Help me, please. 'Watery' audio from SM57

[LarsM]

Hello everyone.

I'm new to recording live instruments and I have a bit of trouble recording my acoustic guitar. Every time I record the first few seconds sound fine, but after that the recording starts to sound 'watery' and thin. This happens whether I strum or pick. I have example recordings, but since I'm also new to this forum, I don't know how to upload audio (if that's even possible).

I record with an SM57, into a Triton Audio Fethead, into an SSL MKII audio interface, into FL Studio.

The first recordings I made were with a Steinberg IXO22, but because of this issue I swapped it for the SSL MKII, hoping the interface would be the problem. This wasn't the case. Then I thought it could be the recording room. First I recorded in my bedroom, which is quite small, so I figured the problem might have something to do with phase cancellation. But when I moved into a bigger room the issue persisted. So that's also not the issue.

I follow all the standard recording prodecures with an SM57: positioned at the twelfth fret, pointing at the sound hole, a few inches away.

The funny thing is that when I use a condenser microphone that I have laying around (a Devine USB50), I have no issue at all.

So my question is: am I doing something wrong, and what could be the issue? Do I have a faulty SM57 or should I change my recording technique? I would love to hear from you.

[Drew Stephenson]

Hi, welcome to the forum.
The site doesn't host any audio so most people host on something like SoundCloud and then put a private link here.
I'm assuming the Devine is a usb mic? If so we'll ignore that for now.
If you haven't yet, firstly drop the fethead out of the chain. You may have to crank the gain but that doesn't matter for our purposes. Test again and then try swapping the XLR cables.
Try it on voice too.
If none of that makes a difference then it most likely is a dodgy mic. Can you borrow another mic from anyone for testing?

[Hugh Robjohns]

"Thin and watery" sounds like a monitoring problem with your DAW and/or interface — especially as you say it starts off sounding okay and then deteriorates. I imagine you start off just hearing the mic output, and that gets combined with the recorded signal a short time later, causing cancellation of the low end, and phasiness at high frequencies

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with any of your equipment, so I suspect a configuration problem with the DAW signal monitoring arrangements and/or with the monitoring set up in the interface.

I imagine recording with your USB mic bypasses the interface and employs a completely different monitoring set up.

[Sam Spoons]

What's confusing me is the first few secs sounding ok then it going 'watery' sounding, if the mic was the fault it would sound bad from the start. I suppose the FetHead could be faulty and go bad after a few seconds of power being applied, or the 48V spook juice could fade away as something in the preamp gets warm? Removing the FetHead would remove both those possibilities.

Recordings would definitely help understand what 'watery' means in this context.

[LarsM]

Thanks for all the replies thus far.

I've uploaded a track to SoundCloud so you can hear what I'm dealing with (ignore the crappy playing; also new at guitar playing):
https://soundcloud.com/user-434914060/acoustic

Since it's baked in the recording I doubt it's a monitoring issue. The condenser microphone is indeed a USB-mic.

I haven't dropped the FetHead out of the chain yet, but I did the first recordings on the IXO22 without the FetHead, so I doubt that's the problem. Unfortunately I can't swap microphones since I'm just a hobbyist and just bought the SM57.

[siderealxxx]

It sounds like it's feeding back and phasing. You have something in the routing chain doubled up somehow! Hopefully someone can chime in with knowledge of your interface/software!

[Hugh Robjohns]

Since it's baked in the recording I doubt it's a monitoring issue.

Well, the DAW output is getting back into the recording input somehow. That's most likely via the monitoring arrangements, but it could be a loop set up within the DAW itself.

Either way, I think you should carefully work through the signal routing. Check where the output of the recording track is going, and what exactly is feeding the recording input.

And check both the DAW internal routing AND the interface routing via its control app.

[LarsM]

Either way, I think you should carefully work through the signal routing. Check where the output of the recording track is going, and what exactly is feeding the recording input.

Think I'll do that. Maybe it's an ASIO issue. I've done four to five sessions and I did manage to get a clean sound at one point. Maybe I just used different settings that time. I certainly hope so, because that means the gear just works. Thanks all for your help. I'll probably be offline for a while since I don't have the time to work on audio recording the following days, but if there are some more problems I'll let you know.

Love all the helpful feedback from the community!

[Sam Spoons]

I don't hear any significant changes from the first couple of seconds onto the rest of the recording it sounds the same from the start and I would have said that what you are hearing is two versions the original recording mixed with one delayed by a few ms creating a phasing effect.

[LarsM]

Couple of days later, but I'm happy to report that it was indeed a software issue. Picked the wrong drivers and that was leading to a feedback loop somehow. Thank you everyone for cooperating and have a nice day!

[Sam Spoons]

Glad you've sorted it and thanks for the update.