Stereo Acoustic Guitar. The Middle Ground

[paul999]

I am not a fan of recording acoustic guitars in stereo. I just don't like the sound. I did a demo for this young girl with a great set of pipes after my 16 hour day yesterday. It was a rush for a talent scout.

Anyway in typical 999 fashion I could not stop myself from experimenting I decided to take my new Acoustic guitar (high end) and record it for the first time with an sm-81->API 512c chain. My levels were a little low making some noise and this was the sound check take of the guitar as I was reading the chart I hastily wrote a minute before. We spent about an hour on her voice and about an hour mixing an editing.

With the guitar at mixing time I sent it to two different channels. One was my console eq and the other was my tonelux eq. I compressed and treated them differently and panned them wide. I then added F/X. I think this gave a wider guitar without it being unrealistic (whatever that means). I could get this better with more time and a better performance

Anyway I thought this gave a nice place for the vocals to sit.

[garww]

Refreshing !

EDIT; meaning I want to listen to this awhile. I think this would be a joy to work with !

[brandondrury]

Anyway in typical 999 fashion I could not stop myself from experimenting

This gig never gets boring when you never do the same thing twice. I know this because I've never done the same thing twice.

unrealistic (whatever that means).

I don't know either, but that's generally the route I seem to go.

The whole stereo guitar thing never floored me, either. I never really saw the point of recording a mono instrument (give or take) in stereo. The only exception to that is when you can get a mic 5-10' away. That can be more interesting in stereo simply due to complexities in the room. Mid-side can be exceptionally fun in these cases as well but not without it's own problems.

I decided to take my new Acoustic guitar (high end) and record it for the first time with an sm-81->API 512c chain

What guitar is this? It (and the SM81/API would absolutely KILL in full band mix. It would sit perfectly. You can really hear that API working.

As is in such a sparse mix, my tastes would like a bit more of the octave below. I suspect that's the guitar or just your personal tastes coming out in the low end.

Now that I think about it, a wide guitar is unrealistic. The vary notion of wanting to spread an acoustic guitar to sound 22' feet wide or whatever is clearly not how the instrument sounds based on any of my experiences. I don't hear anything striking about the width on this one (which may be why it sounds realistic to me, too).

The only real option for me if I want any serious width is to double the guitars and hard pan 'em. That's its own sound and probably a love/hate type of thing.

Brandon

[paul999]

[QUOTE]

What guitar is this? It (and the SM81/API would absolutely KILL in full band mix. It would sit perfectly. You can really hear that API working.

This is an older Aria acoustic. I had written off this brand to years ago. When I saw this one for some reason I had to play it and it sounded F'ing awesome. I tried a bunch of the new ones that gave me the ho hum feeling but this one has a scooped sound with a lot of low end and clear highs. Where this guitar is scooped my 1964 Gibson small body sits. I am excited about this! I was planning on getting a "modern sounding" taylor guitar and this one walked in and did it! This guitar has the "modern acoustic neck" which feels like an electric guitar.

As is in such a sparse mix, my tastes would like a bit more of the octave below. I suspect that's the guitar or just your personal tastes coming out in the low end.

Absolutely. I cut some 100 and 200hz and added a little 55-70hz. I wasn't going for Jack Johnson low end though. I am searching for a fatter low end acoustic tone that doesn't feel muddy to me which I haven't nailed yet.

I don't hear anything striking about the width on this one (which may be why it sounds realistic to me, too).

What was happening for me was that I needed to cut some 3Kish stuff in the guitars to get the vocals to sit. Thiws felt like I was killing the guitar. When I split the channels all of a sudden the guitar could sit back in the mix and surround the vocal a little. More like a small hug then an enveloping double guitar.

[garww]

It was hard for me to get any real clues with my bad ear, but I looped it for about an hour later that night. I felt it worked around the vocals and was das goot at the opening

[brandondrury]

What was happening for me was that I needed to cut some 3Kish stuff in the guitars to get the vocals to sit. Thiws felt like I was killing the guitar. When I split the channels all of a sudden the guitar could sit back in the mix and surround the vocal a little. More like a small hug then an enveloping double guitar.

Awesome. I wouldn't have expected this "subtle width" business to get around frequencies clashing this well. Very cool. I guess a little goes a long way.

