Condenser mic recs?

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Telliot
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Re: Condenser mic recs?

Post by Telliot » Mon Feb 01, 2021 8:21 am

øøøøøøø wrote:
Mon Feb 01, 2021 5:35 am
I love this thread. I don’t mean to hijack it in any way, but I’m curious if any of the mics you’ve mentioned above are ones you’d recommend for acoustic guitar. I have an Advanced Audio CM47 that works really well for my voice, but can be a bit boomy for my acoustic. I’m sure some of it is proximity, but I like the sound of a close-mic’d guitar. I’ve had decent results with a lowly SM47, which cuts out the boomy nature of the AA, but then it doesn’t have the details the AA offers. I’ve read some people will use the omni mode on their mic to better disperse the energy coming from the soundhole, but I haven’t tried that seriously enough to see if it works for me. Do you think an SDC is the better way to go?
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Re: Condenser mic recs?

Post by Larry Mal » Mon Feb 01, 2021 9:31 am

Telliot wrote:
Mon Feb 01, 2021 8:21 am
øøøøøøø wrote:
Mon Feb 01, 2021 5:35 am
I love this thread. I don’t mean to hijack it in any way, but I’m curious if any of the mics you’ve mentioned above are ones you’d recommend for acoustic guitar. I have an Advanced Audio CM47 that works really well for my voice, but can be a bit boomy for my acoustic. I’m sure some of it is proximity, but I like the sound of a close-mic’d guitar. I’ve had decent results with a lowly SM47, which cuts out the boomy nature of the AA, but then it doesn’t have the details the AA offers. I’ve read some people will use the omni mode on their mic to better disperse the energy coming from the soundhole, but I haven’t tried that seriously enough to see if it works for me. Do you think an SDC is the better way to go?
So, I'm not Brad and don't have the depth of knowledge there, but I did have some thoughts about what you asked anyway.

Firstly, I think I saw your recording environment the other day, and I might have missed some of the acoustic treatment you might have had, but I seem to remember that there was a fair amount of wooden wall paneling there?

Where I'm heading with this is wondering if you might not be well served by putting in some bass traps if you don't already have them and some other acoustic deadening panels also.

You are spot on with your idea of an omnidirectional microphone reducing proximity effect boom, but you might also be hearing is a lot of room tone in your microphone also. Bass frequencies can build up a lot in your typical room, we don't notice it, but your microphone will be picking up all the bass sound waves as well if you don't capture them.

And if you put up an omnidirectional microphone in a room with untreated acoustics, chances are good that you will be pickup up an awful lot of reflections of stuff you don't want.

Now, you may have room treatment and I don't know it so apologies if I am telling you something you already know, still, I wanted to say something because it's also possible that your microphones are just fine and that it's your environment you would want to work on.
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Re: Condenser mic recs?

Post by Telliot » Mon Feb 01, 2021 10:41 am

Larry Mal wrote:
Mon Feb 01, 2021 9:31 am
Thanks, Larry. No, everything you said was fair and true. At the moment, the room is untreated in the realm of things like bass traps. There is carpet on the floor and I've got heavy blankets on the ceiling for some absorption, but nothing on the walls. This has always been an issue in this room and I hope to remedy that soon.
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Re: Condenser mic recs?

Post by øøøøøøø » Mon Feb 01, 2021 10:49 am

Telliot wrote:
Mon Feb 01, 2021 8:21 am
øøøøøøø wrote:
Mon Feb 01, 2021 5:35 am
I love this thread. I don’t mean to hijack it in any way, but I’m curious if any of the mics you’ve mentioned above are ones you’d recommend for acoustic guitar. I have an Advanced Audio CM47 that works really well for my voice, but can be a bit boomy for my acoustic. I’m sure some of it is proximity, but I like the sound of a close-mic’d guitar. I’ve had decent results with a lowly SM47, which cuts out the boomy nature of the AA, but then it doesn’t have the details the AA offers. I’ve read some people will use the omni mode on their mic to better disperse the energy coming from the soundhole, but I haven’t tried that seriously enough to see if it works for me. Do you think an SDC is the better way to go?
The MK012 is decent on acoustic for low $, and I've even been known to use a 441 on acoustic from time to time.

It's hard to go wrong with a KM84, so perhaps one of those "cheap clone" KM84-like-objects has the potential to satisfy, but it's hard to say for sure without having tried any of them myself.

