Recording for first time next weekend. Some tips?
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Posted on Jul 13, 2007 10:19 pm
Shenanigans
Member Since: Apr 05, 2007
Me and a friend are gonna be recording the song Hey There Delilah by the Plain White T's, dont know if you've ever heard it.
The song is just an acoustic guitar and a female singer but I'll be doing the acoustic and she'll be doing the singing and I'm just wondering if theirs sometips you guys can give me on recording and editing afterwards?
Best way to mic an acoustic?
Best way to compress and EQ vocals?
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Jul 13, 2007 10:31 pm Record everything flat...no EQ, do the EQing later in the calm confines of your room. Since you have the 1010, use all three of your mics, put one on the sound hole (as close as you can without getting in the way of the hand) put one on the nack, or where the neck meets the body, and put one a couple feet back from the sound hole. Keep them all on separate tracks and mix to taste later.
Compression is subjective depending on the voice, just make sure you get no clips during the recording.
Jul 13, 2007 10:35 pm Actually I'll be having access to better equipment. we wont be recording in my....studio i guess is the word for it. She has a good friend who actually has a nice studio workin on being sound proofed. I'll have access to some SM57's and a KSM27. I'm gonna do some more question asking and see what her friend has for an interface and i may end up bringing my delta 1010 and mixer.
Jul 14, 2007 05:06 am make sure the singer knows how to 'work the mic'....tons of compression can be avoided if the singer simply 'backs off' the mic when they get loud.....it's much more natural, but it's a 'learned' skill....also don't get too carried away with 'recording EVERYTHING' ie: muliple mics, keep it simple...if it's one vocalist and an acoustic guitar, record the guitar in stereo and put the singer with one mic right up the middle....simpler is better!
Jul 14, 2007 10:43 am I understand what you mean by "working the mic"
I also got done reading about phasing in. It talked about phasing in for micing cabs. Do you have to phase in for an acoustic?
zekthedeadcowEat Spam before it eats YOU!!!Member
Since: May 11, 2002
Jul 14, 2007 06:36 pm I don't like to mic acoustics at the sound hole... I think the tone is better micing the sound box itself... usually I mic one of the bottom corners...below the elbow for more bass and below the neck for less bass... or both...
Jul 15, 2007 10:29 am Thanks, variety is good.
Jul 16, 2007 04:35 pm i'm not sure i get what ya mean by 'phasing in'.
RigsbyUltra MagnusMember
Since: Nov 13, 2004
Jul 17, 2007 04:41 am Me neither.
Jul 18, 2007 12:51 am heres a piece describing it from the article i took it out of on this website.
"Phasing occurs because the Mics are receiving two different "waveforms" (like you see on the computer screen in your Sample editing program) - Because the mic's are recording from the same source (the guitar amp) and are very close together, these waveforms will cancel each other out when they are mixed together resulting in a very thin sound as opposed to what the two mics would sound like if they were "in-phase" (which would be "phatter" than just the one mic)."
RigsbyUltra MagnusMember
Since: Nov 13, 2004
Jul 18, 2007 05:28 am Yeah, that's phase cancellation. We just got a little lost on what 'phasing in' means as it's not really a term that's used.
Jul 18, 2007 09:27 am Sorry for the misunderstanding. Haha I'm a newbie at this. So for micing the acoustic guitar, would I have to worry about that? Are the mics close enough to where it would matter?
RigsbyUltra MagnusMember
Since: Nov 13, 2004
Jul 18, 2007 10:20 am No worries dude.
There's basic 1:3 rule, if you have a mic 12" from the source your next mic should be 36" or over. That's keeping it simple of course but it's a good place to start. If you want to move them closer then you'll hear phasing issues, usually this is made far less noticable if you flip the polarity of the second mic. On some software this is called 'invert' (not reverse).
I do this all the time when tracking drums for instance as i often mic both the top and the bottom of the snare, i flip the bottom snare mic and all my percievable phase issues are gone.
Phase can also be a neat trick. If you have two identical sources exactly 180 degrees out of phase they cancel eachother out. I once spent hours and hours editing cello parts for a tune and accidentally deleted them, thinking i'd bounced them all down. Luckily i had a rough mix with the cello parts and everything else on it, so i made an identical rough mix without the cellos, flipped the phase and hey-presto - just the cellos as a stereo track. That sort of stuff fascinates me - totally saved my veggie bacon too.
Jul 18, 2007 10:46 am Well i was gonna take DB's recommendation (above) on micing the acoustic and i just wanted to make sure I wouldnt have to deal with that. Being my first recording I want to keep it simple.
RigsbyUltra MagnusMember
Since: Nov 13, 2004
Jul 18, 2007 04:29 pm You should be fine, just watch your distances, the 1:3 rule will keep you safe and sound.
Jul 18, 2007 10:36 pm Well then what DB said -"put one on the sound hole (as close as you can without getting in the way of the hand) put one on the nack, or where the neck meets the body, and put one a couple feet back from the sound hole"- wouldnt be in the 1:3 rule and i'd have the phasing issues. Maybe just put a SM57 by the 12th fret and then a condenser farther back to pick up some depth. That's what I also read alotta people doing.
Jul 21, 2007 11:28 pm Well, recording got pushed back tuesday now. I can't wait. Now i just need to read up on dealing with EQ
