Homebrewed Music - Acoustic Guitar and Recording Experiences2008-11-20T21:25:51ZFran GuidryCopyright 2008, Fran GuidrySPHPBLOGNew Guitar - Epiphone Masterbilt EF-500RCCEEF-500RCCE model for some time. When a 2nd showed up on Ebay for a reasonable price I snagged it. Here's a pic:
The EF-500 is the 000/OM body size. R indicates rosewood back and sides. The first C stands for cedar top, the second for the cutaway. And the E says it has built-in electronics. The electronics are listed as a Baggs pickup, and since there's a battery inside there must be some sort of preamp or buffer amp as well. There are no controls mounted in or on the guitar, though, so I'll have to use an external preamp for tone and volume adjustments. Like all the EF-500 models this one has a 1 3/4 nut width. Unlike the others I've tried, it has a modified oval neck shape instead of a V. It also has very slightly narrower bridge spacing, 2 5/16 instead of 2 3/8.
My Epi Masterbilt EF-500M came with a decent semi-hard case. Gibson recently revised the line and now does not include the case in the base price of the instrument, so I'll be carrying this one in a gig bag.
As I mentioned, this is a 2nd, a QA reject. While many 2nds have invisible issues, the big sap streak in the top makes it clear why this one went on the reject pile:
Luckily I'm not a fanatic about the appearance of my guitars, so I'm glad to get a price break because of this flaw. However, there are two other issues, one minor but annoying, the other serious.
The minor issue is the routing of the pickup wiring - it's downright sloppy, hanging from the top and touching the bottom, so that I sometimes hear a sympathetic vibration buzzing along with the notes. I will fix it with a few bits of tape, but I hope other E models are put together a little more carefully.
Here's a shot of the battery wire hanging down:
and here's the pickup lead also hanging:
In the second shot you can also see the "broom handle" back braces, much more substantial than I see in higher end instruments.
The significant problem with this guitar is the saddle. It's leaning forward, which is a definite structural problem.
My shot isn't great for showing the tilt, but it shows the gap behind the saddle clearly. This incorrect construction will likely lead to early failure of the bridge, requiring a somewhat expensive fix. I plan to have the saddle slot rerouted at the correct angle and an oversized saddle fitted to correct the problem, but it is playable in the meantime.
Obviously if I think it's worth fixing the saddle, I'm pleased enough with the guitar to want to keep it. The playability is just fine, the sound is a bit rough but quite loud, and it's just generally a fun guitar to play. The cutaway is a big part of the fun, since I do a fair amount of playing around and above the 12the fret. Because of the broad neck heel the cutaway fits smoothly against it, giving a very clean appearance.
Since the real point of a guitar is making music, I put up a Shure KSM141 mic in omni mode, fed it through my John Hardy M-1, and captured a brief clip. I used this setup to give the most accurate picture of the guitars tone, rather than the most flattering recording, and I think the clip is pretty successful in conveying the sound of the guitar in this room.
Note that this is a WAV file rather than an MP3 so the download will take a bit longer. I prefer to use WAV format to maintain the best fidelity.
To summarize my feelings about this guitar, I continue to be amazed by the price/performance ratio of these Epiphone Masterbilts and other recent all solid wood instruments from China. While the construction details, playability, and sound are a step down from a Martin Vintage series (or Standard or 16 series for that matter) this is a functional instrument that's fun to play, one I would use in just about any situation without feeling shortchanged.
I started doing a little in depth fiddling with the Epi and made a couple of discoveries. Since I had the strings loose I pulled up the saddle to see what kind of Baggs pickup is installed, and the answer is, no Baggs at all! Instead, I found an Artec PP607. Hmmmmmm, is that legal, since the Epiphone site states very clearly that the pickup is a Baggs?? I'm sure they have a disclaimer in there somewhere but this doesn't give me a lot of confidence in the Masterbilt operation.
The extra thickness of this multi-layer pickup may be responsible for part of my saddle problems as well.
