Hello all,

I'm new to recording and am looking for some pointers on how to set up
to record classical guitar. I have an Oktava Mk012 and an AKG C1000s
condenser mic. What is the ideal setup as far as where to place the
mics to get the best recording? Are they better off closer to the
guitar? Farther back? One of each? Any suggestions would be greatly
apreciated.

Cheers!

John

I'm new to recording and am looking for some pointers on how to set up
to record classical guitar. I have an Oktava Mk012 and an AKG C1000s
condenser mic. What is the ideal setup as far as where to place the
mics to get the best recording? Are they better off closer to the
guitar? Farther back? One of each? Any suggestions would be greatly
apreciated.

Is this a classical guitar solo, or a nylon stringed guitar fitting into a
larger mix? If it's a solo, find a really good-sounding room, fairly large
and very quiet, and walk around the room with one ear plugged by your
finger. When you find a spot where the instrument sounds really good, place
the Oktava there. A good starting place might be about 5' from the
instrument, and you may need to place a throw rug or something else
absorbant on the floor halfway between the guitar and the Oktava.

If it's going into a multitrack mix, try putting the Oktava about a foot
away from the guitar, aiming at about the 14th fret, then move it around
until you find the sound you like.

The proper position for the C1000s is in its case. Or on e-bay.

Peace,
Paul

I'm new to recording and am looking for some pointers on how to set up
to record classical guitar. I have an Oktava Mk012 and an AKG C1000s
condenser mic. What is the ideal setup as far as where to place the
mics to get the best recording? Are they better off closer to the
guitar? Farther back? One of each? Any suggestions would be greatly
apreciated.

Is this a classical guitar solo, or a nylon stringed guitar fitting into a
larger mix? If it's a solo, find a really good-sounding room, fairly large
and very quiet, and walk around the room with one ear plugged by your
finger. When you find a spot where the instrument sounds really good, place
the Oktava there. A good starting place might be about 5' from the
instrument, and you may need to place a throw rug or something else
absorbant on the floor halfway between the guitar and the Oktava.

If it's going into a multitrack mix, try putting the Oktava about a foot
away from the guitar, aiming at about the 14th fret, then move it around
until you find the sound you like.

The proper position for the C1000s is in its case. Or on e-bay.

Peace,
Paul

NuclearFishin wrote:

I'm new to recording and am looking for some pointers on how to set up
to record classical guitar. I have an Oktava Mk012 and an AKG C1000s
condenser mic. What is the ideal setup as far as where to place the
mics to get the best recording? Are they better off closer to the
guitar? Farther back? One of each? Any suggestions would be greatly
apreciated.

You have to do this by ear. Listen to the signal coming off the mike
and move the mike around. You get closer in, and you will have less room
sound. You move up the neck and you'll have more top end. You get into
the sound hole, you'll have more bottom end. You pull back and you'll get
more room sound. The right place depends on your guitar and your room and
also your personal tastes.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

In article writes:

I'm new to recording and am looking for some pointers on how to set up
to record classical guitar. I have an Oktava Mk012 and an AKG C1000s
condenser mic. What is the ideal setup as far as where to place the
mics to get the best recording?

The ideal setup is the one that works best for your guitar, your
style, and in your room. Spend a day experimenting.

At least once a year, one or more of the trade magazines has an
article about recording acoustic guitars. There's a few articles on
guitar recording in the August 2004 issue of Recording (probably not
on the news stands yet) that might give you some pointers.

Two things that are usually good advice (but since they aren't rules,
they can't be broken):

1. It seems obvious to anyone who hasn't tried it that you should
stick the mic close to the sound hole. This is a very boomy sound and
doesn't really represent the tone of a guitar. If you're using one mic,
try pointing it at the fingerboard about where the neck meets the
body.

2. Guitars radiate sound in a number of different directions
including upward. If you can avoid heavy breathing, you can often find
a realistic sound by placing a mic at about the height of your right
ear (assuming you're right-handed) about 6-8 inches to the right of
your head and 6-8 inches forward of your ear, pointed downward and
aiming at the soundboard of the guitar.

Guitars are quiet instruments unless they're played in a thrashing or
percussive style. You'll need a quiet preamp with a lot of gain in
order to get a "hot" recording level. My advice is no to agonize over
recording level. If your peaks never get above -10, don't sweat it.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

"NuclearFishin" wrote in message
om
Hello all,

I'm new to recording and am looking for some pointers on how to set up
to record classical guitar. I have an Oktava Mk012 and an AKG C1000s
condenser mic. What is the ideal setup as far as where to place the
mics to get the best recording? Are they better off closer to the
guitar? Farther back? One of each? Any suggestions would be greatly
apreciated.

In general, this depends very much on the room and your goals for the
recording.

When I've recorded guitars wehther acoustic or electric, I've followed a
scheme that was similar to what I use for pianos. I illustated the piano
technique with some practical examples (including MP3 downloads) within the
past week or so.

The basic scheme is to make a multitrack recording of one or two close mics
and two room mics. At mixdown time, pan and balance to suit.

The close mics are put in places where the sound quality of the instrument
is good, but as different from each other as is reasonably possible.

For an acoustic guitar I find this would be one mic on the fret, one on the
hole, position and angle fine-tuned using the one-ear listening technique
mentioned by Paul.

