Mic position for recording

[Lars68]

I record into one mic, singing and playing at the same time, onto one track. I use an Apogee mic and an iPad. I often struggle to find a good balance between voice and guitar, and the guitar often sounds boomy. Last night I experimented with mic positions and found that if I placed the mic about level with the top of my head, two feet away, pointing downwards, I get a MUCH more balanced sound. The guitar loses a little fullness, but it is clearly made up by the nice balance. Here is a test recording. What do you think? (soundwise that is, playing and singing leave much to be desired)

 

https://soundcloud.com/lars1968/the-hand-that-rocks-the

 

Any other tips on how to best record while singing and playing at once?

 

Lars

[62burst]

It sounds like you've got a good balance, maybe 60/40 vocals/guit, if you want the vocals forward, and they sound pretty good- they've got a little reverb on them? It was pretty surprising to see how close Apogee recommends placement of the miC 96k: 6-12 inches for guitar (as stated in the 96k booklet; "6-24 inch for vocals, closer to the singer for more bass"), and it looks right up on the guitar in this Apogee video:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQZ-bMzd_9I

 

. . . and these dearies have a nice guitar/vocal mix simply going into an iPhone and a Røde record app:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4iLpCdnkd0

[Murph]

I have the Apogee mic and iPad mini as well. I use my daughters music stand, flat like a workbench, with a huge Tshirt folded and used as a pad to keep things from rattling.

 

The first track will be a rhythm guitar and vocals, J-45 all acoustic/no amp, but I drop the bench DOWN so the mic is about 7 inches LOWER than my mouth, and that way it's also about an equal distance with the HEIGHT of the soundhole. Distance is determined by the loudnesss of the song.

 

This is for my multi-tracked Soundcloud stuff, which is always done TOTALLY acoustic with the only exception being bass guitar, which will be my Mexican Jazz through the Carvin AG100D (bass channel) at a distance of about 4 feet.

 

The Mandolin and Banjo are loud and I need to back the mic up and also I will use different angles on them.

 

Great thread.

[flatbaroque]

Lars besides being a well balanced recording I think that's the best you've sung. Such a powerful song from the cranky vego (Morrisey not you!). Your guitar sounds great.Like you say not boomy but transparent and shimmering.

Since I've become lazy and just use a point and play video camera to do recordings it can be a hit and miss affair. But the zoom Q3 has pretty good little condenser mics that get an ok balance of guitar and vocal usually.

[Lars68]

It is surprising how close that mic is in the picture above.

 

Murph, you and Sal are the masters of iPad multitracking recordings. I have tried your sort of inbetween mic placement but I still get too much boom. Might be because the room is very small.

 

Fb, thanks for the singing compliment. I am finally starting to get a hang of it. The song is perhaps my favorite song by The Smiths (and only three chords over and over).

 

I recently found out that you can you can buy this little box for using with an iPad and two normal mics to record voice and guitar at once but to two tracks. I might buy it and two good condensor mics eventually. Right now though I am more about making the best simple practice tracks I can. It is no point for me to start making produced recordings until I have a better grip on this singing business.

 

Lars

[BluesKing777]

Each song is different so you could need to change position of the mic to suit - I do similar for my vocal/guitar using just the one mic (Neumann KM184) and I often have it back a bit and pointing off to my left or right halfway between my guitar and mouth attempting to get a natural sounding balance - but each song you do play or sing a touch louder or quiter, so there is no one spot to leave the mic, unfortunately.

 

Having it on a boom stand makes adjusting easier.

 

BluesKing777.