Next I checked the battery holder, to see if I should replace it with my favorite, the B-Band "bag." Well the answer is YES because the existing holder was barely clinging to the velcro patch. Believe me this a serious problem, because a 9 volt battery banging around loose inside a guitar can do a LOT of damage.
I'm still keeping this guitar for now, but these two discoveries certainly take some of the rosy glow off our relationship.
With a little further research I have learned that guitars that pass through the refurb shop, like this one, apparently have the Baggs pickup removed and replaced with the Artec. Something to watch for when you purchase a 2nd with electronics.]]>http://www.fxguidry.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry080121-1611242008-01-22T00:00:00Z2008-01-22T00:00:00ZField Recorder ComparisonDoug Young's garage studio. Doug is a fantastic player, very knowledgeable recordist, and has some swell guitars sitting around his great sounding studio space. As an aside, he has done all us acoustic guitar players a huge favor by compiling a great set of pickup samples on his web site. His CD is definitely worth adding to your collection, and his articles in Acoustic Guitar Magazine are always good reading as well.
But for this occasion, I went to take advantage of his extremely cool Sound Devices 744 digital recorder. This is a top of the line system, used widely for major motion pictures or any other situation where great sonics, ruggedness, and portability are needed. I came for a shootout between his "king of the hill" unit and my much more modest recorders, a Fostex FR2-LE and a Zoom H2. Once I arrived, Doug suggested that we add his Edirol R09 to the mix, so we had four field recorders to compare.
I brought along my Wingert Model E tuned to G Wahine (D G D F# B D), a great old slack key tuning. Doug kindly hooked up his Schoeps CMC 6 mic bodies with his MK41 supercardioid capsules, one into his Sound Devices, and one into the Fostex. Then we rigged the Zoom and Edirol on stands to bring them close to the same position. Here's what the setup looked like:
and here's a shot from over the mics and recorders:
The Schoeps are directly over one another, so the bottom one disappears in this overhead shot.
In some rooms, this setup might not be tight enough to give an accurate comparison, but Doug's studio is very well treated with broad band absorbers, so the sound is clean and even in most locations. Doug's room is also extremely quiet, so we got some nice long "tails" as the last note of the clip died away. This will give you a chance to compare the internal noise levels of the different recording chains. One embarrassing caveat - we left the Edirol R09 in MP3 mode instead of 44.1 wave, so that little guy may be suffering some quality degradation. We didn't realize our error until we'd used up all our time for the evening. Apologies to Edirol and R09 fans.
After the recording session, I brought the clips into my Adobe Audition 3.0 where I trimmed them as accurately as I could to the same starting point and length. (Once again I forgot to "clap" the start of each clip to get a synchronization point - the learning never ends.) I converted the H2 and R09 clips to mono by using the louder of their two tracks. Then I used AA3's group normalize feature to bring them to the same average loudness. Loudness differences have a tremendous impact on the listener's sonic evaluation, so I wanted to level the playing field in that aspect. I think average perceived loudness is more useful than peak normalization in this situation, and after processing I listened to the samples on my Dynaudio BM 6 monitors and thought their levels were extremely close.
Now for the samples. Just for fun I'll post them blind, so you can download them and compare without prejudging. These are .wav files and fairly large, but we wanted to preserve the fidelity so you can make a better comparison.
Now after giving a good listen to these clips, you can see the key here and evaluate the results. I hope you find these comparisons useful, and that you'll leave a comment or send an email sharing your impressions.
As always thanks a ton to Doug for being so generous with his time, space, and gear. ]]>http://www.fxguidry.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry080112-1212362008-01-12T00:00:00Z2008-01-12T00:00:00ZG Natural - Saving User Settings I asked TC if they could offer a suggestion for saving my user patches, and they pointed me to Midi-Ox as a tool that can capture and restore MIDI information. Since I'm nearly totally ignorant of MIDI, I ran into a few issues but I've now succeeded so I thought I'd share what I've learned.
