Acoustic Guitar Pickups

[mojobone]

Recording acoustic guitar and vocal simultaneously is always a compromise. The room is always part of the sound of an "acoustic" guitar and no pickup under the sun will give you that. I record lotsa singer songwriter, acoustic guitar and vocal demos, and what generally works is for both vocal and guitar to be re-cut after the fact. It takes a little longer, but I do it for the sake of eliminating cross-talk and making each performance "all it can be". Failing that, you could try a relatively flat-response small diaphragm condenser at a distance of four or more feet, using mic height adjustments to get a nice blend.(Earthworks or sometimes a "measurement" mic can work well) Some pickups I have used or seen used to good effect include the B-Band Condenser p/u, the Baggs Double-Barrel, the Schertler systems, and the Sunrise magnetic p/u.

[milfus]

nah, easy solution for micing accoustics, figure 8 mics, the sides of them are all but deaf, just mic how you want, and the turn the mics so the gutiar mics dead side is pointing at your mouth, and the vocal mic dead side is pointing at the guitar, you will be amazed at how much seperation you get.

[devin]

Nice one Milf!It would require a pair of decent mics that can do 8's, and a room that isn't too live.Would you track that in a vocal booth then, and tweak the guitar with some 'verb L8R?

[dankityd]

I have a Taylor that came with the Fishman blender installed. It is not the ultimate recording solution. It allows you to crossfade between the piezo pickup in the bridge and some kind of mic in the body. I don't even know what they have in there. It is somewhat useful live to eliminate some of the plastic-sounding piezo response, but it feeds back a lot in a typical stage situation, so I end up with the crossfader ('blender') somewhere in the middle of the two signals. I do frequently record the direct signal but I would never substitute it for any miked recording using decent equipment. I only add it in occasionally to add to the palette of sounds when I mix. It can produce some interesting phasing qualities in conjunction with miked tracks.If you've got a budget to make your acoustic sound better, get some acoustical treatments for your room to get rid of the noise or bad geometry. That will help ALL your recordings.

[mojobone]

milfus, I bow to your superior mic cabinet.

[milfus]

ah, I set up a few open mic nights, and the bleed was hurtin em, from the last guy, so I figured it out in a pinch, and it works great, yeah, normally after you have it rigged, it helps to do a lil head phone mix with some dynamics, just to help hear the diff

[mojobone]

The caveat, regarding cardioid and bi-directional mics, is that off-axis sounds (such as room reflections) can tend to sound less natural; for me, when it comes to recording acoustic stringed instruments (other than string bass), omnis are where it's at, given that the room sound is reinforcing, rather than detracting from, what you want to hear.

[milfus]

yeah, i normally set it up, so that the back of the vocal mic picks up the ambient guitar and vice versa, that way its not direct, so instead of bleed, you can add warmth to both, it gets harder when you have to off center pan, but a room mic usually can compensate.

[matthoggard]

Yeah Milfus has the right idea.I use a technique borrowed from Jimmy Page. I use a dimarzzio insert pickup AND a good condenser mic. I record two seperate inputs to two different tracks. The pickup makes up for the little spots that dropout when mic recording. You know when you shift the guitar a little or play a chord a little too softly.I then pan each left and right a little to get seperation. Ill even use a slightly differrent eq on each one for more separation. As long as your pickup isnt too inherently noisy, I think youll love this sound. It sounds very "live".Also if your mic picks up your vocals you can then go back and re-record the miced guitar on the same track.I use this alot and it sounds really nice. I also use some noise suppression as well.

[tedsingingfox]

I realize I'm a little late to the party, but I have a Dean Markley external pick-up that I can add when I think it's needed to support the mediocre Mic's that are usually offered at the local open mics. About $100, including shipping.And I LOVE it. For recording purposes, I STILL prefer having the guitar mic'd; but it's great to have for the occasional change up.value = $.02Ted