numberthirty wrote:jimmy two hands wrote:What is more important for acoustic recording: room acoustics, mic placement, or mic type? If mic type, please note, I'm talking about banjo rather than guitar if that makes a difference. I just didn't feel like making a new thread.Depends. Is it banjo alone or in a larger context? All by its lonesome until I get a mixing board for my compluter and Reaper or whatever is a good DAW.

numberthirty wrote:jimmy two hands wrote:numberthirty wrote:jimmy two hands wrote:What is more important for acoustic recording: room acoustics, mic placement, or mic type? If mic type, please note, I'm talking about banjo rather than guitar if that makes a difference. I just didn't feel like making a new thread.Depends. Is it banjo alone or in a larger context? All by its lonesome until I get a mixing board for my compluter and Reaper or whatever is a good DAW.Max and I have some spare gear that isn't doing much recording right now. Do you want to borrow a couple of things out for test runs to see what you like?Also, Reaper is totally "starter" friendly.That seems to be the consensus. I'm planning on downloading that, assuming it is also Mac-friendly. If you got a smallish mixer that would work with Reaper, I'd be down. I really only need 4 channels at most. And space is an issue here in the homestead.

jimmy two hands wrote:What is more important for acoustic recording: room acoustics, mic placement, or mic type? If mic type, please note, I'm talking about banjo rather than guitar if that makes a difference. I just didn't feel like making a new thread.Depends. Is it banjo alone or in a larger context?

jimmy two hands wrote:numberthirty wrote:jimmy two hands wrote:What is more important for acoustic recording: room acoustics, mic placement, or mic type? If mic type, please note, I'm talking about banjo rather than guitar if that makes a difference. I just didn't feel like making a new thread.Depends. Is it banjo alone or in a larger context? All by its lonesome until I get a mixing board for my compluter and Reaper or whatever is a good DAW.Max and I have some spare gear that isn't doing much recording right now. Do you want to borrow a couple of things out for test runs to see what you like?Also, Reaper is totally "starter" friendly.

I'm not expert, but I recorded myself playing banjo (Scruggs style, if you can call it that) a couple of weeks ago. I used a Coles 4038 aimed at the my picking fingers, or maybe between the picking hand and neck joint. I thought it sounded pretty good, at the very least it's a good representation of how it sounded in the room. A little bit of eq and compression made it sound incredible. I don't know how useful this is, especially since I only recorded banjo once.

Yeah, I mostly play clawhammer rather than Scruggs style, there's a big difference in volume and sound though. The most annoying part with fingerpicking is trying to avoid picking up too much of the sound of the picks against the strings. I'm guessing should I maybe angle the mic up or down a bit so it's pointing toward the resonator?

For banjo, it depends on what sort of sound you prefer, and if it's played Scruggs style or Clawhammer.Obviously the banjo can be harsh and bright, so we typically went with a Royer 121 as the ribbons mellow the high end a bit. I think with banjo the type of microphone makes the most difference. I might try experimenting a bit today myself, I have some Beyerdynamic M201 mics and I'm guessing they'll be pretty nice for banjo.

rampikesuperstar wrote:Hello friends, I took a stab at doing some recording the other day and am looking for some critiques. Please take a gentle listen to the link below and let me know what you think. https://soundcloud.com/user-906836198/guitar-testHere's what I'm doing:AT4033 behind bridgeAT4051 at neck panned, no eq or processing at all. This is running through Apogee Duet 2. The room is my untreated living room/kitchen space. Thoughts? Improvements? This is my first test, so looking for helpful feedback. Please ignore performance flubs. I'm in my shop listening on a crappy bluetooth speaker but that sounds totally good to me. The only thing I hear is that when you hit the G, it kind of dies off faster than the C. It's probably the speaker or maybe how you're playing it. Other than that, Sounds great.

rampikesuperstar wrote:No perceived issues, and maybe that was part of the problem. This is one of the first cracks I've taken at recording myself, and the whole process made me so nerve-wracked that I was bed-ridden for the rest of the day. It's weird how much you can get inside your own head... I guess I just always assume that my ears aren't good enough, my gear isn't good enough, etc. Hence putting it out there to get some second opinions. Glad to hear it isn't worthy of being banished to some far-off star. You two have really helped. I'll keep going!I really wouldn't get too caught up on that.As for getting accustomed to recording yourself as a process, I get the feeling that most folks feel some variation of what you described here. Most folks I've talked to seem to get better with that as time spent recording goes by.

elisha wiesner wrote:rampikesuperstar wrote:Hello friends, I took a stab at doing some recording the other day and am looking for some critiques. Please take a gentle listen to the link below and let me know what you think. https://soundcloud.com/user-906836198/guitar-testHere's what I'm doing:AT4033 behind bridgeAT4051 at neck panned, no eq or processing at all. This is running through Apogee Duet 2. The room is my untreated living room/kitchen space. Thoughts? Improvements? This is my first test, so looking for helpful feedback. Please ignore performance flubs. I'm in my shop listening on a crappy bluetooth speaker but that sounds totally good to me. The only thing I hear is that when you hit the G, it kind of dies off faster than the C. It's probably the speaker or maybe how you're playing it. Other than that, Sounds great.Agree completely.This would be "Done" if it was me.Rampikesuperstar, is there some sort of a perceived issue in what you have here? Something that you feel like didn't exactly pan out?