Hardware
The hardware you'll need are a MIDI port on your computer (actually two of them, one for input and one for output) and one or two MIDI cables. Connect the computer MIDI OUT to the G Natural MIDI IN, connect the computer MIDI IN to the G Natural MIDI OUT.
Software
Download and install the MIDI-OX software on your computer.
Start the MIDO-OX software, you should see a screen something like this:
Select Options | MIDI Devices... and you should see this, but with your own set of available devices:
Click and highlight the input and output MIDI devices you hooked to your G Natural earlier. Click OK.
G Natural
Here we come to a possible gotcha of the first order. The 1.03 software update is advertised to enable MIDI functions. This makes sense because these functions are not yet documented in the latest manual on the TC site. So I suppose users who want to save their settings before upgrading to software version 1.03 are just out of luck. Oops. Still, once you have 1.03 installed, you'll have a way to save settings in the future.
You get to MIDI functions by starting with the Menu button. Using the Edit D knob, scroll to the MIDI selection, then press Menu again to activate the MIDI menu.
Again using the Edit D knob, scroll to PrgChg.In: and make sure it's set to Off. If it's On, use Edit A, B, or C to change the value to Off.
Scroll with Edit D to PrgChg.Out: and once again make sure it's Off.
Now scroll with Edit D to Dump System (for system wide settings) or Dump Bank (for user patches).
MIDI-OX
The particular corner of the MIDI world we're using is called SysEx. This stands for System Exclusive, and it seems to be a method for storing and retrieving configuration information via MIDI. If you're really curious. I'm sure there are lots of great tutorials out there in webland. Regardless, we can use MIDI-OX to capture a SysEx dump from the G Natural, save it to a file, and send the dump back to the G Natch.
In MIDI-OX, click View | SysEx... and you should see this:
In the SysEx View and Scratchpad window, click Sysex | Receive Manual Dump... and you'll see this:
G Natural
Press the Menu button on the G Natural and you'll see a message telling you the dump is taking place.
MIDI-OX
You'll see a byte count in the Sysex Receive message box. Press the Done button and you can view the results of the SysEx dump. The lower Display Window now contains the data from your G Natural, displayed in Hexadecimal format.
Click Display Window | Save As... to save the SysEx dump to a file of your choice.
Restoring Saved Settings
To restore your settings, simply activate the SysEx window and click File | Send Sysex file... and navigate to the file you saved in the previous step. You don't have to take any action on the G Natural except to have it turned on and connected to your MIDI port.
In Conclusion
Hopefully this writeup will help other G Natural users. Even though I still enjoy the great sounds and control provided by the G Natural, I'm a little disappointed that I had to figure this procedure out on my own, and gather the tools myself. I'm also disappointed that an update to the manual has not been provided to go along with the software update. We're once again operating our machines without accurate documentation. And finally, I expected to have a computer based patch editor available when I bought the G Natural. I had one with my much less expensive Yamaha MagicStomp, so I'm really unpleasantly surprised to find that TC Electronics does not provide one. A proper editor would make saving and restoring settings a snap, and make creating and configuring patches a lot easier as well.
TC Electronics has setup a forum area where we can share experiences and possibly encourage TC to expedite updates to the documentation and to provide a patch editor. I hope to see you there.
]]>http://www.fxguidry.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry071211-1135392007-12-11T00:00:00Z2007-12-11T00:00:00ZZoom H2had to have a Zoom H2 recorder.
I bought mine slightly used on Ebay. I saved a few bucks but even at the street price of $199 this is a pretty easy purchase to scrape up. Taking the thing out of the box, it's pretty unimpressive - light and flimsy rather than solid and sturdy. The membrane switches gave me fits until I figure out that I should use my big fat finger instead of a delicate little touch with my fingernail.
Naturally I have to do a comparison test between this little recorder and the PC rig. Here's a picture of the setup I used:
The mics are a pair of Schoeps CMC6 bodies with MK41 caps, in a pretty careful 90 degree X/Y. The Zoom is as close to the same location as possible, using the front mics in 90 degree configuration.
