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guitar mics and preamps
I have a lovely spanish classical guitar that I want to set up so that
I can play live, but I don't want to put any pick ups into the thing that will damage the guitar or change the sound or resonance in any way, so I have decided to use a microphone/pre amp set up. Can anyone suggest the best type of mic and pre amp set up. I would really prefer a valve style analogue pre amp that is straight forward and very simple to use but with a great sound that will really make this guitar shine, and a microphone that fits the set up. I know this request for advice is somewhat ambiguous but I'm not expert in this field. What I want is to really capture the fullness and richness of this guitar. It has a wonderful resonance and it really sings, dare I use that overused term "warm"? well it is. So nothing too tinny. Unfortunately I don't have a heap of cash so preferably the whole set up should not cost more than $300(US) but if there is a set up that is really worth it. Micky. |
#2
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guitar mics and preamps
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#3
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guitar mics and preamps
It might cost more than $300, but start with something like a Crown CM 700
condensor mic, or one of the AT3XXX series condensors(which I think can be purchased for under $300). I would bet this could be a very acceptable start. Best regards, John |
#4
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guitar mics and preamps
John Halliburton wrote:
It might cost more than $300, but start with something like a Crown CM 700 condensor mic, or one of the AT3XXX series condensors(which I think can be purchased for under $300). I would bet this could be a very acceptable start. Good choices. The EV N/D 468 is another real sleeper that can sound great on guitar, and it's extremely tight. Where you put the mike depends a lot on how the guitar is balanced, of course. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
#5
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guitar mics and preamps
In article ,
M wrote: I have a lovely spanish classical guitar that I want to set up so that I can play live, but I don't want to put any pick ups into the thing that will damage the guitar or change the sound or resonance in any way, so I have decided to use a microphone/pre amp set up. When I do live sound and someone comes in with an acoustic guitar rig reflecting this approach (i.e. without a freaking pickup), I find that it never sounds as good as as a cheap Takamine rig with a piezo. Your guitar may sound absolutely amazing and we could argue about the type of preamps to use and all these subtleties, but the fact of the matter is that you're on stage now, and a miked acoustic is a royal pain to use in the same room as stage monitors and the main PA speakers. The compromises that this involves are quite likely to negate every advantage you had by playing this precious guitar over a competent but conventional guitar with a pickup. Let me elaborate... If you use a mike, you better be nearly motionless on stage, as positioning is fairly sensitive. An inch either way and things change a lot. Clamping the mike to the guitar would be ideal, but that voids your "no damage" policy and forces you to use a stand mounted mike. This does wonders for any stage presence you might have had... I use an EV N/D 468 mike for this but if the player moves around and the mike gets too close to the hole, it'll probably feedback somewhere around 100-200Hz. Of course, I can start notching stuff away and rolling LF off, but why did we go down this route? The feedback is an artifact of using a mike with a good bit of proximity effect near a resonant cavity, so ditch the mike and solve the problem. A freakin' piezo won't give me that grief and actually will have a better low end at the end of the day because of it. I am not always so happy about the high end sound of a piezo pickup, but with a little cut EQ anywhere from 3KHz-8KHz, it's almost always pretty reasonable. And, if you expect any sort of gain out of the guitar, then a mike will probably not have enough gain before feedback. The N/D 468 is one of the tightest mikes out there that sounds good for guitars, but it's not magic. It's going to be almost useless if you're playing in front of a full on rock band, and the sound person is going to have to devote a lot of time to getting as much out of this mike as possible while avoiding feedback, and as a result, they won't have much time left to do other things to make you sound good. Avoiding feedback involves pretty aggressive EQ, something that throws you out of the 'purist' realm anyway. You're worried about a subtle change in the way your instrument sounds because of a bridge pickup? How about an 8dB notch at 160Hz to avoid feedback from a mike - that's pretty non-subtle. And, this is only possible if the soundperson is competent with EQ and the room has usable EQ - two unsafe assumptions. Again, a nice guitar with a nice pickup is so much simpler and in my experience, works so much better than any sort of miked guitar. Get a second guitar for the stage and leave the precious guitar at home. Or, realize that it's just a tool and have a competent luthier install a nice pickup system into it. It's just a guitar... if you revere it so much that it's not really usable, is it still actually a guitar? If you're a solo act, then maybe a mike will work, but I've also seen a lot of people do that purely acoustically and that's even more clean. Cheaper too... Best of luck, Monte McGuire |
