How To Record Acoustic Guitars In Under 15 Minutes 🎸

[@noyd4172]

Acoustic guitar recording is an oft-covered topic on KZbin, but this one is the clearest and most varied of them all.

[@steveditore3165]

Good instructions for solid acoustic guitars. Some added thoughts, based on 20 years of recording experience: 1. I'd place greater emphasis on placement; it's even more important than mic selection. Basic rule: The WRONG mic in the RIGHT place will sound better than the "right" mic in the WRONG place. Stuck with cheap-o dynamics? Experiment! (The Shure SM57 is inexpensive, but there are a lot of good reasons why it's an absolute staple in every professional studio, most of which own several.) 2. When choosing a Mid-Side approach, I always select a ribbon mic for the sides mic. Since ribbons are native figure-8, they hold pattern through the frequency spectrum, unlike large-diaphram condensers that tend to go cardioid above about 1 kHz and omni below 150 Hz, skewing the image slightly, but audibly from high to low. Distant placement helps dispel this problem, but it depends on having a kick-ass acoustic space to record in. Mid-Side creates an artificial stereo image which can be adjusted in mix by changing the panning of the sides channel - assuming the mid tracks have been sub-bussed to a stereo aux track. It's a great approach for room mic'ing, since hard-panning the sides pair and mixing the mid channel down slightly can make your space sound HUGE, even if it's a bit modest. Adjusting the relative balance of the mid tracks can swing the image to the right or left while preserving the width and air. 3. Ribbons can be expensive, and the cheap ones aren't worth having (Oktava, I'm looking your direction). The high end of a ribbon rolls off very smoothly above about 7 kHz, depending on which one you have, which can be compensated with a gentle shelving EQ band, boosting about 1-2 dB. High end recovered!. Also enjoy the smooth mid-range of the ribbon, without the odd emphases of condensers, especially large-D condensers whose diaphram resonances need to be hunted down and notched out. 4. Alternate ending: "How many guitar players does it take to screw in a light bulb? Sixteen: one to get up and do it, and fifteen to stand around the edge of the stage going "Shit, I can do that!".

[@friendlymansfish]

a scholar and a gentleman

[@ThePoodlenoodler]

Very optimistic of you to assume my strings are only 5 months old 😂

[@kwamijw3363]

😂😂😂same….safe to if say 5yrs…

[@mattmadhouse]

😂😂😂

[@Warrior_MindDaily]

Try 14 years old 💀

[@UfukKaramanAnimation]

11 years old, used to play it in 2nd grade but stopped because my hands hurt lol Might immortalize it with a sampler

[@rainermcintosh-round4285]

Hahhaha

[@BrandonBurch]

I really love your studio man. And thanks for the tips. This explains why my past acoustic recordings sounded so honky -- because I recorded incorrectly.

[@Jeremy_Moll]

That reverb's giving me goosbumps. Thanks for all those tips man!

[@igoroliveira3807]

Oh - my - GOD! YOUR CHANNEL IS AMAZING! This is some TOP TIER content bro! Keep up the outstanding work!

[@khwezmusic]

daaamn, this is just what i needed, kept trying to go and download/test stuff, and kept having to rewind cos i go away fro a second and i miss some realy valuable info, thanks so much!

[@rafaelbaffini]

Great video! My favourite mic position isn’t in this list - two mics at the same distance: one pointing where the body meets the neck and one point to the bridge. Hard pan them and you have a great full record. As a tip: ensure that your guitar is well set up.

[@basilkatz700]

Man, the idea with the de-esser is so good. Helps us a lot with our acoustic guitar sound. Thanks for that!

[@RamonSmithMusic]

20sec in: holy sheet! Your voice sounds amazing

[@johnbode5528]

Gonna have to try some of these techniques out. I've been going DI forever because a) my recording environment isn't awesome and b) I never could figure out proper mic placement and the guitars always sounded either too boomy or too thin. DI sounds _better_ but it's a bit lifeless and I need to throw some plugins at it. The only working mics I have are a SM-57 and -58, but I'll have to give it a shot. But the absolute, top-notch, pure gold content from this video? The _jokes_ at 5:10. Those alone earned a sub from me.

