"Neil Henderson" wrote in message . com...
"Toby" wrote in message
om...
Hey Neil,

Thanks so much for listening and the comments.
There are two guitars, Seagull S6 steel string and Alvarez nylon. 4
individual parts. All guitar parts recorded stereo with Sennheisser
MD421 and EVPL80 approx 6" away from soundhole and 12th fret.

Not technically "stereo", but I get your meaning.
Hey Neil,

What would constitute "technically stereo"?


No
compression into SONAR.
Light chorus and reverb using sends. Noise reduction (fan noise) with
Soundforge NR. Light compression and limiting on mix.

What kind of EQ-ing did you do? Any? Just wondering if that may have
emphasized the string noise.


Yeah, I may have boosted up around 12k, I definitely need to remix.


Interesting comment about the fiddle... tells me a lot!

Tells you what? That I guessed it was a sample, or that I wasn't 100%
positive that it wasn't? lol

Well, even if someone isn't "positive"... that's much better than
being blatantly obvious. ;-)


It is a sample set... Garritan GPO violin and Viola for the pad.
I'm not familiar with Alex DeGrassi but I will search him out.

Windham Hill ******. Nice stuff if you're into that sort of thing...
good player overall, IMO.

I am into that stuff, I have an old Windham Hill acoustic guitar
sampler which came out probably 12 years ago, it's great!


Other folks have commented on the "string noise" I have a theory and
it's just my theory... Could it be we've gotten so used to sterile
samples that we are more concerned with perfect / clean that we loose
sight of the fact that guitars squeek, scratch, zing, etc...?

No. I'm a guitarist & don't use sampled guitars, I was asking from a
player's point of view more than an engineering one.

cool

If 4 guitarists were in a room recording this piece live, I'm thinking
you
would hear those little noises. I'm not trying to be disrespectful
but as you can tell... I love the squeeks, I think it's part of what
gives an acoustic instrument it's quality and charm.

You're not being disrespectful, it's your opinion - from a players' point of
view, it bothered me that there was the degree of noise that there was. From
an engineering standpoint, I've never recorded acoustic with that much
squeakitude going to track... again, it wasn't horrible, just a bit more
than I would've preferred hearing.

I have to admit, most of the 4 main tracks were recorded in one or two
takes.
I guess I'll have to spend more time on these... just hasen't been my
style.

On the other side of the coin... I agree... bad technique, poor
performance, bad quality recording can over emphasize this.

Could've been anything, really.

Have you ever tried any type of condensor mics, but a little further back
from the source? IMO, 6" is VERY close for acoustic guitar. Even backing off
those dynamics a bit, but giving yourself a bit more preamp gain - assuming
you can do that without introducing too much noise - might help. Just
wondering.

Thanks for this tip, I'll have to experiment with a little more mic
distance.
Definitely time for new mics.


Neil Henderson


Thanks a lot Neil,

Toby