Eq spikes in audio recordings

[ElGreco]

Hello!

I am trying to record my guitars (classical and acoustic) at home but they always sound horrible! The instruments are good and they sound very good whenever I record them at a professional studio, but at home I am struggling to produce a half-decent result!..
The basis of the problem is that my house rooms are very bad sounding and I cannot do anything about that (I can't turn the house I live in into a recording studio!). So, I have to record the guitars with the mic quite close to them, in order to take the room out of the picture as much as possible.
I have a pair of RODE NT55 and a RODE NT1000. I use one of the NT55 and place it about 20cm in front of the neck/body joint and a little bit towards the soundhole. I use a T.Bone MicScreen behind the mic.

The problem is that in my recordings there are always a lot of harsh spikes in the audio spectrum especially in the 2.5KHz-10KHz range. I then have to find them one by one and notch them out with processing. This is a very time-consuming process, and although in the end I manage to reduce these resonances, I think I get phase side effects because of having used too many (10-20) very narrow Q (18-24) peak eq filters.

My question is: is there anything I could do in order to improve the recorded sound so that I could avoid the equing spikes process? (Please do not tell me to treat acoustically the rooms, since unfortunately this is not an option!) If there is nothing I can do about that then, is there anything I could do in order to speed up the equalization process? Any tool, standalone program, vst plugin, whatever that could help me?

Thank you!

[Fran Guidry]

First, are you sure the spectrum issues you're seeing are a problem, and that your solution is an improvement? How did you come by your understanding of the issues?

Second, rather than treat the room, can you manage a few broadband absorber panels? The T-Bone Mic Screen is on the right track but terribly small and quite possibly contributing to your problem rather than reducing it.

Four or six 4'x2'x4" panels can be arrayed around your recording position and will do a lot to improve the sound hitting the mics. You can make them yourself, buy kits, or buy them ready-made.

Fran

[Tomás Mulcahy]

I think the problem might be mic positioning. Normally this is done by someone other than the player. Wear headphones and move the mic(s) til it sounds good. On your own, you have to record it, play it back, move the mic, etc. etc. When I record myself playing guitar this was the biggest problem. Now that I've settled on a room and mics, I just use the same spot all the time. A lot of guitars will still need some eq, most often a cut in the low mids due to dominant body resonance. It takes a very special guitar to not have this problem.

[chew_rocket]

the Nt55 is a bright sounding mic and that area of the guitar is also pretty bright.

bright + bright = harsh (in my experience)

don't go with the 'tried and tested' methods of micing up your guitar, experiment a bit until you find a good spot. with my NT5 i tend to mic up the body of the guitar rather than the neck.

[ElGreco]

Thank you all for your responses!

@Fran Guidry: I do not equalize because I see "issues" in a spectrum analyzer. I reduce the volume of frequencies that I can hear sticking out of the rest and sound harsh. For example, I may hear that there is one frequency in the 2-4KHz range that is very pronounced and makes the sound harsh. I use a spectrum analyzer and track it down - finding, for example, that it was 2437KHz..

I used to use the absorber panel solution (quite successfully) in my old house but my new house is considerably smaller and I do not have any space for them . So I donated them to a friend when I was moving from one apartment to the other..

@ Tomás Mulcahy: Recording myself is a real PITA for all the reasons you mention.. But you are right that the problem is mic positioning (since the sound of the room is bad and I cannot do anything about it).

@ chew_rocket: I do not think that the NT55 might be the problem.. My recorded sound is quite dull with harsh midrange, not sparkly or bright sounding. But I ll try to record with my NT1000 (when I get to fix it, since now it is broken) to see if there is any improvement..

I experimented a bit and I found out that the MicScreen is definitely improving the sound. I also found out that placing the mic in front of the 12th fret and pointing directly at it and NOT a bit towards the sound hole, makes the sound less harsh.. But there is still more experimentation to be done...

[ef37a]

ElGreco,

For what it is worth, my son finds the sound of his Turner acoustic a bit "spitty" using AKG Perception 150 cap' mics (sound fine to "dimmed out" moir!) so he uses a Shure SM57*.

like yours, our room is not good and I have absorbed the S out of it pretty much but covered the carpet in 3mm hardboard to put a bit of life back into the sound.

You will need a low noise, gainy pre amp, we have an Allen and Heath ZED10, works well.

*Others might suggest better dynamics, a ribbon would be lovely!

Dave.