DI'd Acoustic Guitar in CR - techniques?

[e-cue]

I hope this is the appropriate forum for this thread. I'm far too lazy to read through the pages of stickys to determine where it should go. Moderators, feel free to move or delete it.

In this day of "Give me Convenience or Give Me Death", I'm getting more and more guitarists that want to record acoustic guitars in the control room taking their direct out. Playing the role as engineer, I try like hell to talk everyone into either using these parts as scratch tracks, or at the very least mic'ing the guitar in the CR with gobo's to reduce bleed. I've NEVER preferred the sound of a DI'd acoustic guitar over a mic'd acoustic (no matter how many times the guitarist swears 'But this DI is different!'). The producers usually enjoy the luxury of being able to instruct the musicians in the same room and not sitting next to the guitarist in the live room with headphones, and I must admit this does help creativity and makes the session feel less dissected. However, I loathe the sound of direct outs of acoustic guitars, not to mention the bleed issues. They always sound like ball bearings rolling around in a thin tunnel to me. Sortah like those Mickey Mouse guitars at Toys 'R Us that use fishing line for the strings.

For the sake of conversation, let's say you absolutely had to roll with the DI. Any suggestions of techniques of things that can be done during tracking to make these sound less sh¡tty? Let's say you are mixing a song and have one of these tracks. Any suggestions there?

These days, I seem to have the best luck multing the track and using either a SPL Trans Designer or Trans X into a Behringer (yes, I said it) Dualfex. It's sortah hit or miss. Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's too sprinkley. It usually sounds much better, but never close to a mic'd guitar (there's an Anartes plug in even I'd over use). I seem to use the Ambience in the AMS RMX or Stereo Room in the 2016 AND the 480L, where as I usually reach for the 480L (usually Silica Beads) by itself for mic'd ones.

Am I by myself here? I've fought this since I started engineering.

[Tim Armstrong]

This particular forum is actually about Slippy's opus magnum on recording distorted guitars. Your query probably would be more at home in the Recording, Mixing and Production made easy (http://womb.mixerman.net/forumdisplay.php?f=5) forum.

As for the question, I agree with you that a DI-ed acoustic guitar almost never sounds like, well, an acoustic guitar. One trick I learned from doing live sound is to have both a piezo for the high end and a magnetic pickup for the low end. Careful tweaking and blending can yield a less pingy, more natural sound...

I like the idea of treating it like a scratch track and having the guitarist re-record it with a decent mic!

Cheers, Tim

[Molly's Lips]

Why any guitarist would prefer to use their DI when they're in a studio with a bunch of nice mics at their disposal is beyond me.

Maybe you can talk them out of it. Play some recordings with horrible piezo quack, like Alice In Chains Unplugged and go "you don't want to sound like that do you?" Ugh.

[e-cue]

For the sake of conversation, let's say you absolutely had to roll with the DI.

...

[malice]

Ok, I pop on this one

1) this is not helping, but I recently recorded a classical guitar with a custom element in it (mean by that, not part of the gtr itself) that WAS usable, even good sounding to the point I used the track along with the dpa mike in front of it. very impressive if you ask me. I paged the guitarist in question so I will have info on this asap. I don't remember the brand.

2) putting a mike in front of the bridge. It will bleed, but you can mix it with the DI signal chain and get some shine back

3) Dualfex I never tried, but I surely found a use for that BBS sonic maximizer that was rottening in the cellar. I think it is the only use I have for this unit. I use the tube DI of my Requisite PAL+ which is kind of very forgiving with Piezzos. The LA2A type of comp helps. The BBS comes after. The BBS add harmonics to the signal and resurect a bit of the dead corpse. Sometimes I double the track and use the BBS with extreme settings and blend to taste (well, the taste is not great anyway)

4) There are some mojo units (in stomp boxes) supposed to make an acoustic di output sounds like a 47fet in a John Hardy pre, but frankly, I was not convinced nor impressed.

5) once the "this DI IS different blinded Neil Young wanabe" has finished his tracks after receiving all the advices from the producer, the singer and the singer's girlfriend, and once you fired your assistant for trying to give his advice as well, how about ...

proposing to double it in the recording room. Now that he is focused and well into the groove, he is readdy to double and triple it in no time. ( I say triple, because you WILL lose the DI track later)

hope this helps, good thread, more rep point to ya.

malice

[Brendo]

For fingerpicking you could try tucking a lavalier into the guitarist's hand...

