Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi folks,
sorry this question may be a little out of place here but i think its relavent
enough to belong.

Origanly i come from an enginering background and i worked for a
company that buys and sells vintage pro audio equiptment here in the uk
as an service tech for 10 years (I have now left to consantrate on lutherie).
Any way as we dealt (and still do) with alot of proffesional musisions we
often got asked the same question,
"How do i record my favourate guitar and still get good results".
Usualy people think its there micing arangement but the fact is that it
nearly allways boils down to a problem with the guitar.
As luthiers we strive to build the best sounding guitars we can but when
it comes to recording this isent neciceraly a good thing.
good high end hand built guitar is realy hard to record becouse the huge
harmonic range which plays havoc with the recording process.
Most studio engineers use a neuman u67 (if i remember rightly) as the
industry standard to record guitars.
The reason they do this is that the u67 actualy has delibaratly narrow
bandwidth which rolls off the top and bottom frequncy,s allowing the
guitar to sit better in the mix without having to rely on much on e.q.
The problem with quality guitars is that thay have such rich harmonics
espesialy in the bottom end that when you translate that to the track it
palys havoc with the surrounding music causing suble conflicting
information in the mix.
This is fine if you are recording solo guitar music but if you are playing
with a band it has to be sorted out usualy with the aid of e.q..

So the problem is this the artist has paid $6000 + on his fine handmade
guitar he loves palying it, it sound wonderfull live, it sounds wonderfull in
a small room and in person, and above all he is used to playing it and he
loves it.
The artist wants to use his guitar to record with aswell.
but he gets to the studio and the engineer just cant get on with recording
it so inevetably they end up using a smaller bodyed cheap factory made
guitar that the artist is unfamiliar with.

The fact is that the guitar you would use for personal and live work is not
the type of guitar that is good for recording.
guitars that have small body.s and less harmonic range make the best
guitars for recording.JavaScript:AddSmileyIcon('')

basicaly we get at least three phone calls a day with people with this
problem everyone wants to record with there favourate guitars but quite
often find its not suitable for recording do you think that there would be
any way to mabey find some way to damp the sound of a guitar to help
make it better for recording.
There would definatly be a market for something that would work
maybey some kind of film that could be put on the soundboard to damp
the vibrations from the bridge or maybey some kind of soundhole plug.
I dont know but it is an aerea that i get asked about nearly every day.

I would love to hear peoples opinion on his subject and please feel free to
correct me if i have anything wrong.

lecture over,
joel.

I have heard of this happening, but it is usually the fault of the recording company and their digital feedback stopper that is causing the problem. The feedback stopper hears the harmonics of the guitar and assumes it is feedback because it has heard that particular tone for XXX miliseconds and then blocks that frequency for the duration of the recording session. Before long, all of the harmonics have been blocked and the high end guitar sounds like crap because all of it's harmonics have been blocked.  It also happens in upper end sound systems that use these digital feedback stoppers.  Unless the operator is skilled and educated in how to spot this problem,  they will just think it is a failure of the electronics of the guitar.

The first question I would ask someone that is having a problem recording a guitar is if they are using a digital feedback stopper. If they are, remove it from the mix and all should be well again.  If feedback is really an issue with the guitar, then do the recording with one of the rubber feedback plugs ( about ~$5) in the sound hole to kill the feedback at the source.

_________________
Reguards,

Ken H

There was a great article about just this about three years ago in Acoustic Guitar. If I remember right the article was actually a older article that was dug up and expanded on. The feature participants in the article were Jerry Garcia, David Crosby and Gram Nash.

What a combo of personalities

I doubt I have the magazine any more but I remember that they said type of mic and mic placement was critical. Too in-line with the sound hole and feed back was a big issue. Too far off center of the sound hole and the harmonics were lost. I believe I remember Jerry saying he liked to cover his guitar's mic with a doubled up tee shirt.

I wrote an article on recording guitars for AG about 12 years ago and interviewed five engineers and producers.