Absolutely. I cut some 100 and 200hz and added a little 55-70hz. I wasn't going for Jack Johnson low end though. I am searching for a fatter low end acoustic tone that doesn't feel muddy to me which I haven't nailed yet.

Yeah, I've struggled with that one for years. It's usually either a choice of mud or thinness. I hear recordings where they pull off the big low end on acoustic guitars (even sometimes in a full band mix) and it sounds great. Why this one is that challenging is a mystery to me.

Brandon

[Jeronimo Mora]

If you listen long enough, you can hear a guitar in the background. That girl can really sing. Holy shit.

[Sonic098]

Great production!
What mic did you use for the vocals?

[m24p]

That girl can really sing. Holy shit.

So, I went to an open mic just for fun, and there was a girl there with such an amazing voice, it sounded better than I'd heard in that genre before. And it was live! And she didn't have any CDs! (A lot of the mediocre musicians at open mics have at least one).

I really wanted to get her to come record with me, but she and her boy were on their way to California from New York. There wouldn't have been any time. But it was literally jaw-dropping, she sang a few notes and my jaw went down. I never got her contact info but she really needs to record somewhere.

Working with real, top talent that doesn't have too much of an ego would be fun.

[JoshERTW]

I recently recorded an acoustic with two pencil condensers, one at 6" off fret 12 with a cardioid pattern and one a foot back and a foot above the other with omni pattern - both mic's were in a V shaped rockwool gobo enclosure with the player/sound-hole of the guitar facing the centre of the V.

I liked the sound of both mic's centred and blended - I'll post the results when I get some time, maybe do a "centred" vs. "panned" version.

[Beergod]

Can I borrow your vocalist? I promise I'll bring her back...NOT.

[JasonL]

In my world, stereo micing of acoustic guitar is the only way to go. It's very common in the acoustic music world. I rarely do it artificially though. Almost always 2 mics - either AT4050's or Neumann km 184's. I like the 184's on guitar and mandolin. Usually an x/y pattern, but not always. If the 184's are too bright, I normally prefer the 4050's - definitely 4050's on my dobro where I mic one in near the 12th fret somewhere and the other over the cone.

What I'm usually going for isn't a very wide image, but an image with lots of depth and dimension. I pan the mic I like best to the position where it sits nicely then take the other mic panned somewhere to the opposite stereo field - maybe totally opposite or maybe just part way. Then I bring the volume of the 2nd mic way down so that I can't really hear it. As you start to bring the volume slowly up, you'll hear the instrument widen slightly. It's almost like adding reverb or a delay, but it feels so much more natural to me. You'll also notice that where ever the main mic is panned, it'll start to feel like it shifts a bit towards the centre. In that case you may have to move it slightly further, or simply bring the 2nd mic down a bit. Hopefully I haven't confused anyone here.

A lot of the music I mix will be something like vocal, guitar rhythm, melodic instrument. In a case like that it's the vocal up the middle, guitar mic 40ish left with it's 2nd mic panned hard right. Melodic instrument goes 40ish right with it's 2nd mic hard left. Often gets a bit more complex, but try not to pan any 2 mic to the same place. If I'm just working with acoustic guitar and vocal it's hard left and right on the acoustic, but I always make sure it's an x/y micing pattern. Otherwise the width can seem unnatural. The x/y pattern often feels like it's a mono guitar with a bit more width and depth, yet it totally stays out of the centre where the vocal is.

Jason

[Jeremy Morrissy]

Wow. Better than the original song, true?? Sorry, I didn't really pay much attention to the guitar this listen through :P
But I suppose that's a positive isn't it?? You did well to highlight her voice whew.

[dudermn]

Talk about a subtle delay.
At 0:46 It stands out enough to convince me that it's present. I found myself arguing with myself if I was hearing reverb.
0:06 - Guitar gets hit (softly) and makes some noise.
1:08 The reverb helps the essess out. Should've been dry .
1:18 at 'to get lost' it sounds like the words got split cut and moved around because of the guitar hammer on :/ thing.
1:20 the word 'at' seems to have gone through a pitch correction.
1:47 "mountain you've been climbing" I was expecting one of those long fade delay echo things
(climbing bing ing ing ng ng ng g )
2:08-2:11 guitar acoustic imagine changes, or it sounds like it's shifting around.
2:26 some guitar bit pops up on the left channel, seemed kinda far but it did get my attention.
The whole end guitar part keeps panning in my head from being prominent on the left to prominent on the right...
You managed to play finger style guitar and maintain percussive elements of acoustic guitar. That's not as easy as it sounds to do.
There's also no space between the vocals and guitar, though they are so close together that their fighting for attention or rather the guitar gets run down by the chica every now and than.
I spent about 30 minutes going through the track with a micro-scope .