[Molly's Lips]

Sorry, how could I miss that. It was in italics for crying out loud!

Before I make any suggestions let me qualify myself by saying I am by no means an engineer, merely a musician who sometimes makes the dreadful mistake of attempting to record music myself. That being said, I've never tried to use a DI acoustic as a main track on anything. Sounds like you've already experimented with different mic pre's? Just from thinking of what a DI'd acoustic sounds like, my first instinct would be to try sweeping a notch filter around the high end and see if I could find a spot (or 2?) where the "brittleness" could be subdued enough to not be an ice pick in the eardrum without obliterating the life and the attack of the guitar. Piezos have that weird resonance from the pick attack kinda like a "znat" sound and there's gotta be some narrow frequency spikes in there to give it the nasal-y quality.

As far as reverb, ever try and re-mic it through the monitors and then blend that in underneath the original track? I mean, anything to get the sound of something actually moving a little AIR back into the track. Heck, you could drop a pzm in the soundhole of the guitar and then hold that up to a monitor while you play it back. Could be interesting. Could be terrible. Could be a total waste of time compared to throwing up a mic in first place -whoops! Sorry. Sorry. Don't kill me.

[malice]

I hear you, bud the thing with DIs is that it OBLITERATE any freq above a certain Freq (let's say above 8k, but I have heard worse)

So basicaly, the first goal is to find a way to "mimic" what has been lost.

In other words, you can push 16k forever, if it is gone, it is gone, you'll only raise the noise floor.

Hence the use of any device (ultrafex, BBS, aphex, some distortion devices, some Neve pres now that I think of it, whatever you'll find... ) that generates harmonics out of a "dull" and "dead" signal.

malice

[Aardvark]

The main problem is that the pick-up is going to suck unless it is one of the very few that is modestly usable so you must assume the absolute worst.

I just plug it in and let it go as is...no sweat.



Come mix time it always sounds like a 1970 Martin D-35 recorded with an sm2 through a Focusrite Red pre and Summit TLA 100 Comp with perhaps a hint of a Telefunken or API eq reducing the low end a shade.


Always.


Easy as pie.




Erased and redone by Aardvark.



I really like it after the mix when the player then tells me they were right all along about how good their DI'ed guitar sounds. I smile and tell them I learn something everyday.


Hehehehe


This has worked for me for twenty years.


Cheers,
Aardvark
:lol: :Wink: :Wink:

[malice]

I think he's not kidding. He has the sweetest martin though, I play on it every year.

malice

[Aardvark]

I think he's not kidding. He has the sweetest martin though, I play on it every year.

malice


I am not kidding.


Works like a charm.


:Thumbsup: :lol:


Cheers,
Aardvark

[slabrock]

Ok, I pop on this one

1) this is not helping, but I recently recorded a classical guitar with a custom element in it (mean by that, not part of the gtr itself) that WAS usable, even good sounding to the point I used the track along with the dpa mike in front of it. very impressive if you ask me. I paged the guitarist in question so I will have info on this asap. I don't remember the brand.


I like the Gibson Chet Atkins electro-acoustic series. They are quite thin and the microphone part fills (i think) about all of the body in the guitar, but they really sound reasonable. Especially the classical / nylon string one.

If you can't persuade the guitarist to use a "prepared" guitar instead of his/her own (there's some excellent miniature condensers you can install inside the soundhole with a flexible "swan's neck"), i think the best way would be preparing the guitar yourself.

Recording a guitarist with a spanish guitar that had a piezo, i covered 2 pieces of scrap metal with chamois as not to scratch the guitar, screwed them together from the middle with nuts, bolts and two ball-point-pen springs pushing the bits together, and attached an AKG miniature condenser with a length of twisted clothes-hanger wire.

So the idea is that you attach the mike setup in the soundhole, the mike goes in, and you can point it as you want by bending the clothes-hanger.

I can't remember which AKG it was, but it was the closest equivalent to C414 i could find.

Of course mic'ing the soundhole is not like mic'ing the fingerboard, but it's better than making do with the piezos the guitars usually have, and in combination with the guitars own mikes this actually works.

BTW the reason for all this was that the guitar player played infinitely better when he could just pick up the guitar and start playing. And that's what counts.