My current fave setups are either a matched pair of Schoeps small diaphragm CMC 6 Mark V mics (or the older 221s) in an XY configuration about 11" off the top between the neck joint and the sound hole OR the classic Blumlein XY setup with a pair of big diaphragm figure 8 mics out about 4 or 5 feet away in a very large room, this being how Kavi Alexander records his Water Lily Acoustics releases.

The problem with close miking acoustic guitars is that the proximity effect (which boosts bass) and the sound hole resonance work together in unfortunate ways.

Also the guitar that fits into a nice defined sonic slot in a recording with other instruments may not be that big warm round bell of a guitar that sounds so good solo. In a mix, each instrument needs to have limits that interfere as little as possible with the other instruments.   T-Bone Burnette told me that he prefers small funky Gibsons for a densely packed rock'n'roll track, but will go for something like a D-28 if there's a lot of space to fill.   His analogy was that the Beatles used uprights and spinet piano's for rock tracks and big grand piano's for things like Day in the Life where they wanted more grandeur from the piano sound.

I got in a fair amount of studio time several years ago recording a lot of different acoustic guitars for the Mama Bear project.   I had three prewar D-28s, three baby bodied L-5s, a Traugott, a Claxton, a McAlister, three J-200s of various ages, J-45s, a Ramirez, a Marin, several vintage Nationals...and the list goes on and on... I learned a great deal from all that, and some of what I learned has had a direct influence on my guitar making now.

[QUOTE=Rick Turner]
I got in a fair amount of studio time several years ago recording a lot of different acoustic guitars for the Mama Bear project.   I had three prewar D-28s, three baby bodied L-5s, a Traugott, a Claxton, a McAlister, three J-200s of various ages, J-45s, a Ramirez, a Marin, several vintage Nationals...and the list goes on and on... I learned a great deal from all that, and some of what I learned has had a direct influence on my guitar making now.[/QUOTE]

Okay, am I the only one here who would kill to know what Mr. Turner has learned? Or even forgotten, for that matter...

_________________
I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

If you read some of my posts, you'll see that I favor very rigid sides (though I'm not making full laminate sides), graphite reinforced back bracing, and a fully active top undamped by the fingerboard. Recording confirmed my theories about guitar tonal projection...our ability to influence the directionality of the acoustic energy output of a guitar. I also learned that the essential tonal signature of a guitar is right there in the first hundred milliseconds of the attack of a note.   I was also able to record and then see via computer analysis the differences I heard between a miked guitar sound and a piezo undersaddle pickup, and that led to my understanding of how most guitar tops impose a kind of smiley curve EQ onto the harmonic content of a vibrating string. It's no accident that most folks EQ a UST by cutting the mids.   I believe that the modes of vibration of a flat guitar top do the same thing...cancel out mids. So some of these ideas were kicking around in my head before I did this project, but having the intense experience of recording about thirty different really good vintage and modern guitars and then working with some very talented digital and analog electrical engineers to analyze these sounds helped crystalize a deeper level of understanding about what guitar tone is about. Of course, much of what I learned applies to any vibrating source of acoustical energy whether it's a guitar, a piano, or a trombone. It's basically about two things...frequency content and phase relationships. Here's a bit of a thought...not all the frequencies that go into a guitar bridge at once are released from the guitar at once.   The release time is smeared, and it's different at different frequencies. This is not theoretical gobblety-gook. This is real acoustical physics...observable, measurable, and repeatable. Some of how we got "there" with this is proprietary (and two of my partners in D-TAR put a whole lot of money into it), but the underlying physics is out there for all to see and understand. If you think of a guitar as a signal processor...a device that changes the input signal (the string signal) into something that is not only louder acoustically, but is also different in frequency response and phase response...then you'll start to see the larger picture.

  i have had this problem in the past, about three years ago i was in the studio with a christian rap band i play in, and we play a very wide range of music, from head banging metal rap to very soft ballads with the harmony section. on a couple tunes i play a banjo and a lute, and when we went to record the tunes, i had major trouble, the only thing i can tell you is anytime i tried to use the pickup on a guitar, it only made things worse and finally we settled for two mic's. but i specifically remember reading something as of late that satriani wrote that said he uses like 10 mics all over the place to get certain sounds he is looking for. i havent tried that yet, i only got a 8 track reel to reel at home, LOL, but if you find some way works better, let me know!!!

mark

Ten mics, what a nightmare.   That is going to reek of phase cancellations and need a big wash of reverb to smooth it all out.