#6
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guitar mics and preamps
Micky,
If you should come around to the point where you'll consider an internal pickup, you can accomplish your stated aim (authentic reproduction of the instrument's sonic character in a live performance context) and probably stay within your budget. But there simply isn't much to be done for a quality mic/preamp combination in that range. The baseline for an appropriate mic would likely be something like the Crown mentioned elsewhere or the Shure KSM137, with either living near the $300. And there's certainly more to be spent as you move through Schoeps, DPA, Neumann, Josephson and others. I can't think of a preamp below the $500 range that I would prefer to saving a little longer for something better: at that point, offerings from Speck, FMR and Grace are far more attractive than anything that you might save $100 on. Which is to say it can't be done. Give up, go and play for a while and think on what you want. Is it a barely adequate mic/preamp set within your current budget, or a very respectable internal pickup system within your current budget, or is it to wait until you've amassed $1000 or so to create a baseline "keeper" setup? Whichever you choose, you won't find what you asked for, because the market reality is elsewhere. Michael (M) wrote in message . com... I have a lovely spanish classical guitar that I want to set up so that I can play live, but I don't want to put any pick ups into the thing that will damage the guitar or change the sound or resonance in any way, so I have decided to use a microphone/pre amp set up. Can anyone suggest the best type of mic and pre amp set up. I would really prefer a valve style analogue pre amp that is straight forward and very simple to use but with a great sound that will really make this guitar shine, and a microphone that fits the set up. I know this request for advice is somewhat ambiguous but I'm not expert in this field. What I want is to really capture the fullness and richness of this guitar. It has a wonderful resonance and it really sings, dare I use that overused term "warm"? well it is. So nothing too tinny. Unfortunately I don't have a heap of cash so preferably the whole set up should not cost more than $300(US) but if there is a set up that is really worth it. Micky. |
#7
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guitar mics and preamps
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#8
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guitar mics and preamps
The correct solution is to perform without a PA at all. If this means
playing smaller venues, or quieter, more intimate venues, then I think in the long run your audience will appreciate it. If Jonathan Richman can do what he does in a crowded rock club, then a spanish guitar can serve its typical audience in a reasonable venue without reinforcement. Unless you're playing with a drummer, of course. In which case you should bring a different guitar, one with a pickup. ulysses |
#9
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guitar mics and preamps
I have a lovely spanish classical guitar that I want to set up so that I can play live, but I don't want to put any pick ups into the thing that will damage the guitar or change the sound or resonance in any way, so I have decided to use a microphone/pre amp set up. Can anyone suggest the best type of mic and pre amp set up. I would really prefer a valve style analogue pre amp that is straight forward and very simple to use but with a great sound that will really make this guitar shine, and a microphone that fits the set up. I know this request for advice is somewhat ambiguous but I'm not expert in this field. What I want is to really capture the fullness and richness of this guitar. It has a wonderful resonance and it really sings, dare I use that overused term "warm"? well it is. So nothing too tinny. Unfortunately I don't have a heap of cash so preferably the whole set up should not cost more than $300(US) but if there is a set up that is really worth it. Micky. Schoeps CMC6/41 and a Great River Preamp, but it doesn't fit your budget. The Peavey VMP2 works well with the Schoeps also, but isn't much less expensive. Classic guitar is one of the more difficult instruments to obtain a decent sound from. For Studio, I use a modified (Neumann-Gefell valve) UM 57 and a 563 into the Great River. Richard H. Kuschel "I canna change the law of physics."-----Scotty |
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