Guitar Micing Clinic

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From the course by Berklee College of Music

The Art of Music Production

849 ratings

Berklee College of Music

The Art of Music Production

849 ratings

Course 1 of 4 in the Specialization Music Production

Explore the art of record production and how to make recordings that other people will love listening to. This course will teach you how to make emotionally moving recordings on almost any recording equipment, including your phone or laptop. The emphasis is on mastering tangible artistic concepts; the gear you use is up to you. You will learn to develop the most important tool in the recording studio: your ears. You will learn to enhance every aspect of your own productions, both sonically and musically, by employing deeper listening skills. Assignments will include posting your own recordings for peer review, and reviewing your classmates’ work by employing specific tools and strategies. If you use a digital audio workstation to record and mix, that’s great, but as long as you can record into your computer and post an MP3, you can complete the assignments. As you learn about the art of record production in this 4-week course, you will also learn about yourself and who you are as an artist and producer. It is not necessary that you read music or play an instrument to take this course.

From the lesson

Defining the Sonic Signature of your Song

By the end of this lesson, you will address the sonic signature as it relates to your intention and vision, as well as your technology resources and acoustic space. You’ll learn about microphone techniques, getting good levels, and mixing with reverb, EQ and compression. You will record your material, having made some deliberate decisions about the sound of your record, and post your recording for peer review according to specific criteria.

The Sonics of Your Song3:14

Single-Source Recording5:45

Multi-Track Recording5:57

Sound Absorbtion vs. Sound Proofing2:05

Acoustic Spaces & Mic Placement5:07

Microphone Types and Pick Up Patterns8:41

Guitar Micing Clinic3:13

Application of Technology to Art5:22

Meet the Instructors

Stephen Webber
Director of Music Production, Technology and Innovation
Berklee

[MUSIC]

Let's talk just for a second about miking acoustic guitar.

I know there's a lot of acoustic guitar players out there.

Often on acoustic guitar, I will double the guitar.

And when I do this, I always just use one microphone to double the guitar.

Because what we do is we wind up recording the same performance twice.

Of course, it's not exactly the same performance because it's going to have

slight variations.

And then I usually like to pan these out left and

right and put the vocal in the center.

Because that gives us a nice spot for the vocal to inhabit.

And you always want to use your ear when you're recording anything.

You want to listen and hear what it sounds like and

try moving the mic around to find a great spot.

A really great place to start

when you're recording acoustic guitar is where the neck and the body meet.

I find that that tends to be a nice balanced sound for most instruments, but

of course you should use your ears and always experiment.

So we're going to start right here.

I know in this particular guitar this is a great spot,

and we're going to use just one mic.

I'm pretty close, for acoustic guitar again,

depending on the musical context, you might be closer or further away.

For this particular piece of music, which is kind of pop,

I tend to my guitar is pretty close, which is probably six inches,

sometimes less, sometimes a little bit more.

[MUSIC]

If you happen to have two mics, you can mic in acoustic guitar and stereo.

This is what you call an XY stereo miking technique, where the two microphones

are very close to each other, and at a 90 degree angle from each other.

And it tends to have a nice sound.

It's not very wide, but the phase relationships are always nice and tight.

[MUSIC]

If you want to go for a little wider sound or

a little different sound, you can do what's called a spaced pair.

And I'm just going to go ahead and set that up.

So when you do a spaced pair, you really want to use your ears, and you want to

record a little bit and listen back, and try moving the mic just a little bit.

Basically, you are just spacing the mics out a little bit.

The mic that's going to be closer to the neck is going to pick up more

high frequencies.

The mic that is more down on the body is going to tend to pick up

more low frequencies.

And then if you pan these out, you're going to get like a larger,

wider sound from your acoustic guitar.

[MUSIC]

You want to always try and have each mic in a spaced pair be the same distance from

the top of the guitar as possible.

This will keep you out of trouble phase wise and

it will give you a really nice sound.

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