A new era begins: I finally upgraded to STEREO!

[Multicore]

For the first time in my not short life I am making stereo recordings. Some of you have experienced my polemics about this dubious creature called stereo that's typically found skulking somewhere in the neighborhood of Silly and often visiting Fraudulent in the great metropolis of Overrated. But now I have a pair of Line Audio CM4 SDCs and I'm learning to use them to record my acoustic guitar. So far the result using coincident close-mic arrangement sounds great, at least relative to everything else I've managed to date. This kind of recording is of course completely fraudulent and a bit silly but the result is: nice.

 

[kemmler3D]

This kind of recording is of course completely fraudulent and a bit silly but the result is: nice.

In my view, the only rule of music production is "if it sounds good, it is good". The idea of "cheating" or "fraud" only applies to the pride of of the engineer, recordist or producer...

 

[Rednaxela]

Any samples for us to enjoy?

 

[Basic Channel]

This kind of recording is of course completely fraudulent and a bit silly but the result is: nice.

What is a genuine recording?

 

[sergeauckland]

Unless the recording is 'documentary', i.e. replicating a live performance, then I think anything goes.
Many classical music recordings are of the 'documentary' types, in which case a simple microphone arrangement I think works best.

However, for most Pop/Rock etc recordings, there's no performance to document. The recording IS the performance, so whatever is done is fine. Even the much maligned Autotune or brick-wall limiting is fine, IF THAT'S WHAT WAS INTENDED.

That I don't like it is my problem, not the record Producer or artist, again, if that's what they want.

My beef is against 'remastered' recordings that take what was intended 50-40-30-20 years ago and bring it up to date for the earbuds generation. LEAVE THEM ALONE!

I also don't like many classical recordings that 'spotlight' soloists in a completely unnatural way. Get the balance right acoustically, with sensible microphone placement, then let the recorder run. Nimbus have the right idea of recordings with minimal edits. Their slogan of using the edit to save a performance, not to create one, should be adopted by all other classical labels.

S.

 

[Multicore]

This

What is a genuine recording?

Mono

 

[Multicore]

Unless the recording is 'documentary', i.e. replicating a live performance, then I think anything goes.
Many classical music recordings are of the 'documentary' types, in which case a simple microphone arrangement I think works best.

I know what you mean and completely agree. My aim is in fact documentary. But the space I have to work in doesn't sound good and is a little noisy. Hence close mics. Hence artificial stereo.

 

[Multicore]

Here's my first A/V test with the new mics that I feel is good enough to share with y'all.

Comments, criticisms, or suggestions please go ahead because I am new to using close-mic techniques. (My untreated and rather noisy room doesn't work for distant mics.)

As far as the musical content is concerned, it's what I call a Tagliatella senza titolo. What interests me most as a player, and always has, is improvisation. Think of this free improvisation as like free jazz but with all the jazz language removed, i.e. not idiomatic. I know most people aren't into it and that it's a hazardous activity but the reward of sometimes being allowed to discover music I didn't know was there before is worth it all to me.

4K ootoob link. Embed follows...

 

[Multicore]

Any samples for us to enjoy?

Yes. Just posted one. Look up there ^

Since you asked so nicely, here's an unpublished one I made Friday morning. I think the new mic position is better than here. This Tagliatella senza titolo is was more aimed at testing the dynamic and tonal range of the guitar with the mics than at musical expression. But the guitar sounds tremendous.

But this one has A DOG.

 

[Rednaxela]

Yes. Just posted one.

Thanks. Loved everything about it.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Pretty good. I'd suggest moving the microphones about 4 inches up the fret board. Might give a better balance between the strings and the body of the guitar.

 

[bluefuzz]

Comments, criticisms, or suggestions

Sounds fine to me. Even the playing ... ;-)

But as others have suggested, pointing the mic at the strings roughly where the neck joins the body is generally a good starting point. Another popular technique is to position the mic(s) low, around knee level, pointing up at the lower bout somewhere between the bridge and the rim. This accentuates the cross dipole. Since you now have two mics you can do both! What you generally don't want to do is point the mic directly at the soundhole from too close which will just be a one note 'boom'.

On a related note, and re our discussion a while back on how to measure the frequency response of a guitar, I recently discovered French-Italian luthier Giuliano Nicoletti who is another builder using 'scientific' methods for making guitars. He has a nice freely downloadable PDF (Measuring and tuning the performances of the acoustic guitar) summarizing how a guitar works and more specifically how to measure it using a UMIK1 and REW. I don't know whether you are still interested in the 'measurement' aspect but it may give you some ideas as to where to point the mic for recording. Interestingly Nicoletti's 'day job' is engineer at Focal Loudspeakers in France.

As noted in another thread Elle and Toni get pretty good results just with a Zoom H6 ...

 

[Multicore]

The mics are arranged thus:

- plane of the coincident pair aligned to the guitar neck, perpendicular to the plane of the soundboard
- center line of the coincident pair pointing at the neck joint
- about 8 to 10 inches away

With this, one mic is pointing at the sound hole and the other at the middle of the neck. Or at least that's what I was aiming for. A modest change my position on the chair, for example, can throw that off.