[@KozmykJ]

Excellent tips Cameron 👍 My X-Y preference is to mount them over and under, that leaves the diaphragms unimpeded by the bodies of the other mics. Also enables the diaphragm centres to be aligned, one less phase issue to deal with. 🤓

[@azido]

Every video you make is clear and to the point. Thank you!

[@brandtreppond2167]

I'm excited to try these techniques out. Thanks for sharing!

[@bigdap100]

DPA 4015. Charter OAK S538B. Sontronics Apollo. Earthworks SR25. ...a few of my favorites.

[@BarryMitchell]

this is now one of my favourite videos :) cheers for the stuff

[@yipitsrose]

omg cant believe you provide this education for free. this is amazing I am gonna become a patron

[@ChrisStarkGtr]

Great tips and great playing! Your acoustic has a great tone, and you did a fantastic job capturing it.

[@theunknown1795]

Thank you so much for this great video! Straight forward, great variety of tips and trick, high quality cinematography and editing, and overall very informative. Can't wait to try some of these techniques out in my next recording sech!!

[@DoverDanny]

Very helpful video. There r other that would disagree with you because they know and been in the commercial music industry Thank you for taking the time to inform and teach us.

[@randydean23]

Bra, that was class leading right there. I always tune into your channel to try and grok the differences between subtractive synthesis, wave tables, F.M., or granular synthesis and here you are dropping a bit of "traditional" recording techniques with production values in terms of video every bit as polished as something one would find coming out of Nashville (hats off for that sick bit of country picking at the end of one of your examples btw.) Congrats 👏 man. This is an impeccably good and comprehensive video that's equal parts informative and entertaining. Cheers

[@randydean23]

Oh and I think you covered the "Whatya call a guitar player without a girlfriend? =homeless" joke, but I wanted to add a local colloquiallism from Chapel Hill NC _ "you can't throw a dead cat around in this town and not hit a guitar player. " sorta shroedinger's guitar player type of thing.

[@FM-wc8gu]

Happy to see more guitar stuff in your videos and great to see you playing. I can't believe you are that good wow.

[@alfredodelafuente5495]

Thanks so much! The video covers everything I was wondering about in enough depth.

[@Ruben-GG]

Thanks man, really valuable tips and rec valuable tips and resources!

[@zoedoesmusic4520]

1:19 bold of you to assume my guitar strings are that young

[@edmundleung2098]

The sm57 sounds mighty fine!!

[@Joey.Darkwoods-Studio]

Great tips and nice playing man!!

[@Sharpend]

Yessss king of tremolo! I loved the mid side idea, I'll definitely give it a shot when I get a second mic 😁

[@HUMZMIC1]

AWESOME video and you play the guitar very well...I LIKE!!!

[@MurdaMetz]

I was wondering if you could touch on what sort of levels you should set the mic pre at , should I be setting the mic pre to peak at a certain level or worry more about the average level ? Thanks :)

[@portal21studio]

Excelente material!! Suscrito! Saludos desde Paraguay!

[@ikravchik]

Super useful info thank you so much

[@ThomC]

Great work on your videos man, can't believe I didn't subscribe to your channel yet, done now! :) Love the colour coding, the tips and your way of presenting things. Awesome!

[@RickCarr]

These are great examples!!

[@kapitbanda]

great content ! I learned many tricks , thanks ! ❤

[@Jeronimo365]

Great stuff as always. Are there any further tips (or videos) for recording finger style guitar? Many thanks. 👍

[@piratestudiosproductions]

So great, I litterally just bout those same Lewitt mics. Now im going to have to buy the ribbon mic.

[@saku....]

Great video man

[@Grand_Alchemist]

Honestly the SM57 sounded really great.

[@ericcartmansstrengthandpow5960]

It better have. That's all I have to work with.

[@calmstormambience1875]

When double tracking a single microphone I can hear you pan left to right . but my monitors are picking up a delay at 12:34 how did you do that or is this the convology in use? thanks great lesson

[@michaelgreenley1174]

What kind of acoustic is that?!? I love the matte finish!

