As owner and sole employee of a record company in the location, I am often asked to record someone playing acoustic guitar and singing. The question arises, should I record the guitar first and then overdub the voice, style of study, or should I record at the time, the style of concert? Both approaches are valid, and that use in a given situation depends on (the performance) factors, and (b) the factors recorded. Let's look at the factors performance first.
Some artists strongly prefer playing and singing at the same time, trying to capture a real performance of the song. They can not be familiar with the techniques of sound mixing studio, or may be used to perform the song "live" and feel more comfortable just blows out. "Others are happy to know that you can record the first part of the guitar without having to worry about the vocals, then record your voice without having to worry about guitar. Or they may like the idea of sitting while playing the guitar, then stand up for the vocals.
If the artist has a preference by either approach, my suggestion is do it the way that feels most comfortable. You can get a good recording of the song anyway, but the artist has to be comfortable to "get into the zone" and offer good performance. Now if they offer to allow you to use, I suggest the study Focus mixing style sound due to the additional flexibility offered in both recording and mixing time.
Let It Bleed
This leads to the factors involved in the recording of "together or separately" the decision. In reality, there is really only a factor of recording involved: the leak. Bleed. Stroke. Whatever you want to call it, if the artist plays and sings at the same time, the guitar microphone presents some of the vowels, vocal microphone and collect some of the guitar. When you mix the song, you find that you do not have total control of any element. Levels of volume and pan positions interact. If you add some reverb to the voice, add a little guitar too, and vice versa. The same with EQ. And so on.
Luckily, none of this has to be fatal, so do not panic if the artist is an "all in the man once." First, there are steps you can take before recording. The main problem is the selection and placement of the microphone. Clearly, you will to use directional (cardioid) if not super-directional (hyper-cardioid) microphones so you can take advantage of its good ability to cancellation. While condenser microphones can acoustic guitars, a beautiful crystal clear sound, you may want to use a type of dynamics here because of its low sensitivity. Condensers hear everything!
If the guitar has an electric pickup, consider using signal instead of microphones at all. But beware – the signal can sound collection very different (and not always better) than the regular Miked acoustic guitar sound. Some guitars have EQ or other controls that can be manipulated. If you can get away with it, it has solved half your problem! But for now we will assume that you have decided to use a microphone on the guitar.
To the extent possible, the microphone vowel point off the guitar and the microphone on the guitar away from the singer. The "no" to the back of each microphone, pickup is minimal, will be at a slight angle of the back straight – see the documentation of the microphone so that the exact angle (or have a guess, as I do). Also, make sure that both microphones are as close as possible to their respective sources of sound, so there will be more than adequate sound and less of the wrong person in each one. And do not forget a windscreen for the microphone vocal!
With these precautions, you should end up with a reasonable set of issues to work when the time comes the mix of the song.
Style Studio
If the artist is committed to using the overdub method can only use the normal review process. Start with a track, click if the artist wants one – some do, some do not. (Of course, you can use a click of the all-in-once approach too, making the artist wear headphones and put the click them for reference.) This is where the flexibility of this approach becomes apparent. From the guitar, you can record multiple takes, do punch-ins, or do a song composed, depending on how far you want to take. The same with the voice!
Naturally, with the guitar and clear voice recorded on their own tracks, no leaks, there is a much better position to mix well. The danger, however, is that the two parties can not "mix" the way they do when they are recorded together, blood and all. Sometimes we hear that particular voice, it "feels" good in a mixture. This is partly a consequence have recorded separately in the first place. Special care is required to make it sound as if the two parties that happened at the same time.
In this debate, I assuming the guitar is being recorded with a single microphone. In fact, I prefer using two microphones in an XY configuration on guitar and that you can move part to the left and right in the mix to get them out of the way the vocal focus and provide a nice stereo guitar sound. As always, primary consideration is to produce a clean, natural sound recording that does not draw attention to himself in any way. If you know your computer, you may achieve this result, whether an acoustic guitar and vocals are recorded separately or together.
Mark Bendig is The Cheap Advice Guy, owner and operator of Cheap Advice On Music, offering “Tips from the trenches on Songwriting, Recording, and Live Sound.” A series of eBooks on these very topics will be available on the website in Summer 2008.
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