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In article 2t8wb.705$Yt4.641@lakeread05 writes:

They have yet to design a pickup
that can accurately produce the "true" sound of an acoustic guitar.
Mind you, they're close, but they aren't all the way there yet... Maybe
it just isn't possible.

Since the sound that we normally hear from a guitar is a blend of
different sounds radiating from several directions and combining in
the air before it hits our ears, it's really not possible to capture
that with a pickup attached to the instrument. If you put your ear
half an inch from the bridge or the top, you'll hear something like
what a good pickup captures. But there are some frequencies missing
that you're used to hearing, and you can't put something in with
equalization that isn't there in the first place.

For me, that's OK though... I don't need or want
a "pure" acoustic sound. I like it with a touch of electricity going
through it.

It's people like you that pickups were made for.

If you're getting more of the sound that you
want from a microphone on the amplifier cabinet, then start with that,
and see what happens when you mix in some of the direct pickup sound,
as well as the acoustic sound from a mic or two on the guitar.

Right, but again, we're talking about during the mix down process, yes?

Yes.

If all of those sources come
in on separate tracks, then it seems reasonable that the adding in that
you are talking about happens when you bring it back from the tape
and prepare it for mixing.

A mix is a mix is a mix. You're losing me here, but there's nothing
wrong with mixing different versions of the same sound as long as they
add constructively. The reason why you were discouraged from mixing
a mic, a pickup, and an amplifier is that it's easy to get the phase
relationships between them such that certain frequencies get
cancelled, making the sound thinner than you're expecting. Another
problem is that you may be tempted to mix in too much of a "thin"
sound. A direct pickup sound combined with a mic doesn't really fatten
up the sound so much as add clarity or articulation. You just have to
experiment with these things.

If hearing the amplifier sound isn't essential to your playing, you
might try the "re-amp" technique

Wow, that sounds like a very cool technique! I wonder how you
would get the two sound sources to be sync'd time-wise? Does
this require two recorders that are somehow in sync with each other?

It's something that you'd do most easily with a multi-track recorder
or on a DAW. Generally you can get them to line up pretty well (so
they'll add constructively) with some experimenting with microphone
distance - listen before you press the Record button. With a DAW, it's
easy to slide one track relative to the other by a few samples to get
them to line up in phase.

Not sure if it was here or not, but I read a post where the guy was
saying that since this business of getting your sound right is so wide
open that there is probably a case for just about everything or
anything that you can come up with.

Yup. Try recording your guitar with a mic placed in several different
places, pointing at the guitar from different directions. I've heard
pretty good recordings with a mic placed just a few inches from the
player's right ear (assuming a right-handed player) and pointing
downward, parallel to the top.

--
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