[Pkay]

Is it just me or the guitar is phased up?

Cus i know that when guitars are usually panned delayed or doubled left and right, they sound much wider with clear distinction of each side.

The guitar is wide but something bothers my ears.

I pressed the side button on my interface and it's letting me hear those phases.

[dudermn]

Well, yea apart from the list of 9 things wrong with the mix I made. We needed 1 more to make it 10

[jaystar]

My favorite way to record acoustic guitar is using the old M/S technique where you use a high quality condenser in the figure 8 pattern. Then I use a neumann km 184 pointed near the 12th fret on the guitar with the OTHER mic directly below the km 184 facing the sides in (T-like pattern) When done recording, you duplicate figured 8 mic track capturing the sides and flip the phase of the duplicated track. This new stereo track will be your "stereo" width and the km 184 is the middle direct sound. This will give you a total of 3 tracks. 1 mono and 1 stereo. You can then adjust the width of the track simple by raising or lowering the width of the stereo track while the mono track stays at the same volume.

[wardrobestudio]

I agree that it sounds like a "real guitar". How much did you pan each channel? Hard left/right?

As a guitar player, I struggle with eq'ing and mixing acoustic guitar. The problem stems from the fact that an acoustic guitar sounds different if you're playing it than it does if you're listening to it from 5 feet away. As a player I had a habit of eq'ing from the player's ear rather than the audience's ear, and it took me quite a while to figure out why singers (especially) didn't like the acoustic tracks I'd mixed. It wasn't a case of them thinking the guitar was too prominent, I was just that it didn't sound "real" to them.

So now I make an effort to mix and eq acoustic guitar wearing a different listener's hat.

I have never had the same feedback about electric guitars - I guess it's because everyone in the session has the same point of reference i.e. a speaker some distance away.

Thanks for posting the mix - good stuff!

[awesome]

yeah see i like both.

I normally go for single mic. or if i do stereo its a xy with subtle panning.

But i have used the super wide stuff. one mic down by the soundhole maybe pointed at the 14 fret and another mic two feet away pointed down the neck. Then i'll pan them super wide. And as brandon said, nobodies eardrums are 2 feet apart and panned hard. So this doesn't really create a realistic stereo "image" of a single source. Instead it just sounds really ambient since you can't place it in the acoustic space. So it's not really a "stereo" recording. It's just two mono recordings of the same performance with some fancy panning. And ya know what. It actually sounds pretty cool. It twinkles and sparkles and sounds all epic and shit. Sometimes i want a realistic stereo image where the listener can place the guitar in one spot on the soundstage, and sometimes i want my acoustic guitar to come down like rain and just soak down into every open spot of my mix. I don't think there is anything wrong with creating sounds that are not natural or reproducable in "real life". It's all about balance i guess.

[awesome]

this one i did last week. It was perfect for the sound this guy was going for. we both loved it.

[dudermn]

It's raining acoustic guitars ?
Last week sounds complicated.

[nedped]

The fingerpicking accompanied by tender singing is enjoyable while it lasts. Once the song picks up its intensity, it sounds like a catfight. Very strident and grating. The vocal and guitar are locked together in mutual agitation. You guys are definitely on the same page with your performances. It's a shame what started out as a pretty song turned into something painful. Why do present-day musicians adore harshness? I think a stereo guitar, or one that is double-tracked and hard-panned would better envelope the vocal here and tame the perception that they are having a fight with each other. I enjoy loud and powerful music when it knocks me up both sides of the head for good measure. I don't enjoy music that hits me right between the eyes. In conclusion, this recording sounds good until you rock the meters. So I guess my ears disagree with just about everyone in this room, huh? Good forum, though, and thanks for sharing your ideas and your music. And best of luck to the young singer. She DOES have oodles of potential.

[dudermn]

I prefer to be technical.
If I like listening to emo music or not, won't hinder my perception, only how much of the production I will listen to.
Welcome aboard