Slabrock

[Brendo]

Recording a guitarist with a spanish guitar that had a piezo, i covered 2 pieces of scrap metal with chamois as not to scratch the guitar, screwed them together from the middle with nuts, bolts and two ball-point-pen springs pushing the bits together, and attached an AKG miniature condenser with a length of twisted clothes-hanger wire.

Slabrock

Can anyone do me a drawing?

Please!

[slabrock]

Can anyone do me a drawing?

Please!

I knew i should have drawn it in the first place. Hope this clears my explanation.

Peace,

Slabrock

PS. The metal bits can be slightly smaller than the soundhole diameter, since you anyway attach this monstrosity to the fingerboard end of the soundhole where it will do the least damage to the guitar's vibrations. And the nuts + bolts are actually very small, not like those locomotive parts i've drawn :-D

[Aardvark]

I like the Gibson Chet Atkins electro-acoustic series. They are quite thin and the microphone part fills (i think) about all of the body in the guitar, but they really sound reasonable. Especially the classical / nylon string one.

If you can't persuade the guitarist to use a "prepared" guitar instead of his/her own (there's some excellent miniature condensers you can install inside the soundhole with a flexible "swan's neck"), i think the best way would be preparing the guitar yourself.

Recording a guitarist with a spanish guitar that had a piezo, i covered 2 pieces of scrap metal with chamois as not to scratch the guitar, screwed them together from the middle with nuts, bolts and two ball-point-pen springs pushing the bits together, and attached an AKG miniature condenser with a length of twisted clothes-hanger wire.

So the idea is that you attach the mike setup in the soundhole, the mike goes in, and you can point it as you want by bending the clothes-hanger.

I can't remember which AKG it was, but it was the closest equivalent to C414 i could find.

Of course mic'ing the soundhole is not like mic'ing the fingerboard, but it's better than making do with the piezos the guitars usually have, and in combination with the guitars own mikes this actually works.

BTW the reason for all this was that the guitar player played infinitely better when he could just pick up the guitar and start playing. And that's what counts.

Slabrock

Holy batfuck that's a lot of work!

If you are not going to replace the part as I do then put a fucking mic in front of the guitar, a nice tight pattern please, have the guy face the mains and record the pick-up and the mic.

Duh.

Hehehehe

Just don't switch monitors back and forth and don't change your listening levels. You could also do the phase flip trick on the mains as well.


Cheers,
Aardvark

:Razz: :lol:

[Brendo]

I knew i should have drawn it in the first place. Hope this clears my explanation.

Actually, I was half poking fun at Jules. Pop my post into google and see if anything comes up...

Nice diagram, though. MS Paint?

[malice]

Actually, I was half poking fun at Jules. Pop my post into google and see if anything comes up...

Nice diagram, though. MS Paint?

I like this diagram though, that is very informative

malice

[slabrock]

Nice diagram, though. MS Paint?

Um... Photoshop CS2, pro that i am
:-D :-D :-D

[Brendo]

Thought it was a bit too classy to be a paint job!

Cheers - I really couldn't quite picture it before, but also I had to poke fun at Jules.

I'm picturing a better way of doing this but i cant be bothered drawing it right now.

[Swafford]

Here's a few suggestions based around doing live shows with clueless acoustic performers. I'll be in the minority here and say I think a usable piezo pick up sound can be had in a 'rock' band set up with the right tools.

1. Piezo 101 if you didn't know - all piezo pick ups require a preamp that have the the appropriate imiedance match (I don't know what that means). So, have a run of the mill piezo pick up preamp laying around - the Fishman Platinum Pro is ok and some fresh 9 volt batteries if the guitar has an onboard preamp.

2. Have a stick on transducer to mix with the piezo

3. have a magnetic soundhole to plop in the guitar to mix with the piezo - Sunrise is a great one (get the buffer box with it) the original Bill Lawrence, while not close to natural sounding, has a cool edgy sound to it.

4. Buy a Pendulum HZ-110 and use it between the preamp and your DI. The HZ-110 was the shit live acocustic unit when I was a pup (it's since been replaced by the SPS-1), has a mellowing sound and a 3 knob parametric EQ. Can be had on Ebag for less then $350 if your patient. I'm told the preamp in this unit can be upgraded to the SPS-1 specs.

5. Tube DI - I use a Demeter.

6. Moisture content in the wood of the guitar. Nothing kills a guitars tone faster then the top not moving optimally. With a piezo, it only sounds worse x5.

