Best Mic Techniques for Recording Acoustic Guitar (Stereo and Mono)
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- čas přidán 21. 11. 2021
- How do you go about mic'ing up an acoustic guitar? Whether with a single mic or in stereo, steel string or nylon string, Justin Colletti offers up some of the most popular and proven approaches to getting a truly great sound.
On deck are techniques like horizontal XY, Vertical XY, ORTF, Spaced, Pair, Over-The-Shoulder and more.
Big thanks to JZ Microphones for making this series free to the public. Check them out at jzmic.com
Be sure not to miss their Black Friday Sale! And enter the code SONICSCOOP at checkout for FREE shipping.
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I am SO glad you mentioned using two mics recording in MONO. You are the first I have seen bring this up. Why few, if any, others point this out is beyond me. Cheers.
This is the best acoustic mic video anywhere. Great options, clearly laid out. I'm going to experiment with all of the configs that Justin presented; looking forward to recording great sounding acoustics. Thanks Justin!
TIMESTAMPS:
COINCIDENT TECHNIQUE
Steel
9:04 - Vertical XY
9:27 - Horizontal XY
9:52 - ORTF
Nylon
10:15 - Vertical XY
10:37 - Horizontal XY
10:57 - ORTF
SPACED PAIR TECHNIQUE
Steel
18:25 - Spaced Pair
18:48 - Over The Shoulder Pair
Nylon
19:12 - Spaced Pair
19:32 - Over The Shoulder Pair
SINGLE MIC TECHNIQUE
Steel
20:52 - Single Mic
21:05 - Single Mic w/Room Mic
Nylon
21:16 - Single Mic
21:27 - Single Mic w/Room Mic
Excellent video ! All the mic set ups are useful depending on the situation. There were a few set ups I've never seen before so I greatly appreciate you sharing you're knowledge.
Thanks. Great demo. I particularly loved the over the shoulder technique. Frequencies were very well balanced.
Always appreciate your insight and the wealth of knowledge you share with the world, Justin! Thanks again
Very good examples. Thank you
Excellent breakdown of theory and practice, I found this explanation so helpful. Thanks!
Great video! I'm amazed at the difference in mood for the different setups and how I liked one recording technique for a style of playing and not for a different style. This changes the way I record for sure, thanks!
This was perfect 👍 thank you!
Thanks for a great tutorial.
Wonderful video - super helpful! Thank you!
Very helpful thank you!
Nice examples! This should be a good reference to look back at!
you put things so simple yet precise and backed with knowledge i know i don’t need to question. love they way you teach 😊
Over the shoulder dominating. Great video thanks for the tips!
Great video! I have 3 favorite techniques. Mid-side, blumlein, and I’ll use 3 mics (spaced triplets?). For the 3 mics I have a bar with 2 mics spaced 8 inches apart and I’ll add a third mic another 8 inches from that. Placed 18 inches from the guitar and the center mic is just forward of the soundhole. All 3 are ribbon mics so I also get some room ambiance. A matched pair of royer 121 and then a cloud-44a. Sometimes I’ll also use a DI from the pickup as well.
The best acoustic guitar recording video period.
Thank you for this nice and helpfull video. And its nice you do both folk and classic guitar
I just tried otrf and i was really impressed with the results , I was able
To achieve a full body sound with a nice width and it sounds great in mono also . The trick imo is having the sound hole of the acoustic go inbetween both mics so that there is a better balance between the time ( phase) between both mics . Thanks for sharing great video !
Very nice demonstration. There is another method I came up with, which may be my favorite, where you use two very different mic's in the same position, aiming at the same spot, for example, one large-diaphragm condenser, and one ribbon mic. This way, there is only one variable, i.e., where they are aiming. The LDC gives you the detail and the ribbon gives you the warmth. Best of all worlds. I have been using this technique for 12-string acoustic guitar, and I think I've finally cracked the code.
I really love this, especially over the shoulder. Now I'm also thinking... with the mic over the shoulder like that, there's probably a higher potential of click getting in the recording when the mic is that close to where their headphones would be.
Another fantastically informative video!! Thanks for the free education my friend.I might have to listen to the video again a couple of times before I can give you any sort of helpful opinion about what sounds best to my ears.Even better,I'll try out some of these techniques myself...!