I recorded my Martin OM-18GE in drop C, doing a chorus of "Silver Threads Among the Gold." I'm posting the recordings without trying to encourage a blind test. I posted .wav files instead of mp3s, so the downloads will be a bit long, but you can do a careful comparison.
I think anyone can hear a difference between these two samples, and I certainly prefer the Schoeps track, but if you add up the cost of duplicating the Schoeps->John Hardy->LynxTwo chain and compare it to the cost of the Zoom, well, that Zoom doesn't sound too bad after all.
I also tested the H2 as a PC interface. The supplied USB cable and power adapter, along with the silly looking little plastic tripod stand, had me ready for some kitchen table recording in no time. One down side to this use, I have to go into the menu and setup the USB link every time I turn the H2 on. Not a big deal, but I wouldn't mind if the unit could remember where I left off.
I don't have any samples of this use of the H2, because I got wrapped up in doing multi-track experiments in Audacity and Reaper, but I haven't come up with anything I am willing to make public yet. But I can say that the H2 works as a stereo USB mic with no hassle beyond the menu tweaking.
I've held on to my old minidisk recorder for a number of years, but it looks like I don't need it anymore. This new recorder is going to get a lot of use around here.]]>http://www.fxguidry.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry071201-1613222007-12-02T00:00:00Z2007-12-02T00:00:00ZInitial G Natural ExplorationsTC Electronics G Natural. I've been using a simple Boss DD-3 Digital Delay for my only effect, running into either a Fishman Performer Pro amp or a PA based on an old Peavey XM-6 mixer amp. I've never been too thrilled with my amplified sound, so I'm starting the process of (hopefully) upgrading.
The new G Natural is a floor box with big sturdy stomp switches controlling a collection of pristine effects with a clever system for storing user settings. The box includes routing for a microphone, pickup, and line inputs, but there are some limits on how these can be combined.
I've been working around home with the G Natch, and I've used it on two gigs, so I'm beginning to get a handle on the major features and capabilities. I'm sure it will reward a lot of study and tweaking, but I'm ready to pass along some first impressions even though they're preliminary.
I made a big goof when I first began using this device. The input gain setting is buried in the levels menu, and in the "preliminary" manual that came with my unit did not have the correct information for the unit I received, so I did not understand the importance of the "Input Gain" setting. Instead, I used too much gain to boost the ouput from the G Natural, and the result was a lot of hiss. After a day or so of frustration I discovered the correct setting, then I found the updated manual online at the TC site, and since then I've been extremely impressed with the sound quality and low noise of the unit. So kudos to TC for creating such a high quality box, and lemons for shipping the unit with an incorrect manual.
Even with the updated manual the information is fairly skimpy, and the organization is a bit less than ideal. But since the book (actually a PDF) is so short it's not too big a challenge to read the whole thing a couple of times and gradually pull the pieces together.
One question I had before working my unit - can the G Natural be used as a DI or Direct Input device. A DI is a device which takes a 1/4" high impedance unbalanced input, like a guitar pickup, and converts the signal to a balanced low impedance output on a male XLR connector. This is very handy for stage use because low impedance balanced cables can be run for long distances without signal loss or noise buildup. DIs are also used in the studio for connecting bass, guitar, or other unbalanced signals to balanced mic inputs.
Since the G Natural has a male XLR on the back, it might seem that this is a DI output, but that is not the case. This connector will only deliver the signal connected to the Mic Input, not the signal connected to the instrument input. So the simple solution won't work. However, the 1/4" outputs are balanced, which means that a simple adapter cable can be bought or made to provide DI functionality from the main outputs. HOWEVER, TC warns that these outputs should not be connected to an input providing phantom power. This is important, and easy to overlook. On your own mixing board, you'll probably check phantom power and turn it off as needed, but if you're working with various sound engineers in various venues, the chance for a mistake may be too high. And in some PA mixers, the phantom power cannot be controlled for individual channels, so this limitation may lead to other problems. In other words, I think I'm going to buy a DI to add to my signal chain before I connect the G Natural to a PA other than my own.
