How to fatten up a DI acoustic guitar

Ricky Reject · 03-25-2020, 01:01 PM

Hey, hey

I have an Ibanez steel string acoustic guitar I like to strum every now and then. Seeing as how I was just laid off (thank you Corona...), I'm thinking about streaming some acoustic songs on YouTube.

So I bring forth my trued old Behringer B1 condenser microphone from 2003 and was thinking to capture both vocals and acoustic guitar at the same time. However, I cant seem to get a good sound from it. Either guitar is OK and vocals low and muddy or guitar is too weak and vocals too in your face.

The guitar has a built in pre-amp, which I now think is my best option. I guess that I dont need to tell you guys that the sound has a tendency to sound very thin. I'd like to hear your suggestions on how to fatten up the sound a bit.

Again, this needs to be done realtime as I perform live/stream, so doubling tracks and stuff is kind of out of the question

jnorman34 · 03-25-2020, 01:47 PM

Surely some low-mid eq might be in order. Compression and reverb as needed.
But a simple trick is to double the guitar. Copy the guitar track to a new track, and nudge it 25-50ms or so, and then pan the two guitar tracks R/L.

serr · 03-25-2020, 01:57 PM

Go for "guitar is too weak and vocals too in your face" and then cheat with the DI.

You don't want that plastic squawk of a peazo pickup in your face. You can pull some low mids out of the pickup to reinforce though.

Tip: Phase align the DI with the mic for the guitar signal.

dug dog · 03-25-2020, 03:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by serr

Go for "guitar is too weak and vocals too in your face" and then cheat with the DI.

Pr'y your best bet. To the DI, you can add tempo synced stereo delays and maybe some reverb to fill out the sound stage if that's what you're after. The freeware, Acon Digital Multiply, has a preset called Rhodes Chorus that can work nicely.

dug dog · 03-25-2020, 03:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by serr

You can pull some low mids out of the pickup to

Don't be surprised if you need to pull a LOT out of the quacky zone! 12dB is not out of the question.
An excellent read from SOS magazine that gives pointers on mixing piezo pickups:

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniq...c-guitars-live

martifingers · 03-25-2020, 04:11 PM

I notice some suggestions just aren't suitable for live streaming and this might be one of them (!) but I was wondering if you could maybe do something along the lines of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww-cH29IGeM&t=153s

Trouble might be you need a separate additional mic for the guitar. Just thinking aloud, as it were...

dug dog · 03-25-2020, 04:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by martifingers

I notice some suggestions just aren't suitable for live streaming

Oops! Some of mine might fall into that category, I suppose.

You'd need a MIDI footswitch to tap in a delay tempo but an instance of Reaverbate is light on system resources and can sound pretty decent.

Funkybot · 03-25-2020, 08:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by serr

Go for "guitar is too weak and vocals too in your face" and then cheat with the DI.

You don't want that plastic squawk of a peazo pickup in your face. You can pull some low mids out of the pickup to reinforce though.

Tip: Phase align the DI with the mic for the guitar signal.

Agree with the above. Many a great recording was done with an acoustic guitar and a single microphone. If you've got a good singing voice, prioritize the vocal. Maybe angle the mic down to pick up a bit more of the guitar. Experiment with placement. But if it's vocal+acoustic music, definitely favor the vocal. Then, maybe bring in a little DI'd acoustic. Try a dynamic EQ (TDR Nova is freeware and excellent) to maybe cut back on the shrill high frequencies when they become too loud, and maybe even try boosting the lows. Experiment.

Another thing, if you're sitting down, try placing the microphone at chest level, below your mouth, but above the guitar. Might be a good balance there if you have decent mic technique as a singer. Need a bit more guitar, angle the microphone down. Need a bit more vocal, try raising it or angling it up. Work on your singing/microphone technique if not already good, so that you're backing your head up if singing loudly or closing in a bit if singing quietly. It's totally doable with just a single microphone, but may require some experimentation. If you can run some plugin or hardware compressors on the mic, I'd definitely consider that.

Ricky Reject · 03-26-2020, 12:03 AM

Hello guys

Really appreciated, many thanks. I think I'll try with capturing both vocals and guitar with my consender mic and then 'cheating' as you put it with a DI from the guitar.

If that doesnt work, I'm gonna try angling a dynamic mic on the guitar and using the condenser mainly for the vocals.

Tbh, I dont have much experience with phase alignment, but I understand the theory. For reference, I did manage to find this free pahse alignment VST: https://www.kvraudio.com/product/fa-...-forward-audio

Yet to see how it performs live with regards to latency and such. Anyway, again many thanks.

Funkybot · 03-26-2020, 09:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ricky Reject

If that doesnt work, I'm gonna try angling a dynamic mic on the guitar and using the condenser mainly for the vocals.

If you go two mics you can even try flipping that. Condenser mostly on guitar, and dynamic on vocals. Many a great vocal was recorded with a dynamic microphone (SM7B, RE20, SM57/58). Michael Jackson, James Hetfield, and Bono are all very prominent examples of vocals recorded using dynamic microphones. Just embrace the bleed and if things start to sound "phasey" experiment with moving the mics around until you get a nice balance. If you're using two microphones, there's no need for phase alignment plugins (IMO), just move the microphones around until things sound good.

stillshaded · 03-26-2020, 09:13 AM

I really like the kush audio mic preamp sims for this. Add some nice harmonics that really fatten things up. Try out different ones and see which suits the source material. Also might want to do some pre and/or post eq.

serr · 03-26-2020, 09:52 AM

re: phase

I just zoom in on the waveforms and manually nudge one source into phase accurate alignment with the other. It's right there on the screen to grab and move as you please. No reason to mess around coaxing a plugin into trying to automate that IMHO. (Followed by manually checking up on it anyway like you might do if you are a little OCD!)