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How do ya'all record your CBG's and music

hey ya'all,

i'm sort of new here and am curious about how folks are recording their CBG's and

their songs. don't get me wrong, i am a builder, but i'm a player and recordist too.

so i'de like to hear how ya'all go about capturing that beautiful sound and tone

of these instruments we all build and love. what are you tracking on, what kinds

of mics are you using,how 'bout mic techniques?

i'm using a Roland VS 2480HD, and Studio One in Windows 7 on my laptop for tracking

and i master on the Roland. for the CBG's i'm using large and small condenser mics and

a ribbon mic, and also a few dynamic mics.

for mono tracks i like to use 2 mics. one close mic on the CBG and a room mic for ambience.

on stereo tracks i almost always use the mid-side technique. this setup is fantastic. it gives you

complete control over where the track sits in the stereo field and mix. another big benifit of mid-side

is if your recording is stereo and it gets collapsed to mono things don't disapear from your mix.

if you've ever had one of your tunes played on the radio or television and it was just missing all

sorts of stuff, mid-side will eliminate that. i do use the X-Y technique sometimes, but most of

the time i go with mid-side.

i also use what is called corner loading. it's pretty much what it says. you position the player

facing into a corner as close as possible without being uncomfortable. a mic is placed 2 or 3

feet behind the player pointing at the corner. i really like this setup with unpluged CBG's.

if you have a CBG with no pickup that has an awesom tone and sound but has no projection

or volume, this is a great setup. you can also place a second mic further back and capture the

room ambience too.

are any of you using ribbon mics ? if you've never tried one, try one. they have a figure-8

polar pattern which means it picks up sound equaly from the front and back. to me they

have the most detailed sound of any mic. they kick ass on anything.

anyways, i could go on and on but i'll stop now i posted 4 tunes here and were recorded

using the setups i've described, all recorded, mixed, and mastered at home here in Memphis.

and let me hear how ya'all are doing it. glad to be here.

Myke

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Permalink Reply by Patrick Curley on October 11, 2014 at 10:33am

Don't believe everything you read. Sure, they're very good for the price but I don't know about professional. The Zoom H6 is a really good unit, solid, great sound, a few more dollars but the difference is palpable.

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on October 10, 2014 at 7:06pm

I've got two big racks of super valuable shit (including a few of those nice Roland recorders) but I'll usually use an iPad and iRig. Cos its painless and works great. I've found the more gear you bring to the party the more time you spend playing with it, and unfortunately while some small part of that time is fun and creative, the majority (at least for me) is not, it's running cables and fighting with crappy little controls, tiny screens etc etc. and that, to me, is the price for the impressive rig. I just wanna plug up and go

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Permalink Reply by Patrick Curley on October 11, 2014 at 10:25am

Agree, I've got a zoom H6 for the very same reason and it is stellar.

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Permalink Reply by c# merle on October 10, 2014 at 7:54pm

"i guess if you record just for fun or don't sell your CD's

or you just record endless noodles of licks that aren't really coherent songs it must not matter."

man, you just slayed a few with that remark michael - welcome to the doghouse:)

on topic, just do the best you can with the equipment to hand. recording is just a wee hobby to me so i can't/won't spend oodles of cash on fancy mics etc - just hit record on something and see what happens...