A look through the manual will show that all the effects needed for enhancing an acoustic sound are present - compression, eq, modulation, delay, and reverb. The unit also features a "one click" boost feature that simply raises the level for solos. Notice that there is no distortion effect included - if distortion is part of your acoustic sound, you'll probably want a different multi-effects unit.
Finally, here are some samples. I played each clip separately, so there are plenty of performance variations. The guitar is a Martin OM-18GE with a K&K Pure Western pickup.
I miked the guitar with a Shure KSM141 set flat, cardioid pattern, about 6" from the 12th fret, through a John Hardy M-1.
Next time I'll talk about the stompbox-edness of the G Natural. There are lots of useful variations to be had by stepping on the big chrome buttons.]]>http://www.fxguidry.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070831-1744172007-09-01T00:00:00Z2007-09-01T00:00:00ZGo Type II Parlor travel guitarGo Guitars. You can see some clips of this little instrument in action at my Kaleponi Music News blog.
For the last few years, I've checked my full size guitar in a Calton case, but I really enjoy having a guitar with me during those long airport waits. When I learned that Mr. Radding would build one of his parlor guitars with a custom neck shape and bridge spacing, I signed up. His guitar turned out to be a great success, small enough to fit in the airliner overhead compartment, good enough to play on stage at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.
When we returned from our trip, I contacted Matt Hayden to see if we could get together to compare his Larrivee Parlor to this new one. Matt's guitar is walnut and sitka, just like the Go, so the comparison seemed like a natural.
Here are some pics showing the two guitars side by side.
The Larrivee is several years older, so the sitka spruce top has mellowed to a lovely shade. The smaller body of the Go is evident in this shot, as is the compact headstock and lesser overall length.
Looking at a closeup of the backs, I prefer the walnut back of the Larrivee with its slight curly figure and darker finish, but many people commented favorably on the interesting figure of the Go walnut. The bookmatch on the Go two piece back is nicely done, and the backstrip adds a little appeal as well.
This side by side shot illustrates the shorter body and longer scale of the Go. I think it's amazing that Mr. Radding has squeezed so much guitar into such a diminuitive shape.
I plugged a DPA 4061 mic into my Marantz PMD670 recorder and played a verse of "Kui Lima" on each guitar. Here's the Larrivee sample (link). The Go sounds like this (link). In person, the Go seemed a little fuller and a bit louder. In fact, everyone who tried the Go so far has expressed amazement at the amount of sound that pours out of this tiny guitar.
As far as playability, the comparison is a bit unfair. I owned a Larrivee similar to Matt's but sold it because I had a hard time with neck shape and bridge spacing. One of the great advantages of the Go Parlor is the availability of custom neck shape and bridge spacing. The slightly wider neck and bridge on my Go Parlor makes all the difference in ease of playing.
The first generation of Larrivee Parlors, like Matt's, were built as style 01 Larrivees, which means they were stripped down models. They were also a wonderful bargain. But these days Larrivee only builds these guitars with style 09 trim. They're much more nicely finished but cost over twice the price of the older model. The Go, which is handmade and available with custom features, is a terrific value and a very fine way to carry your music with you wherever you go.]]>http://www.fxguidry.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070612-1507542007-06-12T00:00:00Z2007-06-12T00:00:00ZVery Inexpensive Microphones The problem has been that there are not a lot of omni mics around. The market doesn't seem that interested in omnis, so the manufacturers are not interested. In the five years or so that I've been recording and buying gear, I would guess that models of directional mics in the marketplace outnumbered omnis by 20 to 1 or more, and almost all the hip new inexpensive mics have been directional.