I listened to it using Koss KPH30i (I can't use my desktop monitors since they are in the same room so I get double strength bass modes) and briefly in the living room with Ascend Sierra Tower speakers and I didn't sense boomy/bass heavy sound. But it seems y'all did and that was the response on AGF too so I take it seriously. So how to account for that? One possibility is that the sound is boomy/bass heavy and I should move the mics to the 7th fret.

So I wanna check that you'll assessed from the sound that the recording is too boomy and/or bass heavy? Or does the video suggest this?

 

[Blumlein 88]

I did not find it boomy or bass heavy. I did think it was a little toward too warm, too much guitar body. It is not bad. I think a tilt towards more string sound less guitar body sound would be an improvement.

 

[Multicore]

A comment on AGF said that coincident pair is the worst way to record acoustic guitar and to move them well away form each other, which is indeed a very common approach. But it got me thinking about how to explain: What I want from stereo?

The givens: 1) stereo is forced on me by the distribution standards, and 2) I'm playing one guitar alone.

On the one end, duplicating a single mic's signal to two channels is the simplest – it's ok on speakers but sounds weird in cans. On the other is to produce something that "makes the most of" having two mics, like the AGF commenter suggested – which is the overrated silly fraudulence I expressed in the OP.

That's my present weird aesthetic problem created by an old technical solution to consumer marketing problem.

 

[Multicore]

I did not find it boomy or bass heavy. I did think it was a little toward too warm, too much guitar body. It is not bad. I think a tilt towards more string sound less guitar body sound would be an improvement.

got it. will try.

I suppose the coincident pair theory doesn't require any particular angle between the mics or between the pair and the sound source. Those are both variables I should experiment with, right?, ... assuming I can be bothered ...

because recording technique is a means to an end; not what I want to be doing. I don't really want to be making videos either but I think video is very helpful for one of my main goals: music as social practice as opposed to finished product. I'd rather find a local audience for live performance but circumstances seem very difficult for that and in any case such videos are means (close to required) to that end too.

 

[bluefuzz]

A comment on AGF said that coincident pair is the worst way to record acoustic guitar

I find it works OK but from a bit further away. 50 cm to a meter perhaps. How far away can you get without the room becoming annoying? You may also want to try a mid-side arrangement which is sort of 'mono with width' ...

 

[Blumlein 88]

There is more than one way to skin a cat. I prefer a bit of separation using cardioids like this myself. It is not like your result is bad.

One thing you might do if you want to get into the weeds this much is mix what you have using mid-side techniques. You combine both tracks into a mono track. You then subtract one of the original tracks from the other for a side or difference track. Left channel gets the difference track. Right channel gets the difference track inverted. Now mix into both tracks sme of the mono channel. By trying different levels of mono mixed into the side channels it alters the width of the stereo field. You can even do some limited steering by mixing a different amount of mono in the left vs right tracks. It is like you re-aimed your mics slightly. Hope this isn't confusing.

 

[Blumlein 88]

got it. will try.

I suppose the coincident pair theory doesn't require any particular angle between the mics or between the pair and the sound source. Those are both variables I should experiment with, right?, ... assuming I can be bothered ...

because recording technique is a means to an end; not what I want to be doing. I don't really want to be making videos either but I think video is very helpful for one of my main goals: music as social practice as opposed to finished product. I'd rather find a local audience for live performance but circumstances seem very difficult for that and in any case such videos are means (close to required) to that end too.

The angle is a factor. Un-intuitively a wider angle picks up a narrower stereo field and narrower angle picks up a wider field. With coincident miking you can get much of this doing the mid-side mixing I described in a post just now. Just looking at the video, which the angle may be altering the perspective, the only thing I'd suggest is what I already did. Moving the mic up the fret board a handwidth or so. If you wanted to change the angle I'd think widening it a bit to maybe 110 degrees to narrow the stereo effect. If anything the guitar sounds larger than life with a little too much stereo effect.

 

[Multicore]

I find it works OK but from a bit further away. 50 cm to a meter perhaps. How far away can you get without the room becoming annoying?

I experimented (in mono) with approx 6, 12 and 18 inches and the 18 was bad. I liked 6 better than 12. Now I'm looking to be in the range 8 to 10.

Moving the mic up the fret board a handwidth or so. If you wanted to change the angle I'd think widening it a bit to maybe 110 degrees to narrow the stereo effect. If anything the guitar sounds larger than life with a little too much stereo effect.

Interesting! I didn't expect that as a comment at all. But I'll try both of these.

You may also want to try a mid-side arrangement which is sort of 'mono with width' ...

mix what you have using mid-side techniques

That, however, I'm gonna put that one in the bank for now. I feel it's time to refocus a bit more on the music and playing.

But first let's enjoy a lesson in mic and studio techniques in this fine video. I enjoy watching the difference in Molly and Tommy's physical style: Molly's easy discipline in staying on mic while Tommy is fighting to keep his natural stage performer antics from stealing the show.