As talented a guitarist as Satriani is, he's not exactly noted for pristine acoustic guitar tones.

I'd suggest that you listen to any of the recordings done on Water Lily Acoustics (Blumlien XY large diaphragm), anything that Laurence Juber has done (Schoeps pair, coincident XY), or any of Martin Simpson's work done at Bear Creek Studios (small diaphragm Neumann's, coincident XY pair). These would tend to be recordings that feature a very full sound and are really accurate to the sonic signatures of the guitars and other instruments. Check out V.M.Bhatt's Saradamani on Water Lily for how good a job can be done recording two people with just one pair of mics. Or Meeting by the River with Bhatt and Ry Cooder.   These are sonically amazing recordings of fabulous music, and having been at some of these recording sessions, I can attest to the accuracy of the recorded sound.

Keep in mind that different mic types have different personalities. I like a
large diaphram tube mic, so that's what I have and use. I had the
amazing opportunity to speak a bit with Al Schmitt (Grammy winning
engineer who's recorded each of Diana Krall's albums, Chris Botti, and
dozens of other acoustically rich albums) and found out he likes them too
and starts each session with one on every acoustic guitar and piano.

I believe preamp is more significant than mic type or choice. Those
undesirable frequencies you hear hyped up in your sound are from a
combination of your mic placement and preamp, and could most likely be
corrected by finding a pre that's friendly with your mic choice and desired
sound. Check out this link. Great mic, grand piano, same placements,
different pres. Listen to hear which bring out more fundamentals vs.
overtones, which brings more if this or that frequency spectrum, etc.

http://soundpure.com/showProduct.do?id=881

BTW, these mics aren't cheap...a Schoeps set like I mentioned will be $2,100 to $3,000 used. Big diaphragm Neumanns cost thousands, etc.   Then good mic preamps are also expensive.   So you can easily be in $5,000.00 to $6,000.00 before you send a signal to a console or recorder. That's with minimal or no EQ, by the way, and no other signal processing. But if you get the microphones and mic pres right, you don't need much else.

This is all like our guitars, too. Adequate is cheap, decent cost a bit more, and great costs a fortune.

A lot of commercial studios have these ultra-high end mics because of
standards and keeping up with the Jones's, but I believe there's a
threshold within rea$onable grasp where at least I really stop hearing
significant differences, or at least differences I don't think are worth the
extra $2000+ (or $15,000 in some cases).

I truly believe professional recordings are in the preamp and room if you
have a decent microphone and place it appropriately for the style of
recording you're after.

What are some of the other thoughts out there?

Well, I had a chance to hear Laurence Juber's hand picked pair of Schoeps CMC 4 Mark IV mikes and then a pair of vintage souped up Schoeps 221 tube mics through the same mic preamps in a really fine studio, and I can tell you that Laurence chose the 221s over his own mics, and we could all hear that little bit of extra warmth with no loss of detail. So in my experience the mics do have a lot to do with it. Bear in mind that condenser mics have a pre-preamp stage in them, so we could be hearing that, too.

I can't comment much more on the Water Lily recordings other than to say that the mics I've heard used the most are based on large rectangular diaphragm Milab capsules into Esoteric Audio Research tube preamps direct into a custom tweaked Studer 1" two track machine. I've never heard any recording sound that good. Minimal equipment...mics, preamps, tape machine. No EQ, no compression, no noise reduction, no nothing in the way of fat sound on wide tracks. Very expensive gear, but not much of it. High quality minimalism.   Not a bad way to go...