In the last year or so, though, Jon O'Neil and his Naiant Studio Store has begun selling a very inexpensive omni microphone which Jon builds himself. He use readily available capsules, adds his own active electronics, and mounts the whole thing in an XLR connector shell. The result is compact, rugged, and inexpensive. I think they work pretty well, too. Here's a brief comparison of a pair of Naiant MSH-1 omnis to a pair of DPA 4061s:
The DPAs carry a list price of $429, and they require an adapter to connect to standard mic preamps that adds about $75 to the cost. Even used they cost about 10 times as much as the Naiant MSH-1 costs new. It's certainly true that the DPA can be used in more applications, because it's very small and unobtrusive, and the two different mics are not equivalent, but just on the basis of sound quality, I think they're amazingly close.
This year Naiant began selling the MSH-2, a mic based on a larger capsule. Jon describes this mic as having lower noise and a gently falling high end compared to the MSH-1. I'm a sucker for an inexpensive omni, so I ordered up a pair. Here's a recording using one of these new mics alongside an industry standard for microphone quality. I'm using a John Hardy M-1 preamp and Lynx2 converters. This time I set up the Naiant MSH-2 on one channel and a Schoeps CMC6/MK2 on the other. I mounted the mics so they were a few inches apart and about 6 inches from the Martin OM-18GE. Here are the two mono files that resulted:
I can hear some slight differences, although they're pretty subtle. By turning up the volume and listening to the extended "tail" or decaying signal, I can hear a higher noise level in the Naiant track. But considering that the Schoeps costs about $1400 and the Naiant costs $35, I'd call the similarity pretty amazing. Certainly if someone asked me for an inexpensive microphone to record solo acoustic guitar, I'd be quite comfortable recommending the Naiant MSH-2.]]>http://www.fxguidry.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070405-1245092007-04-05T00:00:00Z2007-04-05T00:00:00ZMic Preamps ComparedJohn Hardy M1 mic pre. But if I am using a condenser mic with plenty of output, the mic pre is operating in the middle of its range, and I don't hear much difference between a decent $150 unit and a decent $1500 one.
Now I know that preamps are used as effects, either blatant or subtle. The blatant ones are inexpensive units with a starved plate tube glowing prominently through some grillwork and a "drive" control to mix distortion generated by this tube into the signal. The more subtle ones often refer to various recording consoles as their inspiration, claiming Neve-like or API-ish qualities. I've never experimented with units like these. There may be huge differences between preamps when they're used on vocals, drumsets, electric guitar amps, or exotic percussion, I just wouldn't know. My focus is always on simple solo fingerpicked acoustic guitar recordings, where accuracy and clarity are my goal.
Many preamps aim to be accurate. The classic description of an accurate preamp is "a straight wire with gain," an impossible achievement but an easy ideal to visualize. Product literature and user comments include terms like detailed, musical, natural, transparent. Inferior versions of these accurate preamps are described in internet forums as flat, boring, or two dimensional. Since I have a few preamps around these days I decided to try to do some comparison tests. As always with comparisons like this, the source material is a key issue. I decided to try to run one microphone through all three preamps at once, so the input signals would be the same. Making this connection is fraught with problems. If I connect the mic directly to the three inputs, the input impedance seen by the mic will be quite low, and may affect the mic response. If I use a transformer splitter or active buffer/splitter, the sonic signature of the splitter will be stamped on all the samples. My decision was easy, though, because I already have a box that lets me rig up a passive connection direct to the three inputs. If the mic response is affected, I'll assume (until I'm shown otherwise) that the response is still the same for each preamp.
The key to this setup is a Coleman Audio LS3 switch box. I normally use this box to select between my headphone amp and monitor amp, but since it's a completely passive box it works to route inputs or outputs equally well.
The three preamps under evaluation are the John Hardy M-1 as mentioned earlier, along with an FMR RNP and an M-Audio DMP3.