Sweet, exactly what I’m going for Gem!
Consider this a starting point. You’re right - ultimately the best experiments you can do are in your own studio.
Let us know how it goes!
Very best,
Justin
I haven't seen a clear tutorial like your tutorial ♥️💪🎵
i think my fav is vertical one, and thanks this was fairly helpful 🌝
Super keen to try that over the shoulder technique, I haven't seen this before. Missing out I think.
ORTIF… best stereo sound in this demo..👍to me.
I’ve personally used spaced pair for a single guitar with overall good results… but found some possible comb filtering at times… maybe do to the guitarist (me😊) moving some…
Great Demonstration and explanation 👌
wonderful explanation of the different recording techniques. what a treat to listen to all the approaches and notice the subtle and sometimes not so subtle differences. love the mics as well. which ones did you use? the Black Hole BH2 or the BH1s3 ?? thanks again!
Thanks! For this video it was the BH2.
-Justin
Thank you for including nylon string guitar. Totally differrent beast from steel string
Thanks for the video, could you elaborate a little on the polar patterns used for the stereo versions? Thanks
You were right with your pronunciation - the eponymous Blumlein was English, not German. Nice vid. Lovely playing, thanks.
Love this, just what I've been looking for, thanks. Would like to see the exact same vid with the JZ V67, just because I own both these mics, for comparison :)
Kinda sorta gotcha covered already, try this playlist here! :-) czcams.com/video/VSq1onnGzhs/video.html
@@SonicScoop Excellent, thank you!
I liked ortf and horizontal xy .
Heads up!! There's currently a BIG Black Friday sale on the JZ microphones in this video. Get 50% off, plus FREE shipping on them with the discount code SONICSCOOP at checkout here: intshop.jzmic.com/
Great info I’ve always found classical picked guitar is always easier to record than acoustic strummed stuff also midside can have the issue of being wonky any thoughts?
Thank you Justin that's very helpful. Would you recommend trying different mics for a dual mic take ? And why ? (thinking about a spaced pair of 1 small and 1 large diaphragm condenser)
If you want the two sides to sound even more different, and therefore, potentially even wider in stereo, sure. Daniel Lanois was a big fan of mismatched stereo pairs I believe, for that reason.
Hope that helps,
Justin
Great and informative video! What are your thoughts on mic'ing an acoustic guitar in a jazz trio format (acoustic lead guitar, acoustic rhythm guitar, upright bass)? I play Gypsy Jazz and would love to get a beautiful big mix, but I'm not sure if stereo mics on the lead guitar would suit the style - but I haven't tried it yet. I'm not sure if it should be more focused for acoustic lead playing. One of the better sounds I've recorded was using a mic on the guitar and a little bit of room mic as you did at the end of the video (getting some "air" in there is nice). Last night I was listening to the mixes on a couple of my favorite older (vinyl) jazz albums that I really love the sound of, and realized that they had the lead panned hard left, upright bass in the middle, and the rhythm instrument panned hard right - Totally primitive and not sure why I like it so much! Anyway, sorry so wordy... any advice? Thanks!
Justin‘s one of the best audio CZcams creators out there.
BTW „Bloomline“ is perfectly fine in German. Although the man was British, as it seems. So, whatever 🤷🏻♂️👍
Ha! Fair enough. So “Blumlean” is the proper British mispronunciation of the original German name then 🤣 Thanks!
Hopefully this minor error will get enough comments that it will pump is up in the YT algorithm 😅
-Justin
- Justin
Is direct line from acoustic guitar pick up out? I normally do that with mic also, seems to be a great combo.
My recording space can be noisey from outside sources, so if I use a condenser i do it later at night when its more quiet.
The direct pickup is nice and quiet!..
Great demo and very nice guitar playing. One thing I noticed in the first example (X/Y) is that the strummed chord (in amongst the fingerpicking) seems to make the stereo image shift towards the right hand (as it's suddenly louder). Also, the ORTF pair seems a little biased to one side - would that be due to more sound coming from the picking hand?
Great observation Chris. It can be helpful to play with the positioning of the ORTF pair to better center the image. To a degree it's about the picking hand, but just as much so about the body itself which amplifies the sound of the strings much more so than the neck can! Moving the pair further up the body and away from the neck could have centered the image further still if that's the goal. Increasing the distance from the guitar can do the same.