[@robiaster]

This is litterally what I'm going to be doing for the rest of the week in a production I'm working on, really useful refresher and some really amazing input :D

[@randphillipsmusic]

Incredibly helpful!!

[@josh_j_martin]

This video helped me so much thank you!!

[@SnowAngelfish]

Nice tutorial. One thing that should have been added in addition to using new strings is having a professionaly setup guitar. Good Intonation, proper neck relief and frets level, so no fret buzz etc etc. very important.

[@Garflips]

Good tips... the usual stuff but explained very clearly. But I noticed you weren't really demonstrating removal of finger squeaks but rather pick/plectrum noise. Finger squeak is a lot more prevalent when having to utilize more mic gain on finger picking styles when sliding between chords. I've been recording guitars for decades and for me, Elixir polyweb strings or an equivalent coated string is the way to go for finger pickers. Some folks have had success with finger ease or string grease type products as well as baby powder. I've always found using post processing de-essers or EQ comes with too great of a loss in the audio quality of the original signal. BTW there are free mid-side plugins that make it a lot easier to do MS decoding in your DAW. Just my three cents. Cheers.

[@DekkardBryon]

Same here, I tend to strum 'busky-style' with my fingers - you know, muting and changing the attack constantly. On my recordings there's constant chiipy/taps that don't really sound-out in the room so to speak. Not at all sure what to do about it.

[@rosewurkz]

Thanks, very helpful ☺️

[@moisesmeracalvo3194]

Gran aporte!!! Saludos.

[@patbreacadh]

Man, you rock on guitar! 🔥 Is their any talent you don't have? :). I really dig this channel: solid info, pleasant tone, attitude, and lovely video production. These guitar recording tips are valid and well illustrated. I like the technique with one mic over the shoulder of the guitarist. Great work, thank you. 🙏

[@musicvideos1846]

Great video - what do you mean by invert the phase of the second duplicate track. I have Pro tools. What program can invert the duplicate to 180? Please answer. Thank you - John

[@waynebonilla]

Very informative man! Thank you so much!🔥💪🏽🙏🏽

[@reid1967]

Very interesting stuff, why is the XY pair placed with the capsule end of the mics together instead of the cable end?

[@djsunnysideup23]

I am always looking for real sounding guitar VSTs. Fellow producer/composer here. Keep up the great work. Peace from Japan.

[@snesmocha]

Ample guitar lp is my favourite, metal guitars always go for shreddage, for more rocky guitars ample guitars of course have great guitars. Orange tree samples is also extremely comprehensive for leads but for rhythms they’re often weaker. My favourite for clean guitars is s3 stratus and s3 hydra.

[@djsunnysideup23]

@@snesmocha thanks so much! 👊🙏

[@4CloudySky]

Your voice is soo soothing. Unbelievable!

[@klasicamosyoutube7927]

I know right!

[@MonitusMusic]

Super super informative video. I will save it for when I need to record acoustic instruments

[@juhasztamas4737]

What is Your thoughts about electric acoustic line signal in combination with mics? Is that not recommended? This video is awesome!

[@mr.e8432]

Sometimes mixing tutorial videos manage to give you 5 minutes of information in 45 minutes. So you had me at “under 15 minutes” 🤣

[@DMNDBEATZ]

Amazing video 🎉

[@eaglepass5170]

Excellent!! Thank you

[@ephemera.official]

I didn't think about using a de-esser, I'll have to give that and the chow tape a try. I wanted to ask you about something, though. how did you get the ending result of your recordings with the condenser mics, to be at a nice loud volume, while remaining clean and not have an overwhelming or noticeable amount of noise/hiss from the mic's noise floor? I just got the behringer c2 pair as my small diaphragm condenser mics of choice, and then I was going to get the audient evo 4, for my new audio interface. if you want to listen to my newest track "dark ascent", that one wasn't recorded with the behringer c2's yet, but it'll give you an example of the noise I'm trying to eliminate.

