Recording Techniques for Acoustic Guitar

A good friend of mine, Oda Kveinå Tonstad, is just about to embark on Leeds College of Music’s Music Production program. She has called me ‘mentor’ for a few years — a title I didn’t request but am very happy to receive! Before departure she wanted to run through some recording techniques for acoustic guitar. We met at my project studio and had a limit of two hours before other obligations kicked in. We ran through four different recording techniques and I’ll give you a brief summary here. These are not meant to be ‘the four quintessential techniques for every engineer,’ but rather a selection of techniques that I like. Other articles may have slight variations over some of the techniques I’ll describe — this is where you should let your personal preferences be the guide.

The microphones we used was a small collection of typical
project-studio microphones.

The Techniques

 

 

1. Stereo Pair/ Spaced Pair

The only small-membrane pair I had available was a pair of affordable omni-mics. Ideally, I’d like to use a pair of cardioid microphones in, for instance, an X-Y configuration. There is little point in trying to use a pair of omnis in X-Y so we did a spaced pair configuration (but leaving out spacing-rules since we just wanted to build up some ‘vocabulary’ of techniques). We used a stereo bar, which roughly mimics the distance between someone’s ears. We placed the microphones about half a meter away from the guitar, just above it, physically pointing towards the guitar-body.

While the X-Y, ORTF and similar techniques work by literally pointing the microphones in different directions, omnis don’t ‘point,’ as it were. A spaced pair utilises the distance between microphones —the sound hits the microphones at different points in time and the combination of the two creates a stereo-image. In other words, the sound is delayed between the channels in your mix if the sound hits the microphones at different points in time. This also means that sound that hits at the same time will be in the centre of your mix. While reflections from the surrounding walls will arrive at different times. Sources placed at the side of the set-up will have more delay between the channels (the stereo-image gets wider or tilts to one side). But with sources placed at the side of the set-up you should look out for cancellations of important frequencies. The X-Y technique or other techniques where the membranes of the microphones are placed as close as possible does not have the same problem with cancellations. That doesn’t make these techniques better in themselves, but they might be better suited for certain applications.

For longer discussion on the spaced pair technique, I suggest this link.

2. Mono Big-membrane Overhead

This is technique where a big-membrane condenser in pointed towards a guitar from a medium distance. When I was sitting down with the guitar, the microphone was placed about half a meter in front of me and a little higher than my head. The distance allows the microphone to pick up the whole guitar, plus some of the room, and not just the relatively isolated sound of the instrument. –not unlike a person sitting in front of someone playing a guitar. The mix between the room and the guitar can be adjusted by moving the mic closer or further from the guitar, just like a pair of ears.

3. Mono — 12th fret

When we were done recording the over-head, Oda insisted that we lowered the mic and put it in front of the 12^th fret. I had thought about dropping this technique because of limited time, but it turned out to be a great thing that we kept it. The mic was placed at about 30 cm. (or around a foot) away from the guitar. Perhaps the most classic mics to use in this configuration are SM57s and U47s (although they are very different). Placing a mic in front of the sound-hole can produce a lot of bass-rumble. Placing a mic pointing at the body/ soundboard of the guitar can produce a pleasant sound but with very little ‘bite’. Placing a mic in front of the 12^th fret is a good way of capturing both the attack of the strings and some of the sound of the body — with just one mic. This is probably the most used recording technique for acoustic guitar in recording-history.

Graham from the Recording Revolution recently did a great video where he shows a variation of this technique:

4. Two microphones — 12^th fret and body

This is my personal favourite. It involves two mics that capture two different parts of the guitar. We changed the condenser mic on the 12^th fret to an SM57. This produces a sound with a bit more ‘bite’ and a bit less ‘body’. We then put the big-membrane microphone pointing towards the soundboard behind the bridge. We put it just off the corner of the guitar, pointing at an angle towards the soundboard between the bridge and the edge of the instrument. I tend to use small-membrane condensers (Oktava MK-012 and Neumann KM 184 are favourites). Small membrane mics have a cleaner off-axis response, which is something to take into account, especially when placing the mic at an angle. But a big-membrane or another dynamic will also do. One aspect of making the microphones blend well is to avoid phasing. To adjust the position if the condenser-mic, I usually put on a pair of headphones and move the mic around until I find a sweet-spot where the two microphones blend well. (Naturally, you have to hear both microphones in the headphones when performing this manoeuvre. They should not be panned out, but be dead-centre to reveal any phasing if you have stereo-listening.) We didn’t have time for this today and we ended up needing to invert the phase of one microphone in the mix. After applying the phase-reverse the guitar sounded heavier/ deeper and more focused. Using headphones during mic-placement is a couple of minutes well spent for optimising and focusing your sound. In the mix, the microphones are panned hard left and right, or to - 25%, + 75% according to your preference.

If the guitar has an internal mic or pic-up I usually add this as a separate line. It often turns out redundant, but it adds an extra back-up or option for the mix. In the mix it can be used for layering — panned out opposite another layer, or with processing/ amp-simulation if desired. Though if it is intended from the beginning to feature opposite another layer in a section of the song, I would usually record this track separately to get true double-tracking.

The two microphones used for this technique: one dynamic
pointing at the 12^th fret, and one condenser pointing at an angle
towards the soundboard behind the bridge.

The Verdict

Assessing the recordings. Oda was the Pro Tools-operator for
today's session.

1. Spaced Pair

We found the sound to be a bit boxy and bright, which partially reflects the affordable home-studio microphones. We tried to soften, sweeten and focus the sound by gentle use of eq., compression and reverb. –but fixing things in the mix have their limitations. We both agreed that the clear, bright omnis would be a more interesting option if used as room mics in a multiple-mic set-up. Oda felt some bass was lacking. This cannot really be alleviated by moving the mics closer to the source (as it usually can), since omnis have no proximity effect.

2. Mono Overhead

The microphone captured the natural sound of the guitar nicely. Some of the room bled into the recording (which you may or may not like). I have had good success with this technique on bright and rattly guitars with tube-mics before. However, on this particular recording we felt that the sense of the guitar’s physical presence was not as strong as we had hoped for in the mix. So we muted it and moved on to:

3. Mono — 12^th fret

This was one of our two favourites today! The sound was focused, large enough, bright enough and very-very mix-friendly. Processing and placement in the mix would have been the easiest to do of all the recordings. The result was a good testimony to how much you can do with a simple home-studio microphone.

4. Two microphones — 12^th fret and body

This was the other favourite. The stereo-image is good, but in some mixes it can compromise a clear sense of the sound’s ‘location’ (this can be improved somewhat by finding the sweet-spot when placing the second mic as described above). Oda said that this was the technique she wanted the most to experiment further with, while we both agreed technique number 3 was the safest option to get good results quickly. An added bonus of this technique is that if the two channels are panned out in stereo, it helps to clean up the phantom-centre for vocals or other lead-sounds. But if you have a busy mix and you want the guitar to be exactly in one location, technique number 3 will be the easiest to work with. Technique number 4, on the other hand, can also be used as a mono-technique where the two microphones provide ‘bite’ and ‘body’, to construct a more complete sound. This can be bounced to mono or mixed down to a group-track on a mixer (that is, an aux-track in ProTools), and subsequently be placed in the mix in one particular location. –just like with technique 3.

* * *

To create the most amount of diversity between the techniques, in this article we have convered:

·      Two mono-techniques (respectively close and distant)

·      Two stereo-techniques (respectively close and distant)

If you’re starting out doing recording, my advice would be to get to know technique 3 first. The video from The Recording Revolution will show you a way to expand on this technique.

If you’re used to close-micing guitars in mono, you might want to try technique number 4, as this will broaden your toolbox quite a bit.

Alternatively, you could also experiment with adding a pair of room-mic or more closely paced overheads (or a single microphone for that matter), to the mono-technique you are already familiar with. This can add more depth and room to the sound, but this is also subject to having a nice sounding room. With more than one microphone you should stay on the look-out for phase problems. Also remember that room mics are a compliment to the close-sound and can be brought up and down according to the need, just like with an artificial reverb.

If you want some fresh thoughts on how to set up microphones in a way that plans ahead to the mix, see another one of my blogposts: ‘Mixing with Microphones’.