For the first test, I selected an Audio Technica AT4041 small diameter condenser mic. I routed it through the Coleman LS3 to the left channel of each preamp, then connected the left output of each preamp to an input of my LynxTwo C. I matched the volumes rather roughly using pink noise generated by Adobe Audition 1.5 and the metering on the Lynx software mixer. I set up a multitrack session in AA 1.5 to record three mono tracks from the three preamps. I positioned the AT4041 about 12" from the 12th fret of an Epiphone Masterbilt EF-500M tuned to "drop C" tuning - CGDGBD low to high, and played a brief bit of noodling. After I listened to the tracks I realized I had not matched the levels well enough, so I normalized all the tracks to -3db. Here are the three sample tracks, mono 44.1/16 wave files:
Finally, I thought I would include a comparison with a dynamic mic as the source. It would require more gain from the preamps, and might be useful to folks who only have handheld dynamic stage mics in their collection. This time I used an Electrovoice RE16, connected as before. Again I set levels using pink noise and the Lynx software mixer, then recorded in a multitrack AA 1.5 session. This time the level matching was more accurate, so I didn't feel the need to adjust the levels after recording. Naturally the performance is different from the first recording, AND THE ORDER OF PREAMPS IS DIFFERENT:
I hope you'll download these and give a listen. Does one track in each set stand out from the others? Is one more transparent, another lifeless? Can you tell them apart? Perhaps you'd like to know which sample was created by which preamp? Click here for the key to relate the samples to the preamps used to create them.]]>http://www.fxguidry.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070224-1331382007-02-24T00:00:00Z2007-02-24T00:00:00ZThe $4.00 Digital Studio
How do I record my guitar so I can judge my progress (or lay down a rhythm track or even make a CD just for family and friends). I have a pickup in the guitar, I don't need great quality, and I don't want to spend a lot.
Since this person is posting on an internet forum, I will assume they have a computer. If it's a PC type, it almost certainly has some kind of built-in soundcard, with at least a mic input. So all we need to do is hook the guitar pickup to that mic input and use some sort of program to capture that input and save it to a file. It just so happens that there are some very effective recording programs available to download for free, so that leaves as our only problem some way to connect the guitar pickup to the mic input. And here it is:
This is a 1/4" phone female to 1/8" mini male adapter. A normal guitar cable like the one just above the adapter in this picture (male 1/4" phone plugs at both ends) fits into the hollow side. The pointed side plugs into the mic input of the computer. It costs about $4.00 at any store or web site that sells electronic geegaws (like Radio Shack). This is all you need to connect your pickup to your computer (assuming you have a guitar cable).
Now, on the software side what are the options? Unfortunately, the built-in Windows Sound Recorder is not very useful. It's limited to about 1 minute of continuous recording without intervention. There are not effects or editing features, no click track or metronome, no metering, and certainly no multitrack overdubbing and mixing.
The easiest free program I've found is Audacity - it's a little clunky but it is full featured. It includes plenty of editing capability and built-in effects, and you can save your recordings to various formats like .wav for burning to CD and (with some free extra software) to .mp3 for your portable music player or web site. I've used this little adapter and Audacity to record new song ideas on our laptop when we're traveling. I've also used it to create practice loops when I'm trying to nail a tough section of a new song. Compared to a decent microphone, preamp, and audio interface these recordings are fuzzy, noisy, and crude, but they do the job, and the price is definitely right.
Obviously these are not "major label quality" recordings by a long shot. The direct output from a pickup is not very close to the natural acoustic sound of your guitar. But we've looked at a tool that can help get your pickup based recordings much closer to a natural acoustic sound in a previous blog entry: "Better EQ Through Software". And, as we stated at the beginning of this entry, the whole purpose of using this simple, cheap adapter is to get simple, cheap recordings, not Grammy awards.]]>http://www.fxguidry.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070213-1114392007-02-13T00:00:00Z2007-02-13T00:00:00ZBetter EQ Through Software Over at the Acoustic Players Forum a Dutch fingerstyle player and Taylor enthusiast named Eltjo Haselhoff started a thread describing his technique for EQing various pickup systems to make them sound more like a guitar recorded using a microphone. He developed a piece of software that compares a piece of music recorded using a mic and a pickup at the same time. The software then defines settings to use with a graphic EQ to make the pickup recording sound more like the miked recording. His results are pretty impressive to many of us.