For another approach, Google "Jecklin Disc" and "Josephson Microphones". This is the binaural approach that works best with headphones or earbuds.

I totally agree with you regarding high quality minimalism.    

Tim McKNight had a really cool thing called a ZOOM that is a digital recorder with two built in mics. Most would scoff at it's very basic, toy store disign, but it does a really nice job. If you go to Tim's site there is a recording of the famous Diamond on there that uses it.

Oops, those mics would be CMC-5's. They also have a CMC-6 with slightly wider frequency response.   With this series of Schoeps mics, you order the mic body which has the elecronics for the capsule, and then you order a separate capsule depending on the polar response you want. The parts are all interchangeable, too.   Yeah, I know they're expensive, but they sure sound good.

[QUOTE=Rick Turner]Ten mics, what a nightmare.   That is going to reek of phase cancellations and need a big wash of reverb to smooth it all out.

As talented a guitarist as Satriani is, he's not exactly noted for pristine acoustic guitar tones.

I'd suggest that you listen to any of the recordings done on Water Lily Acoustics (Blumlien XY large diaphragm), anything that Laurence Juber has done (Schoeps pair, coincident XY), or any of Martin Simpson's work done at Bear Creek Studios (small diaphragm Neumann's, coincident XY pair). These would tend to be recordings that feature a very full sound and are really accurate to the sonic signatures of the guitars and other instruments. Check out V.M.Bhatt's Saradamani on Water Lily for how good a job can be done recording two people with just one pair of mics. Or Meeting by the River with Bhatt and Ry Cooder.   These are sonically amazing recordings of fabulous music, and having been at some of these recording sessions, I can attest to the accuracy of the recorded sound.[/QUOTE]

no, i think the idea there is to use as many mikes as you need, as you know, sound is different throughout the room. and anybody that knows how to use a mixer will have no problem with the rest.

mark b

I come out of a different school of miking technique. In my experience the phase information that the guitar is putting out is supremely important to understanding the character of the guitar, and to record that you need phase coherent miking which either means one mic, a pair of mics with coincident capsules, or one of the fake head style binaural mic setups.

You can't simply mix mics together willy nilly and get the sum of the best of each sound. The distance differences make for phasing problems galore, and you'll get some frequencies sucked out by phase cancellation and others reinforced in ways that do not represent the guitar.   You may wind up with an interesting effect...if you luck out. But what I am talking about here is the attempt to accurately characterize the guitar, and you're not going to get that with a field of mics all mixed together.

Rock guitarists like Satriani are accustomed to using mics and the studio as a part of their musical instrument, and it this case that means that the guitar itself is only a part of the sound. This is sound production, not reproduction. It's totally valid and it can yield some great results, but I don't think it's what most luthiers want if they really want to hear their guitars as accurately recorded as possible.   

Bear in mind that an accurate recording is not always what fits a mix, but it is usually what we want for solo guitar recordings.

Check out the Martin Simpson tone on some of the Water Lily recordings. Having hear Martin play his Sobells up close, I think that what Kavi Alexander captured is as accurate as I've ever heard a recording of a guitar that I know pretty well.

What I wind up hearing is that the large diaphragm condenser mics do better at a bit of a distance and the small diaphragm mics may be better in closer.

[QUOTE=MichaelP] There was a great article about just this about three years ago in Acoustic Guitar. If I remember right the article was actually a older article that was dug up and expanded on. The feature participants in the article were Jerry Garcia, David Crosby and Gram Nash.

What a combo of personalities

I doubt I have the magazine any more but I remember that they said type of mic and mic placement was critical. Too in-line with the sound hole and feed back was a big issue. Too far off center of the sound hole and the harmonics were lost. I believe I remember Jerry saying he liked to cover his guitar's mic with a doubled up tee shirt.[/QUOTE]

This article was in Acoustical Guitar magazine. Not Acoustic Guitar! A bit of difference between the two. Hua?