If you like a brighter thing, there's always the old AKG C451/452, which are definitely real microphones that don't cost too much. They tended to be more popular when people were more worried about getting enough top end on tape, but they are still occasionally useful today. I can think of a lot of worse ways to spend ~$250-300 used.

However, if "boomy" is your issue... and since you mentioned the soundhole... where are you positioning that CM47 exactly? If I want to mic the acoustic super-close, I generally don't like to address the soundhole too directly because I'm usually not wanting to accentuate the Helmholtz resonances of the body. Sometimes very close near the neck-body joint (perhaps angled to address the body/bridge of the guitar) works well, sometimes a foot or two in front near the bridge works well, etc.

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Re: Condenser mic recs?

Post by Telliot » Mon Feb 01, 2021 11:19 am

øøøøøøø wrote:
Mon Feb 01, 2021 10:49 am
However, if "boomy" is your issue... and since you mentioned the soundhole... where are you positioning that CM47 exactly? If I want to mic the acoustic super-close, I generally don't like to address the soundhole too directly because I'm usually not wanting to accentuate the Helmholtz resonances of the body. Sometimes very close near the neck-body joint (perhaps angled to address the body/bridge of the guitar) works well, sometimes a foot or two in front near the bridge works well, etc.
Thanks for the reply! Generally speaking, I tend to sit anywhere from 6"-18" from the mic (depending on the song or particular sound I'm after), and point the mic around the 12th fret. I have experimented with other positions, like pointing the mic at the bridge, but that tends to sound hollow to my ears. I should point out I haven't tried using multiple mics for acoustic guitar, which I know a lot of people do. To be honest I'm a bit gun shy with this approach because I absolutely hate dealing with phasing.
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Re: Condenser mic recs?

Post by øøøøøøø » Mon Feb 01, 2021 12:33 pm

Telliot wrote:
Mon Feb 01, 2021 11:19 am
øøøøøøø wrote:
Mon Feb 01, 2021 10:49 am
However, if "boomy" is your issue... and since you mentioned the soundhole... where are you positioning that CM47 exactly? If I want to mic the acoustic super-close, I generally don't like to address the soundhole too directly because I'm usually not wanting to accentuate the Helmholtz resonances of the body. Sometimes very close near the neck-body joint (perhaps angled to address the body/bridge of the guitar) works well, sometimes a foot or two in front near the bridge works well, etc.
Thanks for the reply! Generally speaking, I tend to sit anywhere from 6"-18" from the mic (depending on the song or particular sound I'm after), and point the mic around the 12th fret. I have experimented with other positions, like pointing the mic at the bridge, but that tends to sound hollow to my ears. I should point out I haven't tried using multiple mics for acoustic guitar, which I know a lot of people do. To be honest I'm a bit gun shy with this approach because I absolutely hate dealing with phasing.
I only use multiple mics on acoustic in very rare circumstances... generally when the track is very minimal (acoustic alone, or guitar plus vocal), or even more rarely when the acoustic is the most important part of a small-ish arrangement (or second-most-important after vocal).

I have a three-mic array that I like... it consists of a U47 or U67 further in front, addressing the body from 2-4' away, plus a near-coincident pair of KM86 in close by the neck/body joint (one mic addressing that joint straight on, the other addressing the bridge). The LDC is in the center. The KM86s are hard-panned. Adjust the relative balance between the LDC and the pair to determine width.

And yes, getting the phase right is very important. I've set up that particular array enough times to estimate positioning that's likely to work, so the faffing about tends to be rather minimal--but still very important.

Multi-mic arrays are like many other attempts to "get too fancy" in recording... you're far more likely to do more harm than good unless you're really proceeding in an informed and intentional manner.

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Re: Condenser mic recs?

Post by Dok » Mon Feb 01, 2021 3:14 pm

Telliot wrote:
Mon Feb 01, 2021 8:21 am
øøøøøøø wrote:
Mon Feb 01, 2021 5:35 am
I love this thread. I don’t mean to hijack it in any way, but I’m curious if any of the mics you’ve mentioned above are ones you’d recommend for acoustic guitar. I have an Advanced Audio CM47 that works really well for my voice, but can be a bit boomy for my acoustic. I’m sure some of it is proximity, but I like the sound of a close-mic’d guitar. I’ve had decent results with a lowly SM47, which cuts out the boomy nature of the AA, but then it doesn’t have the details the AA offers. I’ve read some people will use the omni mode on their mic to better disperse the energy coming from the soundhole, but I haven’t tried that seriously enough to see if it works for me. Do you think an SDC is the better way to go?
I have the MK012s and I usually use those to record my acoustic guitar in stereo. I'm also in a pretty well-treated room with tons of bass trapping and broadband absorption and I still have boominess when I record, generally around the 200hz area, especially if I'm going for a quiet, close sound. In my case this really seems to be a quality of the guitar, and it's a problem I've had with pretty much all of 'em in the 000 body style. Really makes me wonder if I should get another acoustic. 8)
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Re: Condenser mic recs?

