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Post by christopher on Nov 29, 2023 11:59:45 GMT -6
A lot of strings are made to sound super bright, the whole louder is better thing. And they love to brag they last longer.
Cheapest Phosphor Bronze helped me a lot to get a vintage folk tone, I stay away from all the shiny silver looking strings now. The PH age fast, which is a good thing I let them get dead and string noises go away pretty nicely.
Silk and Steel are good for a modern thing, if you like open harmonics
A lot of mics have a touch of top end.. when you add the bright strings + top end you get that extra string noise, which is usually above 8kHz. A lot of ribbon mics rolls off around 8k. Dynamic can work too.
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Post by nnajar on Nov 29, 2023 12:16:08 GMT -6
Change the mics. 441, re20, m201, m160, sm7, sm57, Aea ku5, etc…..
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Post by tkaitkai on Nov 29, 2023 15:33:01 GMT -6
I think you might be overanalyzing, which I don’t mean as an insult, as I’m definitely guilty of this myself. The example posted doesn’t sound bad at all. It’s a guitar — it squeaks. I would honestly just leave it be. Go in and edit each squeak by hand. Nothing a little clip gain and AudioSuite EQ/deessing can’t handle. The guitar is a Gibson Hummingbird, and from the color of the finish,an older one. Such guitars have been recorded hundreds of times without obnoxious squeaks. The problem is mic placement. Pull the mic (single) back a couple of feet and keep it the hell away from the neck! It's not that hard to mic an acoustic guitar,you just have to use a great mic and ignore all the fancy "methods" (experiments) that clutter the internet. Looking at old studio pictures of players like Dylan and Baez (and a raft of other '60s folkies) can help a lot.
You know, back in the folkie days they didn't have all those fancy gizmos to "fix" engineers' errors in technique, and they still got consistently great guitar sounds.
What are you using for monitors?
Idk I wouldn't call that clip obnoxious, it sounds mostly fine to me (the tone itself is actually great), and I could easily reduce the squeaks to a point I'd be happy with. |
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Post by johneppstein on Nov 29, 2023 18:30:14 GMT -6
It matters if you've got the mic too damn close!
And getting bossy about the player's technique can open up a whole other can of worms in the studio. And probably won't gain you much in the current session, either.
Yes and no. Sure you will be able to adjust to the better to some extent with mic placing, but what I could pick up from the track I believe I heard other issues I would address first. Sure it’s always very delicate to address technique but I would not mind going there if that would solve the issue and is within the artists capability. It’s not about being bossy i believe, it’s about supporting the artist to the best performance possible. Personally I will have the player working it and reinventing him/herself within the frames of plausible if the performance is not up to par to begin with. You take care of the basics first. If the mic's in the wrong place you can have problems you'll never cure. "Patch up", maybe. Fix? I don't think so.
It's like building a house on a base of sand.
What I don't get is all the resistance to an ancient and well proven answer to what should be an easy question.
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Post by johneppstein on Nov 29, 2023 18:39:51 GMT -6
Change the mics. 441, re20, m201, m160, sm7, sm57, Aea ku5, etc….. The problemin this case is probably NOT the mics. It's how they are deployed.
Me, I'd be using one of my KM84s, but I assume he doesn't have those available. I hear the Soyuz have similar properties, but have not used them myself. You want an SDC cardiod with as close to perfect off-axis response as you can get your hands on.
I hear that Samar has two new mics out that are similar, but have not used those, either. I have, however, engaged in discussions with Mr Fouxman, the designer, and trust him and like his designs.
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Post by johneppstein on Nov 29, 2023 18:57:20 GMT -6
It matters if you've got the mic too damn close!
And getting bossy about the player's technique can open up a whole other can of worms in the studio. And probably won't gain you much in the current session, either.
Yes and no. Sure you will be able to adjust to the better to some extent with mic placing, but what I could pick up from the track I believe I heard other issues I would address first. Sure it’s always very delicate to address technique but I would not mind going there if that would solve the issue and is within the artists capability. It’s not about being bossy i believe, it’s about supporting the artist to the best performance possible. Personally I will have the player working it and reinventing him/herself within the frames of plausible if the performance is not up to par to begin with. Those "issuesa" tend to go away if the mic isn't munching on the guitar. Dig it, the closer the mic is, the tighter the "spot" that it's looking at. Then you go chasing ephemera and adding superfluous mics when all you really need to do is use a good mic pulled back. And by "good mic" i mean a cardiod that has off axis response the same as on-axis, which is somewhat rare.
Most of those "other issues" go away with the right mic in the right place.
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Post by johneppstein on Nov 29, 2023 19:01:01 GMT -6
Yeah you could try another micing and that would probably hide some of it. But at the end of the day it’s about performance. I would work on the chord changes. A good performance will sound great wherever you put the mic, around the 12th or around the sound hole. I mean, your miking was not that much off if that is the sound in general you are aiming for, sounded ok except for the chord changes. No,it's actually about BALANCE. And if the mic is too close the balance will be screwed. Two mics too close, you have two screws. |
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Post by johneppstein on Nov 29, 2023 19:07:41 GMT -6
The guitar is a Gibson Hummingbird, and from the color of the finish,an older one. Such guitars have been recorded hundreds of times without obnoxious squeaks. The problem is mic placement. Pull the mic (single) back a couple of feet and keep it the hell away from the neck! It's not that hard to mic an acoustic guitar,you just have to use a great mic and ignore all the fancy "methods" (experiments) that clutter the internet. Looking at old studio pictures of players like Dylan and Baez (and a raft of other '60s folkies) can help a lot.