Hope that helps!
-Justin
Great vid, thank you Justin! Please could you post the link to the other Drum Miking techniques you are talking about at the start?
That video should be out in a couple days! Will link to it when it's out. Until then, like and subscribe and you'll probably see it :-) If you want to make sure you don't miss it, hit the notifications bell.
Hope that helps!
-Jusyom
PS: here's that video now! czcams.com/video/449mDvB_tzc/video.html
@@SonicScoop Cool, thanks Justin
ORTF
i like the idea ！adding a room . but if i am guitar singing？is there something i need to attention？the room mic and vocal mic will record both of my vocal and guitar sound. is it a problem？ 🤔
Could you comment on the panning you used for these placements? Are the examples all just level matched and panned Hard Left and Hard Right? I really enjoyed the work that went into this video. Great stuff!
Hard panned for all examples!
-Justin
Was that a derivative of Kathy's Song being played here ~ 9:15 ? Nice tutorial.
How would you guys suggest doing it with a mic like the Audio-Technica AT-8022? Audio-Technica says they are coinsident but the capsles are 180 degrees back to back. Or I guess side to side in this case as they're in the 1 stereo mic. i've not touched them.I'm blind so can't look at pictures. I assume all you said about XY could go for the Zoom H6's snap off XY H6 mics right?
Do you ever add in a DI if the acoustic guitar has an active pickup?
Were the 2 mic tracks always panned hard L/R in all of the examples? I think you said they were on the second set of examples..
I like the vertical technique when I record, but usually I position them in relation to the angle of the guitar. Your player's headstock is pointing upwards at a 45 degree angle.
Fair enough! For classical performers like David, the guitar can be held at quite an angle, so rotating the setup slightly could separate the bass and treble strings even more on the left/right axis for that technique. A good observation, thanks.
-Justin
How to record acoustic guitar with Microphone and Pockups together? (Mic+Pick settings) Any technic ?
How you dealing with guitarist's heavy breathing captured with condenser mic?
I have a question for the pros , Concerning acoustic guitars , would
It be considered common practice to use say xy on a verse of a song and maybe otrf during a chorus depending on the arrangement ? Or would I be better off sticking to one mic config on a single source for the duration of the song ?
That would be a fairly unusual thing to do I think. But feel free to try it! If it works, do it!! :-)
I like the way you are thinking though. This general kind of thinking often makes a lot of sense in production and mixing, especially when it comes to very dynamic and occasionally dense mixes.
What might make a little more sense is using a stereo mic configuration in a sparser section (maybe an early verse_ and then when a significantly more dense chorus hits, switching to a single mic approach in mono, where the acoustic guitar changes from being featured, to just fitting in with a variety of other elements.
That way you can have very wide, lush guitar where it's featured, and very tight, precisely located guitar where it's not.
Switching from ORTF or spaced pair to XY could do a similar thing to a less significant degree. But if you were going to do this approach, i'd be inclined to recommend a stereo pair and a single mic, because:
1. you'd have great contrast, and an easier time fitting the guitar into a very dense section, and
2. its more feasible to use this approach and record all three channels at once than to cram together two stereo arrays with four mics at once.
(In fact, if you were to do a mid side approach, you could just use the same 2 mic setup for both verse and chorus.)
Hope that helps!
-Justin
@@SonicScoop thank you for the reply :) , what you are telling me makes a lot of sense , I’ve been experimenting with mic configurations and came across this video and it has helped me immensely ! I am really loving how otrf is giving me space in the middle for lead elements , but I do like the idea of having a wide lead in stereo and doing as you suggest by using a single mono mic to create space for the lead to be stereo . Thanks again for your thoughts , you are the man !
There it is, at 12:34: if you’re in a great sounding room.
Hi Justin - Thanks for this demo. BTW, ei is always pronounced "i" in German; whilst ie is pronounced "e" :)
Ah thanks! So to clarify, how would you spell out the proper German pronunciation in English? Is it more like “line”, “lean” or “lin”?
-Justin
@@SonicScoopBlumlein would be pronounced Blumline
I don’t understand one thing: why nobody talks about phase alignment plugin? You cannot deal with phase “approximately”, it’s too important and the 3:1 rule really is limiting.
Use your ears