7, Ed's Coil EQ

[Brendo]

Hmm... y'know, I'm vaguely remembering a product, which you could play a piezo'd guitar signal into and it would excite a... box, or something, which you could then mic up. Like reamping an acoustic guitar. Anyone with any idea on what the fuck this trippy thing was?

[Swafford]

Woodstove?

[Brendo]

What?

It was like... a box, with, I guess a tactile transducer like in a plate reverb, but in this case driving a wooden box, which you would then mic. I forget if it had "resonance" strings or anything like that.

[otek]

Depending on where the song leads you......


I sometimes take the very fatalistic stance of, "it's not going to sound like an acoustic anyway, so let's get really weird and creative here". This could be taken to mean just about anything - running the signal through an amp, through multiple amps, through a megaphone, through all manner of assorted outboard gear, pedals, boxes, ostriches.

That said, if the artist is stubborn enough to go against better judgement and use a piezo, he might be a hard sell on the weird and creative.

[e-cue]

This could be taken to mean just about anything - running the signal through an amp, through multiple amps, through a megaphone, through all manner of assorted outboard gear, pedals, boxes, ostriches.

I always dug the guitar intro on "Into the Lungs of Hell" on Megadeth's "So Far, So good, So what" record. Sounds like an acoustic reamped through an amp, but it's more likely the part was just doubled.

Unfornutely, most of the time my goal is realism. Lots of tips for me to try out here- keep em coming. It looks like I'm mixing all this month, but next chance I get I'll play around with some of the ideas here.

[Brendo]

Well out of all these, I think "reamping" into a real guitar body might be at least worth a shot, to see if it sucks or not.

[otek]

Dare I ask why you feel you are absolutely stuck with the piezo?

[volthause]

Theoretically, a piezo transducer should be able to make sound too, right? People use speakers and shit for microphones (ala - homebrew sub-kick).

Anyone ever tried feeding signal back through a guitar piezo (reamp?) and see if you can get it to excite the strings? Might fry the fuck out of it... could be fun. Be sure to mic the guitar and record the roast. :)

[malice]

Dare I ask why you feel you are absolutely stuck with the piezo?

He is not "stuck" with piezzo, but the debate was about : "WHEN you are stuck with piezzo" or more "when the gtr hero wants to play in the control room and nowhere else".

I guess lavallier are fair game, or any technique allowing guitar to be recorded in the CR

malice

[otek]

As an interesting aside, late Swedish luthier Georg Bolin experimented with so called Tone Boards in the 70's and 80's, which was an amplifier driving a resonant board to create a vibration similar to that of a guitar top.

http://www.vintage-guitars.se/1970s_Georg_Bolin_Tonbord_1.jpg

[Comte de St Germain]

If he wants the DI in the CR then you all use Phones in the CR.

Mic the fucker no matter what.

See Aards replacement procedure. hell maybe even let the homo do it after he hears his plastic DI guitar tracks WAY up in the rough mixes.

Reamping always sounds like fun but it never evr gets the vibe of a mic picking up a great guitar in a great room.


Some people need to be beaten until they understand they are cutting off their legs to spite their feet.

[Brendo]

Theoretically, a piezo transducer should be able to make sound too, right? People use speakers and shit for microphones (ala - homebrew sub-kick).

Anyone ever tried feeding signal back through a guitar piezo (reamp?) and see if you can get it to excite the strings? Might fry the fuck out of it... could be fun. Be sure to mic the guitar and record the roast. :)

You would need a guitar with no preamp, just a bare piezo wired to a jack.




I happen to have one. I'll try it later.

[Brendo]

I powered the piezo with a 15w amp and still barely anything came out. I even held a little amp up to it and tried to get it to excite the body or strings but the volume was loud enough that the amp is all you'd pick up in the mics... and even that didn't excite the body or strings.

[slabrock]

I powered the piezo with a 15w amp and still barely anything came out. I even held a little amp up to it and tried to get it to excite the body or strings but the volume was loud enough that the amp is all you'd pick up in the mics... and even that didn't excite the body or strings.

A piezo isn't exactly a great resonator, i guess. Hope you didn't burn it.

I remember, that i have tested tuning an acoustic 12-string to the song and placed it on top of a 1x12" cabinet facing up. I then mic'ed the strings ...but i can't remember if the track was ever used. This was anyway like 15 years ago, and i don't even have that record*.

Nowadays when it's in fashion to record electrics through a resonating snare drum, i should probably try this again.