In the meantime, Doug Young has been demonstrating Har-Bal in some of our sessions together. This is a piece of software that the creator describes as the "worlds first visual mastering software." One of the features of Har-Bal 2.2 is a quick tool to EQ one file so it resembles another tonally. I decided to experiment with Har-Bal and some pickup and microphone recordings.
I pulled out my Kathy Wingert Model E (You can see pics of it here.) This guitar has a B-Band AST 1470 soundboard transducer pickup system installed, and I've been told that it sounds pretty good in amplified situations. I set up a pair of EV RE16 mics in an X/Y configuration, pointing at the bridge at a 45 degree angle, and about 12" from the guitar. I ran the mics through a John Hardy M-1 preamp, into my LynxTwo-C soundcard, and into Adobe Audition 1.5. I plugged the pickup into a Baggs Para Acoustic DI (PADI), took the XLR out and connected to Channel A of an FMR RNP preamp. This fed another channel on the LynxTwo-C, and I configured Adobe Audition to record this single channel on both sides of a stereo track.
I played a simple Hawaiian vamp and recorded both sources. I kept the recording short because I wanted to present the material as a .wav file instead of a compressed MP3 file. I normalized both files to -2 db so their peak levels match.
I don't think it's very hard to hear the difference, and I think most people would prefer the microphone recording.
Now what can Har-Bal do for us? I loaded the microphone track as a reference, then loaded the pickup track as the active file. I chose the IntuitMatch cursor and passed it over the pickup track. Har-Bal computed an EQ set that would bring the pickup closer to the tonal balance of the microphone track. The result was not identical, but much closer. And to my ear the result was pretty impressive.
I still prefer the microphone track, but I could certainly live with the adjusted pickup track. Perhaps a little tweaking with reverb or delay might add a little of the "air" and "body" that are still missing. It certainly seems worth exploring further.]]>http://www.fxguidry.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry061129-2125072006-11-30T00:00:00Z2006-11-30T00:00:00ZNew mics and live recordingPacific Bay Coffee Company here in Walnut Creek. As always it was an enjoyable experience.
Since I just snagged some new mics on Ebay I decided to try them out as live performance tools. The mics are a pair of Electrovoice RE16 dynamic hypercardioids. These mics have the "Variable-D" feature that reduces proximity effect.
I used one RE16 for my vocal introductions and the other pointed at the bridge of my Martin OM-18GE. The mics were plugged into my very modest Peavey powered mixer, which was driving one pole-mounted Klipsch Heresy speaker.
I also recorded the show, using the tape out jack on the Peavey to feed the line in connectors on my Marantz PMD-670.
The results were interesting. It took a lot of attention to keep from bumping the guitar into the mic. I'll probably try moving the mic to the 12th fret area, next time. The audience seemed happy with the balance and volume, but on the recording the guitar is pretty quiet, and the typical coffee shop background noises are pretty loud. I did think the tonal quality of the recording was pretty acceptable, and I'm looking forward to trying some "studio" tests with these mics.
In the meantime, I put two of the tunes from the Pac Bay show up at the Kaleponi.com Music Page.]]>http://www.fxguidry.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry061102-2119562006-11-03T00:00:00Z2006-11-03T00:00:00ZHello, and welcome I'm a big fan of Doug Young's playing and recording skills, and we've experimented together with mics and microphone techniques, as well as other aspects of recording. One of the observations he often makes is that there is relatively little information directly related to fingerstyle acoustic guitar recording. I'll try to do my part to add a little to the information on this topic, based on my own experiences.
I'll also share what I learn about sound reinforcement for live performance from a player's point of view. Once again, I'm no expert in this area, but my mistakes and learning experiences might save you a little time and trouble, or stimulate some new ideas.