Post by marqueemoon » Mon Feb 01, 2021 4:06 pm

I like omni on acoustic when I can get away with it, and particularly when stacking parts.

I use an X/Y mic for almost all stereo stuff because I hate phase issues and I’m lazy.

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Re: Condenser mic recs?

Post by Larry Mal » Mon Feb 01, 2021 4:57 pm

marqueemoon wrote:
Mon Feb 01, 2021 4:06 pm


I use an X/Y mic for almost all stereo stuff because I hate phase issues and I’m lazy.
I have one of those Rode NT4 stereo microphones, which certainly can be useful in some situations. No chance of phase issues with the thing, that's for sure. It sounds pretty good in most cases.

I had the idea to try it on acoustic guitar in my little studio recently, you can be the judge, I'm only going to throw the caveats out there that this was more a recording experiment than a finished song. I'm not really sold on the microphone for this purpose and I'm not really thinking I added a whole lot of stereo field by using this mic in this way.

Still, it certainly was easy.
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Re: Condenser mic recs?

Post by Telliot » Mon Feb 01, 2021 5:54 pm

Larry Mal wrote:
Mon Feb 01, 2021 4:57 pm
I have one of those Rode NT4 stereo microphones, which certainly can be useful in some situations. No chance of phase issues with the thing, that's for sure. It sounds pretty good in most cases.
I've been thinking of something like this to mic my piano.
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Re: Condenser mic recs?

Post by Larry Mal » Mon Feb 01, 2021 6:07 pm

I've used this on a grand piano before. It can be OK- it's been years, I don't really remember that I thought a whole lot of it. It's a good microphone, not a great one.

I seem to recall that I liked a spaced pair sort of thing a little more, though.
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Re: Condenser mic recs?

Post by Dok » Mon Feb 01, 2021 6:08 pm

Larry Mal wrote:
Mon Feb 01, 2021 6:07 pm
I've used this on a grand piano before. It can be OK- it's been years, I don't really remember that I thought a whole lot of it. It's a good microphone, not a great one.

I seem to recall that I liked a spaced pair sort of thing a little more, though.
I found it to be really bright on my Yamaha upright and I couldn't get the stereo image wide enough like I can with a good spaced pair of ribbons.
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Re: Condenser mic recs?

Post by Larry Mal » Mon Feb 01, 2021 6:22 pm

Yeah, it can be a little bright, no doubt.

Also unless you can give it a good six or ten feet you won't really get all that great of a stereo image from it, I don't think this fixed X/Y pattern will compete with spaced pair ultimately no matter what you do with it.

I like it on drum overheads for the most part, and even for that I would imagine something better. I only keep it around because it's quick and convenient.

I've been wondering lately if I would find this to be useful
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Re: Condenser mic recs?

Post by lastlol » Sat Feb 06, 2021 5:34 am

I use an Aston Origin on vocals and acoustic guitar, it is a really fantastic mic for the price.

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Re: Condenser mic recs?

Post by jorri » Tue Feb 09, 2021 10:02 am

Dok wrote:
Mon Feb 01, 2021 6:08 pm
Larry Mal wrote:
Mon Feb 01, 2021 6:07 pm
I've used this on a grand piano before. It can be OK- it's been years, I don't really remember that I thought a whole lot of it. It's a good microphone, not a great one.

I seem to recall that I liked a spaced pair sort of thing a little more, though.
I found it to be really bright on my Yamaha upright and I couldn't get the stereo image wide enough like I can with a good spaced pair of ribbons.
I find ribbons great near the hammers. Although placement for picking up the centre notes requires some care due to tighter pattern (or place further if its a good room).
Small condensers can be great to reinforce, viewing the soundboard, i take the lower panel off my upright and stick two down there depending on the style played, views soundboard, strings, the point where strings cross gets most notes well. its muddier so a bright mic is good for it.

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