One of the best electric guitar recordings I've ever done was made from a
small amp that was sitting on a table. I positionsed the mic so its edge
rested on the top of the table about 2 feet down from the speaker, and on
the edge of the table.

Another possibility is one very close mic and one mic back 3-6 feet, again
location and angle fine tuned by careful listening.

As you may end up mixing the output of the two close mics, consider the 3:1
rule. IOW, have the close mics 1/3 the distance from their primary sound
source (e.g. the hole) as from the secondary (e.g., the frets). Or, have
the close mic 1/3 the distance of the far mic.

The room micing technique can be whatever works for you. I am forced to use
spaced omnis, but I'm working up an ORTF alternative. I wouldn't be the
least bit unhappy to have 4 channels of ambience to work with. IME much of
the beauty of a recording, particularly of a solo instrument comes from
balancing the ambience and the direct sound. This is so critical that I
don't want to burden myself with figuring this out until well after the
fact.

Arny Krueger wrote:

For an acoustic guitar I find this would be one mic on the fret, one on the
hole,

This approach often sucks bat weenie for classical guitar, giving
exactly the kind of phony imaging Bill S. was ranting about in relation
to classical recordings of our day.

Get the mic(s) away from the instrument, to Mr. Stamler's suggested 5'
or so. There, it sounds like a classical guitar recorded acousticly
instead of like a pop record.

--
ha

"hank alrich" wrote in message


Arny Krueger wrote:

much snipped by Hank

For an acoustic guitar I find this would be one mic on the fret, one
on the hole,

much snipped by Hank

This approach often sucks bat weenie for classical guitar, giving
exactly the kind of phony imaging Bill S. was ranting about in
relation to classical recordings of our day.

Well Hank you edited it out, so I presume you had some reason to suppress
the fact that I said "mix and pan to suit".

much snipped by Hank

Get the mic(s) away from the instrument, to Mr. Stamler's suggested 5' or
so.

much snipped by Hank

Hank, I suggested that alternative as well, but you edited it out.

much snipped by Hank

Another part you edited out Hank, was the part where I suggested capturing
the room sound. I'll leave it to the readers to figure out what say 10% of
close sound and 90% of room sound might sound like.

much snipped by Hank

There, it sounds like a classical guitar recorded acoustically
instead of like a pop record.

much snipped by Hank

So what's your agenda Hank, edit my posts in an attempt make them look as
stupid as possible?

NuclearFishin wrote:
I'm new to recording and am looking for some pointers on how to set up
to record classical guitar. I have an Oktava Mk012 and an AKG C1000s
condenser mic. What is the ideal setup as far as where to place the
mics to get the best recording? Are they better off closer to the
guitar? Farther back? One of each? Any suggestions would be greatly
apreciated.

In my experience, classical acoustic guitar is one of the hardest
instruments to record properly. It's very quiet so you'll need a very
clean path from source to the recording medium.

Here's a simplified version of the recording process:

First you buy a few packs of new strings. You keep changing
them until you seem to get a nice balanced sound. For recording,
you'll generally want strings that are a pretty bright. LaBella
strings record pretty well, but many people swear by Augustines.

If the low E sounds very dull or the guitar sounds boomy or buzzy,
even with relatively new strings, you may need to rent, borrow or
buy a better guitar. Don't steal. If that doesn't help, it is likely
that the guitarist's fretting or picking technique is incorrect.
As I firmly believe that every classical guitarist, regardless of their
style of music, needs to go through Frederick M. Noad's Solo Guitar
Playing vol. 1 anyway, get a copy and study the first few chapters
to iron out any picking or fretting deficiencies.

Once you've got the instrument and playing technique in in order,
you'll need to find a room where the guitar sounds good to your ears.
"Boxiness" or mud are usually byproducts of bad acoustics. It will
most likely be a medium to large sized room, although sometimes
a small control room with proper treatment can sound warm and
wonderful.

Find a spot in the room where the guitar sounds nice. Don't
obsess about finding "the best" place, it doesn't exist. Don't
set up too close to a wall, early reflections from close surfaces
can kill clarity quickly.

Mic placement: Place the C1000s in the nearest trash can or ebay.
You do not need to plug it in either way. The Oktava is a fine mic,
and you should place it as far away from the guitar as you can
get away with. Start from 3 feet or so pointed at the place where
the neck joins the body. Fine tune from the Further away gives
more room sound, closer gets you closer, aimed towards the body
gives more of the "boom" that comes from the sound hole and aimed
towards the neck can give you more mids. The further away you
get, the more you'll get the "whole" sound and aiming will have
less effect on it.

Timo

Timo Haanpää wrote:

many people swear by Augustines.

Augustine trebles and Savarez basses. g

--
ha

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004 22:09:53 -0400, NuclearFishin wrote
(in article ) :

Hello all,

I'm new to recording and am looking for some pointers on how to set up
to record classical guitar. I have an Oktava Mk012 and an AKG C1000s
condenser mic. What is the ideal setup as far as where to place the
mics to get the best recording? Are they better off closer to the
guitar? Farther back? One of each? Any suggestions would be greatly
apreciated.

Cheers!

John

The AKG c1000 will likely sound to plasticky for nylon strings, especially
the 1st string.

Which capsules of the Oktava do you have?

Regards,

Ty Ford



-- Ty Ford's equipment reviews, audio samples, rates and other audiocentric
stuff are at http://home.comcast.net/~tyreeford