Have fun recording, and feel free to leave your own recording-experiences or questions in the comments below!

Me pretending to be a Greek Philosopher at the
university campus later the same day. (Photo: Oda)

Bugge Wesseltoft — New Conception of Jazz

Norwegian keyboard ace and experimental Jazz-wizard Bugge Wesseltoft visited Trondheim, Norway, on the 9^th of September 2016. He is celebrating the 20 years’ anniversary for the formation of his project ‘New Conception of Jazz.’ The group has not been active for a few years and Wesseltoft is now playing with a whole new line-up. Last time he visited Trondheim with New Conception of Jazz was back in 1998 when the band had been running for two years. He asked before the show started if anyone in the room were present in ’98, and a few voices around the room made their presence known! Wesseltoft joked that his current band was not there in ’98 — most of whom are presumably in their twenties.

Personally I used to know his name from various collaborations and award shows in Norway. If my memory holds I believe he played with Eivind Aarset and Audun Kleive in the groovy experimental Jazz-project “Music for Science and Fiction”. I saw them live in the mid-90s, and it’s a shame I can’t find any videos or useful information about them online. Then, a decade later, while I was studying Music Technology in Singapore one of my lecturers came back from a trip to Norway. He lent me a record named ‘FiLM iNG.’ I listened to it. And then again. And then again. And then again. And then again. Until it became a part of the soundtrack to an era, and ultimately Bugge Wesseltoft became a part of the musical canon of my life.

The band started off the first set with an experimental blanket of sound in the borderlands between an avant-garde soundscape and John Coltrane’s more etheric moments. —gradually moving into a groove reminiscent of Miles Davis’ ‘Bitches Brew’ and ‘In a Silent Way’.

From where I sat Wesseltoft’s gear looked to consist of an analogue synth, a Mac with a controller-keyboard and a grand piano with a Chaos Pad (or something similar) controlling a feed from the piano mics. One of my friends, a young French lady who is a seasoned pianist, noted how she loved the sound of the grand piano that was on stage (even when the effects were active). A compliment also to the sound engineer that the tone of the instrument was well transmitted.

One of the numbers consisted mostly of Wesseltoft exploring the grand piano on his own. He started off by letting the piano trigger a rattly noise-band that drew the thoughts towards John Cage's prepared piano. Gradually (and naturally) he made his way through choruses, ring-modulations, delays and more. Where delays or samples hung for a long time he would paint harmonies up against them with a broad brush. While with the ring-modulation he used a swift and percussive playing style somewhat reminiscent of Cecil Taylor (I suppose we all would hear different references depending on our own listening). His exploration of the grand piano is a good example of the development in his pieces. One piano-phrase triggers an electronic response, the response triggers the mind of the musician and the dance begins. There phrases and structures may be planned out ahead, but the processing is as much a part of the composition as anything. Perhaps these pieces are more ‘ideas’ than ‘compositions’?

Wesseltoft’s band is not of the ordinary. He says in a recent video that he ended up with an all-female band, in part because of their different approach to music. Compared to the ‘Jazz guys […] they are a little bit less bragging somehow’. Also, the stage naturally looks spectacular with a bunch of glamorous girls setting a Modesty-Blaise-meets-1960's-Mote-Carlo-with-a-dash-of-Viking-princess-vibe.

At the centre-front of the stage we find the drummer Siv Øyun Kjenstad. In addition to playing difficult things (dense playing, active left foot and dancing around with off beats on the ride in high-tempo; you get the idea), she visibly has fun. My above mentioned friend said she really enjoyed watching Kjenstad play, as she smiles with her whole face when she is getting into the groove.

'Cinderella and the mad electronics Professor'

The second set started off with tabla and guitar. Oddrun Lilja Jonsdottir and Sanskriti Shrestha have a new album out on Jazzland Records (Wesseltoft’s label, who is also celebrating its 20^th anniversary this year). (Here is a link to another performance of the same piece that started of the second set.)

