A lot of guys [especially for solo work] use two mics. One half way up the neck [very thin and tingly] and one straight opposite the round hole [very woolly and prone to low overtones] By combining both you can achieve a huge sound . The stereo placing is a personal matter and up to you. The wider apart you place those two mic. signals in the stereo spectrum the more indirect the sound will be. For realistic 'in yer face' quality place the two of them, in the spectrum, at a 'real' distance apart.

Three Mics:

For quality solo work we would use the two mics as above but use an 'ambience' mic. which will pick up the ambience of the room. This would be probably in the highest, furthest away, top ceiling corner of the room. This will only work correctly in a designed acoustics studio [Abbey road again?]. You will also need a top quality condenser mic for this, with a very low noise floor.

Mic. plus transducer......

This is using a single mic. technique plus the transducer already fitted into the guitar....always worth a try but rarely sounds good as the transducer picks up mostly the string signal and little of the body. Gordon Giltrap and I do not agree over this. He used that technique in my studio but quickly changed to my way when he heard the first play backs.

Binaural system:

This is a technique of placing two mics at the ear position of the player. In theory it picks up the sound exactly as the player hears it....worth a try [we use that technique with drums a lot]

Audience Mic. system:

Ask the guy to play the piece and move your ears around the space in front of him until you find the 'sweet' spot where the instrument sounds exactly as you think it should. Place a condenser mic at that exact place [ or two in stereo.]

NOTES:

1) Always have the player play the piece you are to record while you choose the mic. placements. Only professional guitar players will do this [drummers as well]. Pros understand that we are only interested in getting the best sound version of the piece to be recorded and not the best sound for their favourite boring lick!

2) Some producers use a 'live' sounding studio and damp down the areas that are too bright - or shield off large areas with deadening screens. Others use a totally dead studio [as I do] and use sheets of hard board or plywood, melamine, mirrors, to brighten the ambience. I sometimes will place a board under the guitar player and/or another behind the microphones.

3) Always have a sheet of three inch foam handy to put under a guitar players foot. Nothing is worse than doing a great take and realising the guy has thumped the ground at some point.

4) Consider using suspended mics. always....difficult to achieve in a small studio environment [we use long booms in big studios]

5) Always insist on a 'new' instrument. Pros understand this. Old instruments, even with new strings, will sound dull because the glue has aged and cracked and the body will have long lost it's vibrancy which it had when solid, tight and new.

6) The distance of the microphones from the guitar is found by experimentation...usually dependent on the guitar players pick and the technique he uses. Rule of thumb is that the closer the mic the more pick noise or finger noise.

7) The 'black magic' of guitar recording is the use of good 'in yer face' compressors. By that I mean compressors that you 'hear' working. This is a whole technique which would take a book to explain - but generally you can get stunning results by just fiddling with the knobs and looking for that 'sound'. Always remember that you 'hear' a compressor more by turning up the 'output' on the unit.

8) It is worth considering that the best acoustic single note stuff is recorded, now, with a great sample from a well recorded acoustic guitar [I use a great 'Taylor Acoustic' sample from a freebie sample CD]. All the Craig David stuff is done that way. A real player just does not have the drive of a well recorded sample when quantised.

Hope this helps. ?

"Give me a sense of humour and Give me the grace to see a joke, To get some humour out of life, and pass it on to other folks!"

Regards

Dec 

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'One Minute With Dec' is written each week by Dec Cluskey. Dec's advice?

Get in touch personally to discuss what you want to achieve in music dec@makehits.com

web: www.makehits.com or call +44 (0)1323.728005

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