[LAU] Using a microphone to record acoustic guitar

[Charles Linart]

This post falls into the "Do as I say, not as I do" realm, but I have
been experimenting with this for a while now and have a few
observations to add.

1) Condenser mics are essential if you hope to capture anything
resembling what you hear as you play.  As far as I can tell, one is
pretty much as good as another, but I'm partial to Oktava.

2) Two mics are better than one.  A simple XY configuration does wonders.

3) Angle the mic configuration downward at, as someone pointed out
above, about a 70 degree angle (actually, I would expect that the
optimal angle would differ according to how your guitarist wields
their axe... anyway, point 'em down).

4) There are no hard-and-fast rules -- it depends on the sound you
want.  If you want a crisp, "blue" sound, mic just up the neck from
the joint.  If you want a browner sound, mic close to the hole.  If
you want a percussive sound, mic the body itself.  The great thing
about the guitar is that it's so many instruments rolled into one.
There's no one-size-fits-all solution for mic-ing.

Hope that helps.
On Jan 16, 2008 3:53 AM, Christian Schumann <schumann at physik.uni-kl.de> wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 15, 2008 at 11:39:16PM +0100, Leslie P. Polzer wrote:
> > will a vocals microphone produce acceptable results when used to record
> > an acoustic instrument?
> To my ears, this strongly depends on the microphone. While I've not been
> able to get decent acoustic guitar sounds from handheld dynamic vocal
> microphones, my TLM103 works like a charm.
>
> When using cardioid microphones, you have to be careful about the
> distance between guitar and microphone, or the bass will get boomy. I
> usually set the mic up in about 30cm distance at an angle of 70 degrees
> to the face of the guitar, pointing at the position of the neck jiont.
>
> Best regards
> Christian
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Dipl.-Phys. Christian Schumann   |Technische Universitaet Kaiserslautern
> Mail: schumann at physik.uni-kl.de  |           Fachbereich Physik
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