All, I am getting into recording/production as I am consolidating Grade 3. My current focus is singing and playing guitar.
I would like to record acoustic guitar + vocals at the same time.
The biggest issue is the bleed of guitar into the vocal track (and vice versa).
Iāve seen recommendations on recording using two Figure-8 mics with the null side of the guitar mic pointing to the musicianās mouth and the null side of the vocal mic pointing to the guitar sound hole. This technique supposedly improves the isolation of each track.
Iām not sure if there are any issues with each track being mono.
Do you have any recommendations for mics (models and setups) so I can record myself doing acoustic guitar and vocals at the same time while achieving some isolation between the two tracks?
Price range is ~$500 for the mics.
Note: I already have a solution for recording electric guitar + vocals (below)
Electric guitar runs through my Boss Katana mk2 and is recorded via USB.
Vocals go through my MXL 990 mic and run through an audio interface to USB.
If you are going to use separate mics for guitar and vocals and sing and play at the same time then youāll get bleed. Do you actually care if you do? Iāve recorded a lot with just a single large diaphragm condenser mic for both vocals and acoustic and itās fine.
I have occasionally used pickups in the guitar and recorded those direct, but youāll still get guitar bleeding into the vocal mic.
You can minimise it using directional pencil mics (Iāve got a pair kicking around, but havenāt used them in years) on the guitar and a dynamic vocal mic, but the only way youāll get no bleed is to record guitar and vocals separately.
True, youāll need to get the levels right and for me that means playing with the position on the mic(s) until you find something youāre happy with - although with a single large diaphragm condenser Iāve always found it pretty easy yo get a natural balance.
If I was recording professionally it would be different (and Iād almost certainly record separate guitar and vocals.) If youāre just doing it to have fun and share with family/friend/here then I wouldnāt worry too much about it.
Behringer do a pretty inexpensive matched pair of pencil mics (the C2) that punch well above their weight if you really want to have a play with that and then put vocals through a Shure SM58. However these days I normally try and keep it as simple as possible.
All of that makes sense. I guess the other thing Iām thinking is if I want to add independent vocal effects, I wouldnāt want that to apply to the guitar sound (āNatural Voiceā in GarageBand for example).
I see a bunch of people use th Behringer C2 pair for acoustic guitar in X Y configuration. So does that mean Iād need 3 mics!?
I hear ya on just keeping it simple for home recording, haha
If you get a matched pair of C2s then you could use them X/Y or spaced and, yes a third mic for vocals. Youāll also need an AI with at least three inputs.
This is a deep rabbit hole and it can get expensive real quick, which it why Iād start learning to record with as simple a set up as you can
I record daily, but 9 times out of 10 itās just with my iphone!
Check out Josh Turner Guitar on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3Wj9aO8VS5ZuXrtWfJf81w
Heās a consummate performer and video and audio producer.
He has a few videos on how to use mics (it may be a bit of a slog to find them, but itāll be a fun slog if you enjoy the kind of music he & his friends make)
Hereās one of his that jumped out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbFP_TcGi8o
Mukund, I currently record with my guitar plugged in and vocals via a dynamic mic, which is more directed, so can be positioned to be closer to my mouth. I am able to manage the guitar bleed into the vocal channel through that careful positioning of the mic and controlling the input gain. My recordings are made in OBS. Once in OBS I boost the level of the vocal to get decent balance with the guitar.
If you record the guitar with a mic you could use a cardoid condensor mic and position it carefully to reduce the bleed from the voice. Generally guitar is a lot louder so can again turn the gain down which helps. Also you can turn the mic upside down which would reduce the sensitivity above the guitar.
I didnāt realize I could record from the mic (audio interface) directly into OBS! I think I just got that part figured out. [single mic input]
I am struggling with getting multiple devices (two separate mics via the audio interface) to show up as separate input options in OBS. Is that what you are describing? [two mic inputs]
FYI, Iāve been recording video in OBS and audio in GarageBand. I sync up the video and audio in iMovie afterwards. I would love to be able to skip all that and simply use OBS!
Iāll have to experiment with the mic positioning. I thought that my cardioid condenser mic (MXL 990) would be much too sensitive to take advantage of the dead spot.
I wonder if you could record vocals and guitar on one mic in one take, then use a stem splitting tool to separate the two. Iām guessing audio quality might suffer, but I wonder whether if you put the two back together in a mix the sum would be equal to the two parts?
