Struggling with acoustic guitar recordings – need feedback please!

[Sarge_201]

Hey everyone,

I’m new to the forum, so I hope this is the right section to post this!

I’ve been recording some acoustic guitar + vocal covers just for fun, as I do this in a totally amateur way and out of passion. I’m using a Neumann TLM 103 for vocals and a pair of RØDE NT5s for the guitar.

Over the past five months, I’ve tried every mic placement and combination I could think of, but I still feel like the overall sound isn’t quite there. At this point, I’m starting to think I might be the problem haha!

The best result I’ve gotten so far was with an XY mic setup, where the hypothetical center was aimed at the 12th-14th fret of the guitar. This way, one mic was pointing towards the neck, while the other was aimed at the picking hand. The two NT5s were running through my Apollo Twin X, where I used two Neve 1073 preamps, without applying any EQ.

I’d really appreciate some feedback on my recordings, especially on the acoustic guitar tone. I just want to know if the sound I’ve achieved is usable, decent, and actually a proper recording, or if it’s just a complete mess. Be brutally honest!

Here’s the link to my recordings:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Thanks in advance!

[Drew Stephenson]

Those hard panned samples sound absolutely fine to me. The centred ones sound a bit toppy.
Personally, if I'm using two SDCs, I quite like one aiming behind the bridge pointing up the fretboard a bit, and one at the height of the lower bout around the 14th fret. Then adjust to taste.
There's a really useful set of positions and samples on Mike Senior's site here: https://www.cambridge-mt.com/rs2/lmp/

Generally I find that if I've stuck a half-decent mic in a sensible position and I don't like the sound, it's probably a problem with either my playing or the part itself.

[Sarge_201]

Those hard panned samples sound absolutely fine to me. The centred ones sound a bit toppy.
Personally, if I'm using two SDCs, I quite like one aiming behind the bridge pointing up the fretboard a bit, and one at the height of the lower bout around the 14th fret. Then adjust to taste.
There's a really useful set of positions and samples on Mike Senior's site here: https://www.cambridge-mt.com/rs2/lmp/

Generally I find that if I've stuck a half-decent mic in a sensible position and I don't like the sound, it's probably a problem with either my playing or the part itself.

Thanks for the feedback! I’ll definitely check out that link—it looks really useful.

I’ve actually already tried a stereo setup with one SDC at the bridge and one at the 14th fret, but I was a bit worried about phase issues, so I didn’t stick with it for long. I’ll give it another shot and see if I can make it work better. Appreciate the advice!

[Drew Stephenson]

Think of it less as a stereo pair and more as a complementary twin mic set-up.
Rather than pointing at the bridge, aim at the area behind hit. Phase issues aren't likely to be much of an issue for two reasons, partly because by the time you've got a mic 8" away from the body at one end and one a similar distance up at the 12th fret you've probably got plenty of space between the mics, but mainly because you're fundamentally capturing different sounds of the guitar.

[rggillespie]

I like having 2 mics for an acoustic as outlined by Drew, one at the 12 fret and one at the lower bout. I must have read it somewhere that to account for phase issues you multiply by a third. So if your mic's are both 8 inches away from the guitar one at the 12th fret and the other below the bridge they should be 24 inches apart from each other in a straight line. I haven't been able to open the files you posted but will try again later today. If it's a tonal thing you aren't happy with, I found after endless tweaking of eq, a good solution was changing the strings! Always used standard d'addario before but I tried some Thomastik bronze and the guitar just suits them much better and records better too.

[Hugh Robjohns]

I must have read it somewhere that to account for phase issues you multiply by a third. So if your mic's are both 8 inches away from the guitar one at the 12th fret and the other below the bridge they should be 24 inches apart from each other in a straight line.

That's a rewording of the 3:1 'rule' which aims to minimise bleed between mics and sources. The idea is that sound level from a point source reduces over distance according to the inverse square law, meaning the sound level halves (-6dB) with each doubling of distance.

So if one mic is distance D from a source, a microphone 3D from the source will pick up that same source around 10dB lower in level*, and that's just about sufficient to avoid colouration and comb-filtering effects.

*This assumes both mics are poiting at the source. By using the reduction in sensitivity due to the distant mic's polar pattern effectively, that attenuation can be increased even further, of course.