamaha parlour guitar using it's internal mic (it's an actual mic in the soundhole) but strumming is just not right. after hearing you need to find a guitar that sounds right to start with I went out tried various within my range and bought a Martin DX1 which sounds nice in the room but still I cant record it well. It either sounds Boomy or Tinny. I have tried various placements with my mics ( an Oktava Mk319 and a sennheiser 835s) nothing works. the room sounds fine to my ear. The guitar is quite mellow so I m figuring I need to get a more toppy mic. I am looking at the behinger c2 combo or mxl v67i (which might be good for my deep Johnny Cash type voice as well) or......? I reckon £130 (who knows where that is in dollars with the current market swings! Was about $240) is my budget. I am determined to get a good acoustic sound but am limited by my budget . Any help please?

[Jeez]

Well, theres a lot of ways to mic the acoustic guitar up. I dont have so much money so i went out to get a stereo set of mxl mics (990 and 991). I use the 991 on the fretboard for picking up some of the hand moving and some of the high freqs, and the 990 on the bridge. This gives some great results with my washburn. i can highly recomand the stero set 990 and 991 mxl mics, i think you can get them for around 100 dollars. the 990 sound great on electric guitar too.

[Vulconizer]

Something to try:

Place a mic fairly close to the neck ( within 6 inches or so ) right around the nut. Add an EQ boost at 10k and see what you get.

[sparqee]

To my way of thinking a "shimmery" acoustic guitar sound is going to be one that de-emphasized the low end as well as any pick sound. Depending on the arrangement of a mix I often times find myself rolling off a *lot* of lows on acoustics guitar. It's not unusual that I high pass at 100Hz or higher. Another thing that makes for a "shimmery" sound is to double track the guitar and pan them apart. I don't really like chorus effects on acoustics but it can sound *way* cool to chorus or flange the reverb on an acoustic guitar (very spacey).

Another question I would ask is if you're gauging your guitar sound in the mix or just solo. If the guitar is to be just one element in a busy mix then don't worry about how it sounds solo'd (unless it will actually appear that way at some point in the song).

Have you played with different string gauges? New strings of course will give you a much brighter sound which can help if your guitar is too "mellow" and a lighter gauge will perhaps give you the shimmer you're looking for. Also try different picks, like strings they can affect the over all tone (though may require some changes in your technique).

p.s. if you have access to a transient modifier plugin play with that. It can do surprising things to guitar tone.

[Vulconizer]

Sparqee, I like your post. Much more insightful than mine.

[sparqee]

Originally Posted by Vulconizer

Sparqee, I like your post. Much more insightful than mine.

Yeah but you have a cooler icon than I do.

[Vulconizer]

I'd like to find one with Spock on a drum kit or a strat.

[sparqee]

Originally Posted by Vulconizer

I'd like to find one with Spock on a drum kit or a strat.

I always figured him as more of a Les Paul kind'a guy. Though I could maybe picture him with a cowboy hat and a telecaster.

[P.P.T.]

Maybe the Nashville setup where they take the low strings off and replace them with high strings.

I don't know the details.

[sparqee]

Originally Posted by P.P.T.

Maybe the Nashville setup where they take the low strings off and replace them with high strings.

I don't know the details.

Hey, thanks for that suggestion. I've heard vague descriptions of this before but never investigated. I looked it up at How to Tune Your Guitar to Nashville Tuning | eHow.com and it sounds pretty interesting. I used to play 12 string but it was always a bitch trying to keep the thing in tune not to mention the finger tension required to voice a chord well. Ouch! :P

I'm gonna try stringing my old Takamine this way and then double tracking a standard tuning guitar track. Should be fun!