Recording Acoustic Guitar and Vocals Simultaneously

Recently I've been trying to record vocals and acoustic guitar simultaneously in order to get some ideas together. I wanted the simplest (and quietest) setup possible so I decided to rescue my old 16-bit Fostex MR8-MkII, some old Behringer Tube Ultragain Mic 100 preamps (the mic pres on the Fostex aren't very good and although the Mic 100 preamps are cheap as chips they do sound pretty good) and a trusty old Alesis 3630 dual compressor out of the spare room and setup some mics.

I've tried recording acoustic guitar and vocals simultaneously before but I've always ended up with too much spill from the vocal onto the guitar mic ending up with awful phasing sounds and less ability to mix and eq the two tracks independantly.

I was aware of figure of 8 pattern mics and hypercardioids but opted to purchase two Rode NT-3 hypercardioid mics. I think figure of 8 pattern mics might give better rejection if the nulls are aligned properly but I was a bit put off with the rear lobe pickup issue (I don't want any room ambience) and thought that the Rode NT-3 microphones would be more usefull for other future projects.

From the photo above you'll see that I positioned both mics almost at right angles to each other to minimise spill from guitar to vocal mic and vice-versa. The guitar mic was aimed at 12th fret around 2-3 inches away and I warbled into the vocal mic at equally close distance too.

The NT-3's have a very focused pickup pattern and substantial rejection from the sides and suffice is to say that I'm very pleased with the results (although I'm very out of practice vocally and guitarwise at the moment as you'll hear)

Anyway, here are the end results of a test recording of a snippet from the Crowded House track 'Fall at Your Feet'. I aim to get back into practice and record a proper full length version of the song sometime but as always I've enjoyed the technical challenge and hope this information might be usefull to anbody trying to record vocals and guitar simultaneously. I must say it was also a joy to record to hardware - I haven't done that in ages!



Vocal and Guitar Tracks Together

Flash Player



Quicktime Player



Guitar Track Only

Flash Player



Quicktime Player




Vocal Track Only

Flash Player



Quicktime Player

07:0H:03 Launch Night

Last night I popped down to the launch night of 07:0H:03 at Esquires Coffee House Coventry.

It was a packed house with a very attentive and appreciative audience and much credit should go to Stylusboy and Atlum Schema for putting this together.

Featured artists of the night were Lee Mitchell and John Garrison (Pictured) with Stylusboy and Atlum Schema playing a few songs to get the evening started.

The combination of exceptional talent made for one of the best quality acoustic evenings I've been to in Coventry for many years. Top stuff, well done all !

A handful of photos of the featured artists can be seen here.

Information about future 07:0H:03 evenings can be found here.

Jesus Deluxe at Escape Bar

Last night I popped down to Escape Bar in Coventry to see Jesus Deluxe, Spotlight Kid (former members of Six by Seven and Model Morning) and Castillo.

As usual Jesus Deluxe (Pictured) were excellent but I was also very impressed by the first band Castillo (who i think were No Cassandra previously). This was the first time I'd seen them - great band and stunning lead vocals - good stuff indeed!

All in all it was a cracking line-up of original talent and the sound engineer did a fantastic job.

Inbetween chatting with a few people I'd not seen for ages I managed to take one or two photos of Jesus Deluxe towards the end of the evening.

Photos can be seen here. (only 5 i'm afraid)

Early Naughties Ambient Dabblings...

I had a converstion with a local keyboard player in Coventry the other night about synths and sequencing and remembered that about 10 years ago, when my PC probably had less power then my iPod, I battled with a 'hooky' copy of Cubase, some early soft synths, some drum samples and a Yamaha MU50 external sound module and wrote an Alien themed ambient track called Roswell.

As far as I remember I had to record it out to two track tape and then back in to get a .wav file.

Anyway I thought I'd make it available for anybody who might like it... click the play button below to have a listen !

Flash Player



Quicktime Player

New Music Evening at Esquires Coffee Shop

Just a quick plug for a new free music evening in Coventry run by talented local artists, Stylusboy and Atlum Schema.

Taken from the 07:OH:03 website:

"07:OH:03 is a free new music evening in Coventry run by local artists, Stylusboy and Atlum Schema in the Esquires Coffee Shop at the Transport Museum. Start your Saturday night with a relaxed drink, some good food and great music from Coventry and a little further afield. Come and help us launch the night on 23rd January 2010 when we will be treated to some musical treats by John Garrison and Lee Mitchell."

More info can be found on the 07:OH:03 website here.

I'm looking forward to this and will be popping down to take some photos....

Festive Fun at The Tin Angel

Just a quick blog on this night before Christmas... I popped down The Tin Angel last night for a festive Justine Presents.

I didn't take photos of all the featured artists and open micers but I took some photos of the excellent Stylusboy and This Beautiful Noise (Thom Kirkpatrick).

It was another enjoyable evening at The Tin Angel and probably the last bunch of photos I'll take this year.

I wish everybody on the local music scene a very merry christmas and happy new year to you all... see you at some more gigs in 2010 !

Photos from the evening can be seen here.

Supernova@Escape

On Sunday night I popped down to Supernova at Escape Bar in Coventry.

It was a freezing cold Sunday night but the turn out was good and there were 3 excellent bands on stage.

First up were Akeal who sounded tighter then ever before, second were the excellent Mourning Becomes Electra (MBE) and finally the mighty Exit Calm.

Overall my personal favourite of the evening were Akeal - the other bands were great but Akeal is just more my cup of tea musically. Nonetheless (and hoping that I've not offened anybody) Martins Ortons vocals (pictured above) were as delightful as ever and the combination of Exit Calms huge guitar sound (and stunning lead vocals) made for a right old shoegaze-fest.

It was a quality evening of live music - good to see Escape Bar hosting these events since re-opening and many thanks to Ciaran for adding me to the guest list ! A top night sir! Good work indeed.... (and hey - I got some photos of you!)

I struggled with the photography and as with many Coventry venues at the moment the stage lighting was so poor that I had to resort to bounced flash - hence I didn't real off too many photos for fear of blinding the performers.

Come on venues put in some decent frikking stage lighting!

Anyway, small rant aside a handful of photos from the evening can be seen here.