Quadrupled acoustic guitar - panned L/R and capo'd/transposed/panned

[des0free]

A technique to consider: I used one mic to record four tracks - I first recorded two acoustic guitar tracks (trying to play the same way each time) and panned them 100% left and right. In one the microphone was also placed to the left of the guitar sound hole and in the other to the right side.  Then I recorded two more tracks with a capo on the 5th fret and chords transposed down 5. Again the mic placement was placed alternately Left or Right and the tracks were panned 100% left/right in the mix. This "quadrupled guitar" gives a pretty rich sound!

To highlight that in this mix I removed all tracks except guitars and vocals.  Everything was recorded with the built in mics on the Zoom R24 (not the best mics, but ok...).  The guitar is a Taylor GS mini.

The full mix of the song with keys, bass, drums, and lower volume guitars, was posted here:
https://songcrafters.org/forum/index.php?topic=30924.0


 

[Farrell Jackson]

A cool micing technique! The acoustic strumming is rich and full. I can hear the left and right separation clearly in headphones....well done!

Farrell

[Jean Pierre]

very interesting method, I will try..

[T.C. Elliott]

A technique to consider: I first recorded two identical acoustic guitar tracks panned 100% left and right, and in one the microphone was placed to the left of the guitar sound hole

Just to clarify (I'm slow sometimes) you played through once and recorded it on two mics, yes?

[des0free]

A technique to consider: I first recorded two identical acoustic guitar tracks panned 100% left and right, and in one the microphone was placed to the left of the guitar sound hole

Just to clarify (I'm slow sometimes) you played through once and recorded it on two mics, yes?

Sorry, to clarify, I used just ONE mic and recorded four guitar tracks:

#1: place mic to left side of guitar
#2: place mic on right side
#3: Capo 5th fret & transpose chords -5, mic on left side
#4: Capo 5th fret & transpose chords -5, mic on right side

Then in the mix #1&3 were panned 100% left and #2&4were panned 100% right

I think it's a little different than using two mics.  Because you play slightly differently each time it gives a "thicker" sound.  (kind of like when you double vocals).  And using the capo and transpose basically adds more notes to each chord making each sound richer I suppose.

** Another possibility to try is to not move the mics, perhaps always point at the ~12th fret, and record four times and see how that sounds....

[T.C. Elliott]

Ah, cool. That's similar to what I "typically" do. A great way to thicken up a track without it getting to full/busy etc.,  I just recorded a song this weekend that I'll share with hard panned acoustic and hard panned electric tracks. I like the sound a lot.

[Jean Pierre]

I think it's a little different than using two mics. Because you play slightly differently each time, it gives a "thicker" sound. (kind of like when you double the voices). And using capo and transposition essentially adds more notes to each chord, which makes each sound richer, I guess.

exactly,!...but it's work, and indeed it goes twice as fast with a pair of mics (like the great behringer C2 stereo set paid 40euros! at thoman and that I believe many of you use)

For the mics ('I have quite a few...) for me, it's like for the shoes when I'm well in it I don't like to change...at the moment I use only these two small mics, for all voice guitar 5the only problem is that they are very sensitive to the "Pop", windproof imperative!

Doug, I'm going to work on adding a lapsteel track on your cover of "I shall be release" your 4 pickup process is really top notch and it's true that playing 4 times adds a lot of thickness

and another way that I use sometimes is (on a DAW) to duplicate a guitar track and make a very slight shift between the two and also go down (or up) a few tenths of a tone (I think that's the system the beatles used before the sound engineers at Abbey Road developed the ADT system (which introduced very slight speed variation, I think)

another way is to use a guitar with a "Nashville" tuning (I haven't tried it yet)

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

citation wiki:

Nashville or high strung tuning refers to the practice of replacing the wound E, A, D and G strings on a six-string guitar with lighter gauge strings to allow tuning an octave higher than standard.[1] This is usually achieved by using one string from each of the six courses of a twelve string set, using the higher string for those courses tuned in octaves.

The Pink Floyd song "Hey You" from the album The Wall and the Kansas song "Dust in the Wind" [2] from their Point of Know Return album are notable for using this form of guitar tuning. In "Hey You" David Gilmour replaced the low E string with a second high E (not a 12-string set low E octave) such that it was two octaves up. The Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses" also features both a 12-string guitar played by Keith Richards and a guitar with Nashville tuning played by Mick Taylor. James Williamson used Nashville tuning on "Gimme Danger"[3] on Raw Power by the Stooges. Elliott Smith used a variant of Nashville tuning with a twelve string guitar on XO for the song "Tomorrow Tomorrow."[4] Pat Metheny is known for using Nashville tuning on several occasions, notably his song "Phase Dance" from his group's debut album.[5] Similarly, Andy Fairweather Low used a high strung guitar on his 1975 UK hit single, "Wide Eyed and Legless", taken from his La Booga Rooga album.[6][7]

[BerryPatch]

Its really a great technique. I sorta did it on a cover that I'm still working on (which will probably be up here at some point) and it really gets a nice sound with the different voicings together. I usually just record two passes of Acoustic guitars (both the same) and pan them left and right if I want them more prominent, but 4 panned all around and capo'd at different places really gets a lush sound for folky stuff.

[StephenM]

I essentially do the same using my zoom recorder mics... there are two mics, one on each side of the unit.  so when i record vocals or acoustic guitar with it I place the sound hole just above it and in the center, that way one is left of the hole and one is right...

I realize there are much better mics and ways to do this as a profession but this is easy and gets good results and I like that...actually I kind of started using those mics after reading about people doing it on this site and getting good results...now it's almost my exclusive go to...it's just so simple

[cuthbert]

That's a really nice, rich sound, des.

Interesting how you did it (especially miking different sides of the guitar for the takes) - I will try the same sometime!