You could then post process each track separately and adjust levels etc.
As I understand it, OBS isnāt exactly friendly with multiple audio channels from an AI. it likes to moosh them together.
You can get control over those individual audio inputs if you run your audio into your DAW first and then send it from the DAW to OBS. That said, the recording you get from OBS will still have the audio mooshed together. So you still canāt apply effects to the audio sources individually in post. This kinda makes sense since OBS is primarily for streaming.
Iām actually going through the mic hunt right now with my wife. sheās been advised to have her own mic she can bring to live performances (in case the venue is short on gear or whatever, which has already happened). this is kinda a first step for her towards having enough live audio gear to set up anywhere a small venue stuffs her. so she was advised to get a vocal mic, and the sennheiser e 935 is the one her mentor uses. my sweetwater rep conveniently called me yesterday to do a check-in so we talked mics.
he sent over a couple other recommendations. I canāt explain it how he did, but basically they are dynamic mics that sound almost as good as condenser mics.
that Mojave mic has lots of videos of it being used in diverse applications - vocals, acoustic guitar, drums, a guitar cab. this is the one Iām personally leaning towards. I think it sounds pretty good. that shure is a bit over the price range we want to be, but the mojave is comparable with the sennheisers on price. and of course, all these are much more than the SM58. Incidentally, the open mic where she performs (and where I did my first performance the other night) uses SM58ās.
Yes. You need to have the correct audio driver accessible in OBS when you set up the source. I use the āUMC ASIO Audioā driver in OBS. Once that is setup correctly then I can select a specific input from my UMC AI.
I have a 4 channel AI so could set up in OBS to bring in all those individually.
I also setup two sources for my guitar and pan them left and right, adding a delay on one so the two channels are slightly out of sync. Not so much that it sounds like an echo, just enough to create a fuller wider sound. You can research the Haas Effect for more on this.
You certainly can. I used to do the same as you are doing currently. Once I figured out OBS I stopped using the DAW for my simple AVOYP recording and use the same for my Zoom OM performances.
The guitar is really quite loud so if you position the mic carefully lower the gain, you will have inconseqential vocal bleed on the guitar track.
And the inverting the mic also helps since the least sensitive area is the area at the bottom of the mic.
Not my experience, Nate. The key is using the correct audio device driver in OBS. I think what you are describing is a symptom of using a standard OS device driver.
OBS is open source, so I wouldnāt be surprised if there are improved drivers from when I installed them. But what Iāve been using clearly smashes the two inputs from my Focusrite together. I remember going through installing ASIO drivers back when I first set it up so I know I installed them.
Itās been awhile since I recorded anything (Iāve also installed Windows 11 for that matter) so I checked for updates. I had a number of them and that popped up new ASIO inputs that allowed for selecting channels. By default it pops up as a Stereo input. But looks like if you switch to mono, you can add a separate ASIO input for each channel and then get individual mixer controls within OBS.
This was not an option for me before so something I updated enabled this (I updated OBS as well as my Focusrite drivers).
Interesting idea, but if I went to the effort of splitting and re-combining audio, Iād rather just record multiple tracks in a DAW (GarageBand) and then sync audio/video in iMovie. Similar amount of work, right?
What you are describing with OBS seems like exactly what I want to do. However, Iām struggling with getting this working. Even my Google-fu isnāt helping.
Are there any articles you could point me towards so I can get this set up with my Mac?
Itās different work, for sure. Using the OBS method, youāre doing the work on the front end setting things up to sound right together. Which you have to do individually if youāre going to multitrack with a DAW anyway. No syncing required.
Iāve only had to worry about sync if I have added a backing track as another audio track in OBS. First time I got frustrated with it being out of sync, so I re-recorded without recording the backing track and just added it as a separate track in a video editor after the fact. Later on, though, I spent the time to work out the offset to compensate for that so the recording turns out synced.
As Paul said, in using two mics at the same time, youāll have to tweak things to minimize sound bleeding between them. But again, thatās work on the front end, not the back end. First time you do it will take longer and then once you work out your setup, you can probably get that dialed down to something fairly inconsequential.
Wait sorry, I think youāre right! I was thinking about the audio/video sync/OBS issues, not how to get around needing two mics for recording. Interesting idea for sure!
Have you tried the splitting, post-process, recombining flow?