Cool thread.

I've recorded some stuff as well ranging from cheap fast stuff, to
expensive mics and signal chain. One of the biggest things to start off
with a is a good room and good mic placement. That is of paramount
importance. Don't matter what mic, pre, a/d converter, ect if you don't
have good placement.

Here is one of my really quick recordings. Just done in the living room,
with a couple cheap mics.

http://mayesguitars.com/eli.wav

The Schoeps mics are really awesome though. Very natural and sliky
smooth response. Much better than the SD nuemann KM's I used to have.

_________________
John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

[QUOTE=Rick Turner]I come out of a different school of miking technique. In my experience the phase information that the guitar is putting out is supremely important to understanding the character of the guitar, and to record that you need phase coherent miking which either means one mic, a pair of mics with coincident capsules, or one of the fake head style binaural mic setups.

You can't simply mix mics together willy nilly and get the sum of the best of each sound. The distance differences make for phasing problems galore, and you'll get some frequencies sucked out by phase cancellation and others reinforced in ways that do not represent the guitar.   You may wind up with an interesting effect...if you luck out. But what I am talking about here is the attempt to accurately characterize the guitar, and you're not going to get that with a field of mics all mixed together.

Rock guitarists like Satriani are accustomed to using mics and the studio as a part of their musical instrument, and it this case that means that the guitar itself is only a part of the sound. This is sound production, not reproduction. It's totally valid and it can yield some great results, but I don't think it's what most luthiers want if they really want to hear their guitars as accurately recorded as possible.   

Bear in mind that an accurate recording is not always what fits a mix, but it is usually what we want for solo guitar recordings.

Check out the Martin Simpson tone on some of the Water Lily recordings. Having hear Martin play his Sobells up close, I think that what Kavi Alexander captured is as accurate as I've ever heard a recording of a guitar that I know pretty well.

What I wind up hearing is that the large diaphragm condenser mics do better at a bit of a distance and the small diaphragm mics may be better in closer. [/QUOTE]

 

i hear what your sayin, but i of the mindset, that i havent been able to reproduce a certain accoustics tone, especially in the studio, and even sometimes i got totally different sound than i realized, especially when using a transducer or the guitars pickup itself. i went into the studio once to record a tune, and when we listened to the sound we ended up recording something totally different because the sound was what we were trying to achieve with another song.

sigh

mark b

"I've never heard any recording sound that good. "

Mic'ing an acoustic guitar to the artist's (and recordist's) satisfaction is as
much of an art form as building the guitar in the first place...

You can have every great mic and preamp ever made, and still not even
come close.

For a recording that predominately features the guitar and it's special
sonic
signiture, the room itself beomes the most important part of the
equation...

"I think that what Kavi Alexander captured is as accurate as I've ever
heard a recording of a guitar that I know pretty well. "

Doesn't Kavi use spaces like churches and large halls--in addition to his
custom mics, pres, and analog tape (I think)-- to get his sounds?

I remember that recording he did of Ry Cooder & V.M. Bhatt was done in a
church in Santa Barbara that he liked the acoustics in....

The space you record in is a huge part of the puzzle...

Yes, Kavi's best known recordings were done in a large church in Santa Barbara with the musicians set up on a small stage right about where the services would be conducted. The mics were about four or five feet back and captured a good amount of direct sound vs. the reverberant sound. And that's the key to my ears. Too many "audiophile" recordings sound like they were recorded too far away from the musicians and the direct detail is smeared in a wash of reverb. Kavi's recordings have a really nice balance between the direct and reverberant field.

Until recently he used a custom modified Studer 1" two track. Lately he has used a modded Stellavox and also some of the newest Sony digital gear.

[QUOTE=Rick Turner] Very expensive gear, but not much of it. High quality minimalism.   Not a bad way to go...
[/QUOTE]

On a tangentially related topic: that's my exact philosophy on the setup of a wood shop.

_________________
Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services