(*there were all kinds of cool guitars i made in that record. It was sort of an prog-folk album, and i got to use the E-bow a lot + do all kinds of weird sounds with feedback. Why can't all gigs be like that? I even got paid in time.:D :D )

Peace,

Slabrock

[volthause]

I powered the piezo with a 15w amp and still barely anything came out. I even held a little amp up to it and tried to get it to excite the body or strings but the volume was loud enough that the amp is all you'd pick up in the mics... and even that didn't excite the body or strings.

Cool man! Thanks for trying that out. I guess we can firmly answer my question with "Not so much."
:Thumbsup:

[Mixerpuppet]

I keep coming back to this thread and Im not sure what to say...

Excercise in Futility comes to mind...

How about throwing up a sm57 to your LCD flat screen and mic'ing the waveforms... no?

DI is not acoustic....

If you have a guy who is bent on DI'ing his acoustic its time to whip out some Jedi Mind tricks.

1) Plug his guitar into something, assign an track.

2) then mic it properly and assign some tracks. If he asks just tell him your trying to get some "room" tone.

3) Record the guitar

4) Compress the DI track until nothing escapes... aka limit/mute


:)

[Brendo]

The guitar in question was fitted with a $30 pickup, if its fried, then it's fried in the name of progress. I doubt it's fried, though.

[e-cue]

I keep coming back to this thread and Im not sure what to say...

Excercise in Futility comes to mind...

How about throwing up a sm57 to your LCD flat screen and mic'ing the waveforms... no?

DI is not acoustic....

I'm with you... But we've all been mixing songs on a deadline where you were stuck with a shitty DI's acoustic track. I'm just trying to brainstorm on bandaid techniques.

[Brendo]

How's this one, for tracking:

Swap out the acoustic for an electric. That way you can reamp it to a clean electric sound later.

[Comte de St Germain]

I'm with you... But we've all been mixing songs on a deadline where you were stuck with a shitty DI's acoustic track. I'm just trying to brainstorm on bandaid techniques.

What's faster?

Redoing the part or tweezing until the sun comes up.

I'm sorry, it's times like that where I know we are supposed to play the cards we're dealt but a fart is as much of an 808 as a DI is a properly miked acoustic guitar.

[otek]

I have to agree with the Comte.... if you have even the slightest possibility of a retrack, you should do it.

That, or try to create something around the DI sound. Much has been suggested above. Maybe you can take a hint from one of the renowned guitarists who use the DI a lot, like Adrian Legg, Trevor Rabin, etc.

[Mixerman]

Mag Mic. I used to carry one with me, but artists kept taking them from me. So, now I just make them buy one for themselves before we start the session.

http://www.onlinerock.com/mf_store/guitar/p/Pickups/Seymour_Duncan_SA-6_Mag_Mic_Acousti_300323.htm

Half mic/half di. Problem solved.

No I don't have an endorsement deal with them, but I should.

Enjoy,

Mixerman

[idylldon]

Mag Mic. I used to carry one with me, but artists kept taking them from me.

Yeah, some of those "artists" are pretty tough characters, eh?

You never brought one to my studio so I could steal it, so does that mean I'm not an "artist," boyee? Sheesh, and I thought we were friends.

Cheers,
--
Don

[Jason Phair]

So much depends on the context (gee, go figure).


Is this just a "filler" track that's adding a different texture to a buncha other shit, or is it the big deal spotlight grabber?

If the answer is A, then who gives a fuck? Accomodate Genius the Guitar Player (I once met a guy nicknamed Genius once. He and his friend Victor, who was literally THE VILLAGE IDIOT. Genius was apparently only such when compared to Victor, who had the glory of being a spot-op at a some country show we did. Dude was basically ballyhooing the night sky, and the sick amounts of haze/fog Mr. LD was using was the only reason we caught it and beat his ass, verbally of course. I digress.), and use the DI. Try and use a decent one, and if you want, run it through a bunch of other rshit, but if it's just texture, odds are you're going to be ripping most of its bandwidth out and stomping the living shit out of it anyway, so does it really matter what it sounds like solo'd?

If the answer was B), you're either fucked, or need to call in Aardvark.

[malice]

Yeah, some of those "artists" are pretty tough characters, eh?

You never brought one to my studio so I could steal it, so does that mean I'm not an "artist," boyee? Sheesh, and I thought we were friends.

Cheers,
--
Don


How could I have missed this gem :D

malice