A Hoilday Song - a new original by Farrell Jackson

[Farrell Jackson]

This is a Yulefest (Holiday Song) song idea that popped into my head. I decided to keep it simple for now with just a solo acoustic guitar.  I'm using a Taylor GS Mini acoustic tuned down a whole step to give it a fuller bodied low end sound. So instead of being tuned to E standard, it's tuned to D standard.

Enjoy!

Farrell
© 11-29-12

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[The Gobi Desert Canoe Club]

Hi Farrell, a deceptively simple sounding little tune that really benefits from stepping the tuning down. Love it.......Willie

[Farrell Jackson]

Hi Farrell, a deceptively simple sounding little tune that really benefits from stepping the tuning down. Love it.......Willie

Thanks Willie! Yes the down tuning made a world of difference in the tone. You are right, this tune sounds simple but it did give me a bit of a challenge recording it. I had to rehearse for a couple of days before I could play it smooth enough so it would stand on it's own. It's not a difficult tune to play......I'm just a bit rusty  

Farrell

[Lounging McCoy]

Excellent playing and a very good tune.  The guitar sounds awesome.  I'd like to have a Taylor one day.

[Redler]

The D tuning sounds great!! Very relaxing piece of music and nice playing! Enjoyable listening!

Kari

[Hook]

Beautiful brother, I really enjoyed this and love that deep, full tone. Well Done!
Rock On!

[bruno]

Yip - wonderful sound. Excellent playing, crisp and precise.
B.

[Tangled Wires]

Wonderful piece of music...it don't sound that simple to me in places!

Your acoustic sounds great, wish I could get mine to sound half as good!

[Mach]

Farrell I heard this over at IMW and blown away by the sound of that guitar. What kind? Brand? and can you tell us a bit about your recording technique to achieve this great sound? Awesome tune and melody you've created. Top Notch!

Mach

Edit: Sorry forgot to read your intro post...but the recording tech would be interesting.

[Farrell Jackson]

Farrell I heard this over at IMW and blown away by the sound of that guitar. What kind? Brand? and can you tell us a bit about your recording technique to achieve this great sound? Awesome tune and melody you've created. Top Notch!

Mach

Edit: Sorry forgot to read your intro post...but the recording tech would be interesting.

I'd be happy to share how I recorded this one Mach. It was a new procedure for me and I did record it on my Fostex VF160 standalone recorder. Sometimes experimenting works out well....an old dog can learn new tricks, lol!

This is a Taylor GS Mini guitar but it's actually larger than most mini guitars. It's a size that's  in-between  the Taylor Baby and Big Baby models. It also has a bowed out back for better low end. Plus it comes with the added option of a magnetic pickup in the sound hole, which I've installed. But it can still sound a bit thin so to compensate for that I tuned it down a full step, in standard tuning (D), to give it more balls if you will. That gave me the tone I was after....now all I needed to do was capture it properly on the recording. I chose this guitar for this song because my fingers are quite as flexible as they used to be so some of the stretches were easier to make with this neck.

This is actually 3 separate acoustic tracks blended together but just a single take. I set up a medium diaphragm  EV Cardinal condenser mic placed about 6 inches out from 10th fret to give me some natural sparkle. I ran this into a Behringer invisible preamp (ADA8000 no noise or coloring). No compression was added to this track because I wanted it as clear, sparkly and natural sounding as I could get. This gave me that.

Next I went to work on the guitar's magnetic pickup, which is just straight out with no onboard preamp or volume control on the guitar so it's a weak signal. To boost the signal I plugged into a T.C. Helicon Vocal Correct channel strip preamp. Even though it's made for vocals it works great on guitar as well. The only functions I used in the strip were the preamp boost for a hotter signal and the de'ssing to help reduce the string finger squeaks. This unit has two outs so I ran them into an RNC Compressor to help control the signal peaks and then into the Behringer invisible preamp as a make up gain.  Once I had my three levels set I then adjusted the mic position slightly (in/out,  left/right, and up/down)  to get a decent headphone blend between the mic and the pickup sound. This is the tone/blend you're hearing on the recording.

For the mix I added some slight panned reverb delay on the two pickup tracks and the mic track is dry. I centered the mic track and panned the pickup tracks left and right at 9 and 3 o'clock respectively (using a clock's hour hand as a reference). Most of guitar's sound on the recording is coming from the mic'ed track and the other two are just supporting tracks. I didn't have to add any eq because the mic track is brighter and the pickup tracks are darker. In order to get the desired natural neck/body sound I just set the mic track's volume at zero and then raised the other two tracks to add the needed bottom end without degrading the mic'ed sound.

I also recorded in a different spot of my studio. I usually record facing out toward the middle of the room because it allows me more space for mic placement and I don't bump into things. This time, partly because of the smaller guitar,  I decided to face into my vocal corner. It has heavy blankets draped from the ceiling to the floor and out about 6" from the walls. This really knocks down room reflections when I'm recording vocals and my reasoning was it should do the same when recording an acoustic. Although a little cramped, it worked well. I now know I'm going to have to create more space in the corner so I can sit in there comfortably with my larger acoustic guitars.

As mentioned, this was a new recording procedure for me and I think it worked out well. My explanation makes it sound more complicated than it is. The key was to get the guitar's tone sounding right before I hit the record button. That was a combination of the down tuning, the mic, pickup, and room recording location. The set up took me about an hour that included a few 30 second test clips and play backs so I could zero in on the sound. But after that it took me an hour and half to play a clean 3 minute take, lol!

That's about it......if you or anyone has additional questions feel free to PM me.

Farrell