accoustic recording

dudemyster · #1 February 9th, 2006

hi , does ne 1 have ne suggestions on recording my accoustic on to pc? do u have to geta good mic, pre amp?

thx in adv

dudemyster · #2 February 9th, 2006

soz just seen post below!!! soz for wasting time i will read that post

Lcjones · #3 February 9th, 2006

dudemyster,

I don't know which post below you are referring to, so I'll just throw this into the mosh pit.

Mic'ing an acoustic is very cool. You'll need a nice condenser mic. The dynamic mic's will work and do ok, but a condenser mic is the ticket. There are even special ones for acoustic guitars. You can pick up a good condenser for acoustic for under a $100US.

But just having a condensor mic is not going to do the trick. (note: read the posts on harmonics to help understand "how" your acoustic guitar makes its sound)

The real trick to mic'ing an acoustic is the position of the mic toward the guitar. For the most all around sound of your guitar, you would want to point your mic, at a slight angle from the fret board side and 4" - 6" away, to the 12th fret or where the neck meets the body. To get a fuller tone from the body you may want to position near the bridge or even further back toward the tail pin.

It's actually quite a bit of fun to hear the different tones your acoustic can make simply by mic positioning. And rest assured, your acoustic has a very broad range of tones. You just need to capture the one you're looking for.

I'm not sure, but maybe Kirk has some samples. If not, let me know and I'll make up a few samples in different positions. ( if anyone is interested, I'll do that ....

)

Good luck dude! ( i just liked saying that!

)

Les

chuckswood2001 · #4 February 10th, 2006

hi les

that would be great, ur posts and answers are of help to a lot of us on the forum, samples of what ur telling us would be a great help, rite now i have a JB Player(dime store acoustic) i bought one of those sound hole pickups but the cord was always there in the way when i wasnt using amp, so i got a reg pickup made a bracket and installed it in sound hole and drilled holes and installed volume and tone controls, one of these days i will buy a good acoustic a wont want to cobble it up so the samples will be of help when that time comes

chuck

dudemyster · #5 February 11th, 2006

i am going to get my big baby hooked up with a fishman rare earth pickup hard wired so i think i will be able to jack straight in to the audigy sound card i think??

is that right?

chuckswood2001 · #6 February 11th, 2006

some of the guys have been doing that, i have my stereo hooked up to my comp instead of a reg comp speaker set up, i also run the output of stereo to mic in on sound card, i have it set up so i run my guitar thru the tape input on stereo, so i get a little amplification on the guitar and it works for me, try running rite into sound card and see how it works for u, if u cant get enough volume that way, u will need to amp it a little, if u have a guitar amp that has an output from the preamp then u can run that into ur sound card and it will work better, otherwise u might need to get a little phono amp to make it work

chuck

Lcjones · #7 February 11th, 2006

No problem, I'll try and get some mic samples up this weekend.

Les