You know, back in the folkie days they didn't have all those fancy gizmos to "fix" engineers' errors in technique, and they still got consistently great guitar sounds.
What are you using for monitors?
Idk I wouldn't call that clip obnoxious, it sounds mostly fine to me (the tone itself is actually great), and I could easily reduce the squeaks to a point I'd be happy with. Reducing the squeaks via signal processing will "work" but will also damage other parts of the signal. There's another old saying, "Acoustic solutions for acoustic problems." |
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Post by tkaitkai on Nov 29, 2023 19:43:26 GMT -6
Idk I wouldn't call that clip obnoxious, it sounds mostly fine to me (the tone itself is actually great), and I could easily reduce the squeaks to a point I'd be happy with. Reducing the squeaks via signal processing will "work" but will also damage other parts of the signal. There's another old saying, "Acoustic solutions for acoustic problems." Nah I could totally edit those squeaks without introducing any show-stopping artifacts. Then EQ out a little low end/low mids, compress a little, done. Next instrument. |
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Post by chessparov on Nov 29, 2023 20:42:23 GMT -6
Slide noises? Gee I thought the best way was just to put the Acoustic... In a guitar case.  |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 29, 2023 21:13:43 GMT -6
Izotope RX
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Post by NoTomorrow on Nov 29, 2023 21:14:36 GMT -6
I use D'Addario Flat Tops on all of my recording acoustics for this reason, just to minimize slide/fret/finger noise.
They are non-coated and sound bright enough when new, although they are indeed slightly duller than standard new phosphor bronze strings.
I've never been a big fan of coated strings, maybe I just haven't found the right set.
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Post by tkaitkai on Nov 29, 2023 22:50:54 GMT -6
This. The guitar de-noise module in version 8 and above is fantastic. |
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Post by niklas1073 on Nov 30, 2023 0:23:14 GMT -6
Yes and no. Sure you will be able to adjust to the better to some extent with mic placing, but what I could pick up from the track I believe I heard other issues I would address first. Sure it’s always very delicate to address technique but I would not mind going there if that would solve the issue and is within the artists capability. It’s not about being bossy i believe, it’s about supporting the artist to the best performance possible. Personally I will have the player working it and reinventing him/herself within the frames of plausible if the performance is not up to par to begin with. You take care of the basics first. If the mic's in the wrong place you can have problems you'll never cure. "Patch up", maybe. Fix? I don't think so.
It's like building a house on a base of sand.
What I don't get is all the resistance to an ancient and well proven answer to what should be an easy question.
For me the basics is the performance. If that is not solid its all patching up afterwards. Shit in shit out. Very easy. |
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Post by andersmv on Dec 1, 2023 9:31:52 GMT -6
I’ve got a pair if Silk and Steel strings that I love to use on my cedar top Taylor every once in a while. They sound great, but it’s a quieter pair of strings and brings out that string noise in a bad way. It doesn’t matter who’s playing that guitar, it’s not a technique issue. It’s just that string pack for whatever reason.
Soothe from Oaksound Soothe saves the day on those takes every time. If I know I’m mixing the song, that’s a job for “future me”. If I’m sending them out with the client, I just take about a minute and find them all, highlight the bad ones and hit them aggressively with Soothe via Audio Suite in ProTools so it prints on those sliding parts. That’s always worked for me with absolutely no artifacts or anything weird, even on songs where the guitar is prominent. If it’s a busier arrangement, I can be pretty lazy with Soothe just thrown in there the whole time.
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Post by johneppstein on Dec 1, 2023 12:12:21 GMT -6
Reducing the squeaks via signal processing will "work" but will also damage other parts of the signal. There's another old saying, "Acoustic solutions for acoustic problems." Nah I could totally edit those squeaks without introducing any show-stopping artifacts. Then EQ out a little low end/low mids, compress a little, done. Next instrument. But it's better not to have to... |
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Post by iamasound on Dec 3, 2023 5:19:40 GMT -6
I put a set of Martin Monel Retro on my cedar Roy Noble as I'm not really playing her as much as I used to. The strings not only are fresh without corrosion when I do pull her out of the case every three or four weeks but because they seem to lessen the attack, also as a side effect lessen the squeak of fingers rubbing on the string on the fretboard. I was scoring a scene for a project that I'm working on which calls for a bit of finger picking and played it both on the Noble and then on my D-18. There was a very noticeable difference that I could not account for by the difference in build woods it seems.
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Post by kerryluis on Mar 25, 2024 5:37:12 GMT -6
Recording acoustic guitar can be tricky, especially when dealing with slide noises. It's great that you've tried the Chapstick trick, but it sounds like you need a bit more help. Since you can't increase the distance between the mic and the guitar, have you considered trying a different mic placement? Experimenting with the angle and position of the mic might help reduce the slide noises while still capturing the reverb the artist wants. For more tips on guitar recording basics, you might find this resource helpful: guitarsrepublic.com/guitar-basics. Hope this helps! |
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