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Old 11-16-2010, 06:00 PM   #77
karbomusic
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Default Add Some Air

Here are few ideas for adding some air and/or space to your freshly tracked digi-guitars. I'll go at them kind of quick and I'll reply if there are any questions. Basically everyone usually has a mic or two lying around and hi quality mics are not necessarily required. Before we start adding even more "digitalness" to the guitar track by auditioning plugins for a room or more analog sound etc, consider some organic treatment.

The overall goal is to ReAmp the guitar track but only to get some "room" into the track by soloing the guitar track and having a second track with a mic in the room picking up what is coming out of the monitor(s). A poor man's reverb chamber of sorts. Once recorded, mix to taste and group it with the guitar track or bounce the them down into a final track. Here are a few off the top of my head. They are somewhat ordered from least "roomy" to most.

1. Single Mic pointed about 18-36" from one of the monitors with the other monitor off.

2. Two Mics in an X/Y configuration placed in the mix position your ears would normally be in with both monitors on.

3. Same as #2 but back it up a few feet.

4. Single mic, middle of the room pointed in the direction of the monitors.

5. Same as number 4 but pointed 180 degrees backwards. IE away from the monitors facing towards the back of the room.

6. Single mic pointing at a 45 degree angle about 6 inches from the room corner where the corner meets the ceiling. Most of the final reflections end up here.

7. X/Y in mix position again + the config in #6 (three tracks total not including the dry track)

8. Single mic 1-3 feet from 1 monitor + single mic anywhere else in the room.

9. Single or X/Y in the next room or hallway.


As you can see mix and match the above and experiment. You'll be pressing record and playing back the original soloed guitar track from start to finish. All of these configs are recording the guitar track coming out of the monitor(s) along with the room ambience. In some cases such as the mic pointing into the ceiling corner there will likely be pronounced bass frequencies that you can either keep or roll off as needed. Once you have these additonal tracks, mix them in with the orignal dry signal. Any of the X/Y setups are also to enhance the stereo image as the ambience is coming from all directions. I would recommend very small amounts (less is more) because you only want to enhance the main guitar track not drown it in ambience unless you want it that way.

I'd also leave them time unaligned because distance and differences in time/phase cancellations are part of the deal to. Once you have it mixed the way you want it either group them and the guitar tracks togther or bounce the result depending on your needs. Endless possibilities and if you have the time to try it out; it can many times sound much more realistic than plugging away at VST's attempting to arrive at a similar result.

Hope it helps.

Karbo
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Last edited by karbomusic; 11-16-2010 at 06:16 PM.
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