mixing acoustic guitar tracks

[jbush4]

any suggestions on how to make good acoustic mixes?

 

i tried doubling the track, slightly offsetting it, and phasing to the right on the second track.

 

this sounds pretty good... but i was wondering if anyone else could throw a bit of expertise my way.

 

thanks.

[JasmineTea]

There's a bunch of ways to create stereo images. I'm not an expert, but I tried a few things when I had a nice home studio.

1: Use two mics to record, pan R and L.
2: Use three mics to record. Center one mic in the mix, pan the other two R and L.
3: Stereo chorus.
4: Stereo echo.
5: Combination of the above, or anything you can think of.

I'm sure there are other ways, these come to mind.

One stereo image I tried that work realy well was with a recorder that had cut-and-paste. What I did was copied the original to another track, and then moved it "backward" a few incraments in time from the other, so it lagged just slightly. Did this with a grand piano and it sounded great. Simaler to a chorus, but smoother.

[catdaddy]

All of the methods that JT suggests are good ones. I always like to pan hard left/right and then offset one of two tracks for a bigger stereo image. Generally the longer the offset in milliseconds the more pronounced the imaging becomes. However at a certain point the length of the offset becomes self defeating because the sound starts to become more like a slapback effect and less like a clean stereo image.


Even when I record with 2 mics (in stereo) I'll offset one of the tracks for the mix. Most of the time now though with the advent of digital recording its easier for me to use one good mic to record a single track and then clone that track and offset it to create the stereo image effect that I want. You might note also that the track that appears in advance (in the track pair) will seem to provide the focal point in the mix image. For instance if the track that is panned hard right is offset ahead of the track panned to the left then the origin of the sound will "appear" to be from the right side of the stereo image. This can be important if you will be adding a vocal or other instrument to the recording. You can manage each instrument or vocal in the stereo image by using the above method and giving each its own offset (millisecond) value and changing the degree of panning slightly. Thus you can control the precise location of each focal point which will help to create "room" in the stereo image for all of the tracks.

[sdelsolray]

Originally posted by jbush4 any suggestions on how to make good acoustic mixes? i tried doubling the track, slightly offsetting it, and phasing to the right on the second track. this sounds pretty good... but i was wondering if anyone else could throw a bit of expertise my way. thanks.

 

 

Parlor tricks. If you want to make a true stereo image of a solo acoustic gutiar you need two mics (same brand/model) and place them in one of the true stereo recording placements (XY, ORTF, Blumlein). Pan to taste, but not 100% L and R. You can throw a nice stereo reverb on the mix sparingly (very sparingly) if needed.

[valleyguy]

I found the best way to really thicken the guitar, or give it space is to record the same part twice and pan each right/left.

No matter how well you rerecord a guitar part, there will always be some slight timing differences to the original. When played back together and each is panned to a separate side, you achieve a very full sound. You could say, almost like the sound of two guitars. If the parts are not similarly played, or the timing is not good, it will sound like two guitars. Try it out and experiment. The tighter the two performances, the more panning is required. If the two performances are not close, less panning masks the differences.

The problem I found with cloning a track and slightly delaying it, then panning each hard right/left is that the quality of the guitar sound usually suffers, something is lost. It's subtle, but still there. This is a bigger problem with acoustic guitar, as there are many subtlies to the sound vs. an electric distorted sound, where this effect is much more effective. I would imagine phasing issues create some of this loss of signal quality, but i'm not an expert in this sort of stuff, I just use my ears and it's a hobby for me.

[jbush4]

Originally posted by valleyguy I found the best way to really thicken the guitar, or give it space is to record the same part twice and pan each right/left....

 

 

 

I've tried this method with vocals and have gotten outstanding results. I'm going to tinker around with it and go easy on the effects (or completely rule them out)... I've found that most time, reverb or some sort of dynamic delay just makes it sound like you're covering up poor guitar playing.

 

Thanks for the suggestions!!

[JasmineTea]

Originally posted by valleyguy The problem I found with cloning a track and slightly delaying it, then panning each hard right/left is that the quality of the guitar sound usually suffers, something is lost. It's subtle, but still there.

Not if it's a digital recording. Digital copying is just moving all the 1s and 0s to another track. Nothing get's lost. With analog you loose some clarity, but it depends on the machine. If it's something like 2" tape, you probly won't notice any loss, but if it's 1/4" tape you will.

 

Edit: I guess you could lose some clarity while boucing with digital, but only if you're going some round-about way. If you're doing an internal clone though, you don't lose anything.

[jbush4]

Originally posted by JasmineTea If it's something like 2" tape, you probly won't notice any loss, but if it's 1/4" tape you will....

 

 

 

I'm recording and mixing digitally... I'm not using tape. But I'll keep that in mind.

[valleyguy]

Originally posted by JasmineTea Not if it's a digital recording. Digital copying is just moving all the 1s and 0s to another track. Nothing get's lost. With analog you loose some clarity, but it depends on the machine. If it's something like 2" tape, you probly won't notice any loss, but if it's 1/4" tape you will. Edit: I guess you could lose some clarity while boucing with digital, but only if you're going some round-about way. If you're doing an internal clone though, you don't lose anything.

 

 

You're right JT, after a little thought, a clone delayed can't possibly create any phase problems. I'll have to try this again and see if I can really hear a loss in quality by cloning the track and delaying one track.

 

I do know that replaying the part to a second track sounds fuller, but obviously because there are actually two guitars. I know vocalists (john Lennon) have used this for years to bulk up their vocals.

[catdaddy]

When doing the cloning thing I've found that in addition to offsetting, that by using different EQ settings on the two tracks it helps to create a more interesting sound. For instance I may highlight the trebles on one track and the mids on the other to create the sound I'm looking for. By a bit of trial and error you can find "your" sound. As one other poster said these are parlour tricks, but purist snobbery aside that is what sound engineering is all about. Don't take my word for it though, if you have an interest pick up Geoff Emerick's book "Here There and Everywhere" about his experience as chief sound engineer on many of the Beatles recordings. Parlour tricks indeed!!