Recording vocals and acoustic guitar at once

I'd really like to record this way... being able to record a song with guitar and vocals at once.
http://www.binghammusic.com/media.html
The guitar is on a RCA ribbon mic I think, and the vocal mic looks like a condensor, probably in Figure 8 looking at the orientation. Anybody know exactly what that mic is? The way it connects to the stand and has the cable coming out the side seems pretty distinctive. With both mics in a figure 8 pattern avoids phase issues... which has always degraded recordings I've done this way. Unfortunately, the condensor mic that I like for vocals is cardiod only (SP1)... they are cheap enough that maybe I could buy a pair and DIY a single multipattern.
Why the cloth over the music stand? Is that to block sound from the back of the vocal mic?
Any other tricks?

Cardioid can be fine for this type of recording, it just depends on the tightness of the pattern.  I used a KM86 in Fig 8 for guitar but I always preferred my 67 in cardioid for vox when tracking together.

Give it a shot...

Cheers,
Ruairi

When I've done cardiod patterns for BOTH guitar and vocals it sounded bad, but I'll try a figure 8 on the guitar and see how it sounds.

dmp said:

I'd really like to record this way... being able to record a song with guitar and vocals at once.
http://www.binghammusic.com/media.html
and the vocal mic looks like a condensor, probably in Figure 8 looking at the orientation. Anybody know exactly what that mic is? The way it connects to the stand and has the cable coming out the side seems pretty distinctive.

Click to expand...

Hello,

I am pretty sure it is a Neumann condenser microphone-can be an U67 or an old U87(?) as they were mainly mounted to the stand exactly this way those days (with cable outlet at the side).I have a SM69 with such a mounting part-looks equal to that in the video (except of that a SM69 is a stereo-mic of course).
In this position I always use cardioid pattern (with a U87).

The cloth on the stand is surely for blocking sound coming from the back;a figure eight will pick up a lot of reflections and other unwanted things here (i thing there´s a door in the opposite of the singer?-then reflections from the doors hard surface are pre-programmed...).

Best regards,

Udo.

There's always bleed. Best to position such that bleed is low in level and sounds good. I do a lot of these with acoustic instruments and singers in ensembles. Still looking for the best answer.

Best,
J

The figure of 8 from the guitar mic is the key here. I used this technique a lot in the 60s for recording acoustic guitar playing singers. Ribbon mics have an incredible side null which cuts bleed right down. Notice in the video how the null of the ribbon is arranged to point straight at the singers mouth,

Cheers

Ian

Agreed, ribbons are great for this. I used a 4038 for vocals, and you can barely hear the guitar on the vocal track if you have it in the null. Really helpful. The downside is of course that you need a decent room.

eskimo said:

Agreed, ribbons are great for this. I used a 4038 for vocals, and you can barely hear the guitar on the vocal track if you have it in the null. Really helpful. The downside is of course that you need a decent room.

Click to expand...

If you use a cardioid on the vocal pointing along the null then this with the figure of 8 from the ribbon effectively produce an MS signal (you really need an omni instead of cardioid but we want separation). Pass them thru the MS matrix and you have stereo with the guitar panned hard one way and the vocal in the middle BUT with the true room acoustic - and with a really nice sounding room the results are amazing.

Cheers

Ian

It's a textbook application of dipole (figure-8) microphones.
The real problem in this guitar/vocal configuration is vocal bleeding in the guitar, not the contrary. It works well because the vocal source is very small and the guitar mic can be orientated for best nulling. OTOH, since the guitar emits sound in a more spreaded manner, there is actually more spillage of guitar into the vocal mic.

???

that just really confused the heck outta me!

The side-null of dipole mics is a very narrow angle. It provides good rejection of sources that are restricted to that angle. If the source is widespread, like a guitar, a large part of the emittive surface (the surfaces that produce sound) is not contained in this narrow angle, so the rejection is less than expected.
Voice is almost a point-source, so it works well with it.

That blanket over the music stand looks like it may be glued flat to it. I imagine that may be necessary to keep it from moving around.

Anybody know the proper way to do this so I don't screw up?

I agree with ribbon on the guitar. I've had varying luck with condenser on the vocal as pictured in the clip, seems to depend on the singer.
I prefer a nice dynamic for the vocals - sm7 or pr40 have worked for me.
Actually there is something to be said for two dynamics in this situation too...
I've tried two figure of 8 condensers - horrible. Not enough null in the pattern?

Thanks for all the suggestions.
I did experiments this weekend using different mic configurations and compared the sound of recordings. I found that a condensor in Figure 8 and a ribbon do not have noticeable phasing in the recording, so I tired different configurations of these mics. The biggest issue was that I didn't think either of these mics made the guitar sound as rich and full as the shure sm7b, which is my favorite mic to close mic an acoustic. A condensor is really bright, while the ribbon was more dark. I thought both were pretty good for vocals, although the ribbon mic was quite a bit darker than a condensor.
Using the sm7b on guitar and a figure 8 mic on vocals still produced a recording with noticeable phasing problems.

I've tried two figure of 8 condensers - horrible.

Click to expand...

I had no problem with this - maybe it was particular to your room. The room I was using was fairly dead.
I was using MXL 2010s and a Golden Age MKII ribbon.