During one of the last pieces of the night I thought I heard a familiar piano run. Then I heard it again! Is this... Basie? Then they followed — the tweaked and twisted samples of horn stacks from The Kid from The Red Bank. The track is well known for Norwegian ears as it is the introduction to iconic radio-show Reiseradioen that has run every summer for generations. Apparently the piece is from New Conceptions of Jazz's first album in 1996, but I can’t find the track at the moment so I won’t be able to provide a link.

*

My friends and I found it hard to know just what to expect when walking into a Bugge Wesseltoft concert, and ironically, that’s exactly what we got! A groovy and experimental jazz-night with a wide variety of musical influences. We had fun!

Line-up:

Bugge Wesseltoft (keys, electronics)

Marthe Lea (sax, flute, vocals)

Oddrun Lilja Jonsdottir (guitar)

Sanskriti Shrestha (tabla-drums, vocals)

Siv Øyun Kjenstad (drums, vocals)

 

(Pictures for this article by Harald Haltvik and FredrikThommesen)

Three Fresh Shouts (Music & Photography)

A couple of years ago I wrote some ‘shouts’ to people I knew or had met who was doing something creative worth mentioning on this blog. The shouts are back and there should be another post before long. This time I cover new music from Leeds-based producers, and a recent Norwegian photo exhibition. The key people are Daniel Woodward, Neil Innes at ATA Records, and photographer Theodor With. Hope you enjoy!

Daniel Woodward – New Album

In the Funk, Soul and Jazz community in Leeds, Daniel Woodward is probably best known as a top-of-the-range drummer, and for Groove Labs Studio. Last year Daniel released his solo album 'The Long Walk Home.’ On ‘The Long Walk Home,’ we get introduced to Woodward the composer and keyboard-player. Woodward plays keys and drums on all tracks. The album features a variety of jazz vibes from the contemplative and atmospheric, to vintage Blue Note moments and up-tempo tracks. His star-spangled team include Joe Tatton, Malcolm Strachan, Atholl Ransome, Kenny Higgins, Simon Beddoe and Garry Jackson. Between them they have an impressive list of credits which include (to name far too few!): New Mastersounds, Haggis Horns, Jamiroquai, Corinne Bailey Rae and Submotion Orchestra. The album was recorded at Daniel’s own Groove Labs Studio apart from the track ‘Sunday Sermon’ which was recorded at ATA Studio (more on ATA elsewhere in this post). Being deeply in love with the Hammond-sound since childhood, I fell totally in love with ‘Sunday Sermon’ and played it again and again when Daniel first shared the YouTube link before the record was released. The sound is recognizable to lovers of Hammond-jazz, and the drive and feel is reminiscent of Quincy Jones’ ‘Killer Joe.’ In spite of the jazz-scene of Northern England holding an internationally rather anonymous position, ‘The Long Walk Home’ is a an album that displays not only the quality of the North-English jazz music scene, but also flickers of its diversity in both styles and personnel.
Link to album on Tidal, Link to album on Amazon, Link to album on Spotify.

ATA Records - New Tracks

One night some years ago I was introduced to Neil Innes at the Sela Bar in Leeds. We swiftly got talking about music and recording. Neil had just set up his recording studio 'All Things Analogue' (ATA), which as you might have guessed, is an analogue recording studio. In 2014 the studio expanded to include its own record-company (ATA Records). The vintage gear collection includes RCA R44 microphones, germanium pre-amps from the original desk at Olympic Studios, a Swedish radio-broadcast console from the 1960s, and naturally, tape-machines. The instrument collection is equally vintage. Recently, ATA Records have started on an ongoing album of free downloads appropriately named ‘Hard Work, No Pay.’ The tracks are soulful and danceable retro-tracks and few will guess they have been recorded recently. They will eventually be pressed to limited edition on vinyl. The tracks include:

· ‘Somebody Stole My Thunder’ with The Yorkshire Film & Television Orchestra feat. Martin Connor. —Imagine an alternative Starsky and Hutch theme with vocals!

· ‘The Name Game’ with Maggie Somers. —­­Fun track that it’s very hard to sit still to!