[@tp6089]

This is what I want! Thanks

[@jasper_north]

Here is one, best ribbon for recording vocals and acoustic guitar at the same time? Thank you.

[@Popincourt]

Well done, thanks!

[@Ans12237]

Where would you use the "spaced pair" setup?

[@elya5593]

Really good tips some eq tips would be the cream on the top.

[@alexinphx1411]

how similar is a room mic to a room reverb send?

[@roadyo69]

I see a lot of videos about equipment but as a rank beginner what do you plug all this stuff into? How is it all hooked up?

[@andrejayden1560]

hi :) great video :) how did you eliminate the self noises of the mics? THX

[@harsh.on.strings]

Bro has inbuilt bass in his voice...liked it

[@michaelgreenley1174]

Amazing info, greatly appreciated! Any thoughts on acoustic-electrics adding in a track of the plugged-in feed on top of the mics?

[@RatraceDave]

People of the comments section can I ask which set up is best for singing and playing?

[@MH_13_STUDIO]

Where do the mic is connected?

[@matheusdal]

Can I use one of those “gamer” mics to record sound? I just saw one of these for me to work with and take the chance to record a few of my takes in a guitar, but not sure if they'll just serve me for conference calls and that's it. I was looking at the HyperX Solocast.

[@jamalrichards7109]

How much to record some guitar for a song ?

[@TheBinaryWolf]

The greatest challenge an audio engineer will face is recording a flamenco guitar. With nylon strings, there is more wandering from pitch on sustained notes. I would be interested in the use of compression to counter the pitch shifting.

[@ElsarDwimanOfficial]

Anybody have tried that TDR NOVA? Any reviews, please.. will it might butden an 8 GB RAM computer?

[@JoelBrandonMedia]

Awesome thanks!

[@javierpacheco4566]

the 1st 5 secs almost made me spit my coffee lol.

[@chazroxproductions]

Great voice bro.

[@mamad504]

Anyone knows what mic he's using for speaking in this video?

[@richarddavis5542]

This is how "how-to" videos should be done. The emphasis should be on the types of product (condenser mic, room reverb, etc.) instead of a brand or model name. The type/class of equipment is much more important. Mentioning the make/model as a secondary point is the proper perspective. Nice work.

[@badbadmongo8144]

Which Guitar is this?

[@jeremiahlyleseditor437]

This was informative

[@brunovercosa7119]

What is this guitar model?

[@rocarius14]

10/10 thanks!

[@klasicamosyoutube7927]

Make a video on how I can get a deep voice like yours.

[@delfean2666]

Great video...now I just have to learn how to play :D

[@mezbahuddinpalash]

your midi model please

[@TrevorHelt]

PLEASE release a plugin that makes my acoustic guitar sound like your voice!

[@TheDenis2121]

Excelent Thank you so much

[@ElGaiid]

Can anyone tell me PLEASE how is he getting this warm charismatic vocal audio without having a mic right in front of him?? It's like much better sound than facing a TLM 103 or even better.

[@ElGaiid]

I think it's just his natural voice...woah

[@brianhudson7058]

Good one this coffee cold now 😂

[@brunovercosa7119]

CAN SOMEONE SAYS WHAT IS THIS GUITAR MODEL PLS?

[@cthomasmitchell]

Could be a Morgan Monroe looking at the headstock.

[@EasyChairGuitarTutorials]

Umm, your voice is perfect.

[@StefanSchlott]

For someone who never did that before: Packed full of tips! Thanks!

[@codking82]

i can never get a good sound from the guitar whether its an audio interface or a zoom recorder or tascam it just sounds crap

[@Esperia-ef9xh]

❤❤❤

[@jeremythornton433]

Well, you made me change my strings. But it still sounds like crap. You didn't mention anything about tuning them so I didn't. Ya think that might be the problem?

[@RabarberRecords-i8s]

Change your strings? Sometimes you actually want dead string sound, too much brilliance can really ruin a recording...

[@X.randy.X]

The world actually revolves around singers. The joke is it takes 10 guitar players to screw in a lightbulb one to do it and 9 to say I can do that maybe a few of them say "I can do it better."