Theodor With Photography

Theodor is not only my brother-in-law, but also a dashing and talented young photographer. He recently held an outdoor exhibition at the area of ‘Nyhavna’ (literally: New Harbour) in the city of Trondheim. It was covered in an article in the Norwegian newspaper Adresseavisen (see article on this link). Humans of Nyhavna has its own web-page and Facebook-page, and the name is as you might have guessed inspired by the famous photo-blog ‘Humansof New York.’ Theodor's recent exhibition was set up as a part of a festival celebrating the creative talents in the area of Nyhavna. The area houses a wide pallet of small-scale creative industry. In addition to professional photography, Theodor has run a small web-design company together with a friend for years, and his wife (my little sister) is a costume designer who works with stage, film and TV. This naturally produces the potential for broad collaborations and a portfolio where theatre and creative costumes is a common feature. Theodor has also turned his camera on myself and other friends for collaborations. Some of these will be featured in blog-posts to come.

Find ‘Theodor With Photography’ here: Webpage, Facebook-page.

(Photo: Finn Walther for Adresseavisen)

(Photo: Theodor With from Humans of Nyhavna)

Visit to Leeds College of Music

This is a blog-post from a visit to Leeds College of Music (LCoM) in 2012. LCoM was in 2012 in the process of transforming its programmes. They were cutting down on the number of degrees and made the degrees they provided more flexible. They also opened for more studio-time for everyone and much longer opening-hours. Mac-labs, studios and rehearsal rooms are now also open till 3am! Level 1 and 2 HE students now had access to facilities only level 3 students and above had access to before. Music students also had access to more of the technical facilities that only technology and production students used to have. You may think this makes everyone fight more for studio-time, but I won’t believe it. Last time I checked LCoM had about 60 teaching and practice rooms, seven recording studios, three mixing studios, a large in-house venue and a small recital-hall. The college is not lacking in facilities. The library is well-provided in literature for practical skills and academic knowledge. There is also a substantial collection of printed and recorded music—especially the latter category was important for us production students. (Although, today most music can be streamed if you risk the lower resolution for critical listening.) In 2012 Leeds College of Music also got its ‘all Steinway status,’ which means that close to all pianos are made by Steinway.

My 2012 visit to the college was part of a private study-trip in the UK for a prospective student. At LCoM we had an appointment with lecturer Brian Morell to talk about admissions and student life, and we met with a number of other staff. I am not going to present the current line-up of degrees here, but I’ll rather provide a few highlights from my own experience as a Leeds College of Music student (I graduated autumn 2009):

- The college is a dedicated music conservatory and it is strong in both jazz, pop, classical and production studies. This meant that I always had access to top-of-the-range musicians for collaborations. LCoM’s old slogan ‘where music happens’ described our student-days spot on.

- Leeds is a great city for music, and the legendary venue ‘the Wardrobe’ is just across the street.

- LCoM always had great facilities. Significant upgrades have been undertaken in recent years. If I have any critique on the current state of the studios, may I suggest that they are so well-equipped that no studios now represent the lower end of the industry? Though that luxury is hardly a problem!

- During my post-graduate studies in Music Production our little class had four doctorate-holders overseeing us. That gave us a density of PhDs to Masters-students of almost 3 to 1. That’s even before counting visiting lecturers.

- Several of my friends from LCoM have gone on to great places in both music and academia. For me, being linked to the LCoM-community today means I’m linked to a living organism of musicians and producers. And it means being linked to a college that is big enough to conquer new ground and increase my CV-prestige as a degree-holder, but small enough to receive us alumni back in a family-like fashion.

…but then again, I’m the wrong guy to ask for an objective outside-perspective! Cause I loved it too much!

Big thanks to Senior Studio Technician Keith Smith and all the other staff who spent the day with us!

Norwegian Singer/Songwriter, up-and-coming Producer

and future LCoM Student Oda Kveinå Tonstad

in the G-series SSL studio.

Film meets music and sound. This suite has quite a big canvas

and a Genelec surround-system built into the walls

Studio 113 used to have a TOFT ATB when I was a student.

Now it has an Audient 8024 and the college uses Audient

consoles in several studios.
Read more about the relation to FunkyJunk here.

Here’s an updated picture from Studio 422.

From the musical scores section of the library. On the far wall you
can see parts of the extensive record collection.

The library's wall of magazines and journals

Read more about the College's facilities on this link.