Robin Hood Brians

Recording a Vocalist Playing Acoustic Guitar

Sat, 01 Dec 2001 00:00:00 GMT

If you have ever recorded a vocalist who plays acoustic guitar, you know the scenario. Vocals leaking into the guitar mic, guitar leaking into the vocal mic and both of these problems compromise the options you would have had if you could have recorded each of them isolated. The EQ that makes the guitar sound wonderful puts an edge on the vocalist that makes Darth Vader sound pleasant. And, when you try to compress the vocals or add reverb, the guitar bleed becomes a 300 pound gorilla. The solution: a hyper-cardioid mic on the vocal (some folks call them super-cardioid), and a mic you can put very close to the acoustic without turning it into a monster.

I had run into this problem so often, I had planned to buy a condenser with a hyper-cardioid pattern. I had considered either a Neumann KMS 105 or if business is really good, the Neumann M149. Since I have plenty of good expensive vintage tube mics for vocals (Neumann U67s and AKG C12), I decided to save some bucks and try the Alesis GT AM62.

The Set Up

Vocal - I used the Alesis GT AM62 for the vocalist. It has a 1inch 3-micron gold evaporated Mylar diaphragm and 4 patterns, omni, figure 8, cardioid, and hyper-cardioid. It comes with power supply, 25ft cable, case and two mounts. One is a shock mount.

Guitar – I used the Alesis GT AM40 on the acoustic guitar. It is a front-addressed tube condenser mic that is very reminiscent of the early Telefunken or Neumann tube mics. It has a 15db pad and a low end roll-off. It comes with power supply, case, 25ft cable, and either regular mount (shock mount is optional) This mic was a cardioid version with a3/4" diameter gold evaporated Mylar diaphragm. Hyper-cardioid and omni capsules are also available for the AM40. I also recorded the direct out of the guitar pickup through a Countryman type 85 direct box. This is an all-discrete device.

All inputs were routed through API 3124+ mic pres and into a Mackie D8B. I did use a touch of compression using Behringer Composers on all three channels. The AM40 was 6-8 inches from the guitar. The singer was about 5-12 inches from the pop screen which was almost touching the mic. 5-12 inches represents the singer's range of working the mic.

The performances: I had the singer record 4 songs of different styles and volumes. One of the songs was very rowdy and gave me an opportunity to see if the close placement of the AM40 could provide enough separation for the guitar. He also sang one very soft song to test the hyper-cardioid pattern of the AM62. This was not an exceptionally good sounding acoustic guitar. Even though it was acoustic, it was really meant to be used with the pickup. However, the combination of the pickup and the mic, panned 45 degrees for stereo effect created a very credible sound. The singer was a pro in the studio and "worked" the mic enough to allow me to keep the compressor set to a very moderate amount of compression.

The Results

AM62: The AM62 is a tube mic, but has a crisp, clean top end that reminds you of a Sanken or a U87 that's had the top end "opened up" by Bill Bradley of the Mic Shop in Nashville. It did not require any EQ and that's rare for me. I can usually find a way to touch up the EQ and improve any sound. I discovered that you can achieve the "vintage" sound by simply rolling the very high end off and emulating the sound of the vintage Neumanns. This allows the smoothness of the tube to be more pronounced. Even though the singer was very close, I did not have to use the low end roll-off. Naturally, there was some guitar bleeding through the vocal mic. However, it was not enough to be a problem. The guitar did not have a booming low end like some guitars so, not using the low end roll-off preserved the bottom end presence. While the AM62 did not set the tube mic market on its heels when released, I think the hyper-cardioid feature gives it a very good reason to be in your mic collection.

AM40: I have two AM40s and have been using them for some time on guitars, amps, fiddle, and piano. In fact, I have not put an SM57 on a guitar amp since I got the AM40s. If this guitar had a booming low end, I would have probably used the 75hz low-end roll-off. However, the bottom end was mild enough that I could place the mic very close to the hole without any problem. The separation was unbelievable! I could not believe my ears. There was so little vocal coming through the AM40, it sounded like the vocalist was behind a gobo several feet away. And, the guitar sound was warm with plenty of clean top end. I really love these little mics. They have performed beautifully in every application I have tired.

Countryman Type 85 This is probably one of the best overall products ever made in America. They are rugged and deliver a smooth clean sound (thanks to the all discrete circuitry). I panned the direct input 45 degrees to the left and the mic 45 degrees to the right. Just a touch of flange from the Mackie D8B effects card made the guitar float on the slow songs. I did use quite a bit of EQ on the direct input. However, they almost always require more EQ than you would expect to use on a mic and, this guitar was no exception.

Tips

1. If you're recording an acoustic guitar that does not have a pickup, try using two mics: one in front where the neck joins the body, and the other in the back, at the other end of the body, set out of phase. Pan them 45-45. This works on some guitars better than others. If it does work… enjoy!

2. When you must record a singer who is not a true pro and does not know how to "work" a mic, record vocals on two channels; one hot and one backed off 12db. This will allow you to switch between the two when mixing and avoid having to use massive compression to protect against overs.

3. If the singer uses a "slab" electric guitar, still mic the strings very, very closely. You might be surprised how nice some songs sound with just a touch of the live pick sound blended in with the electric sounds.

4. If you should find yourself recording a singer who cannot carry a tune, has a terrible guitar that is out of regulation, and breaks meter... fake equipment problems and cancel the session. Life it just too short!!!

My thanks to John Byron Haynie for pickin' and singin' to help me with this little test. Check out his new double CD.

* The Alesis GT (Groove Tube) products I own were produced during the period when Aspen Pittman's famous Grove Tube Company was associated with Alesis. Groove Tubes is once again an independent company. Aspen Pittman is one of the true icons in the microphone industry. You really should check out Mr. Pittman's newest babies at http://www.gtelectronics.com.

For more information about Robin Hood Brians' other adventures, log on to http://www.robinhoodstudios.com.

Manley Massive Passive

Wed, 01 Mar 2000 00:00:00 GMT

The Manley Massive Passive EQ is a perfect example of recognizing that the old way of doing something was the best way. The passive circuitry by which they accomplish the EQ is made up of very stable components. Since they are not active (containing neither tubes or transistors) they generate no noise and generate less phase problems than active EQ. Manley has added a tube amplification section to then build the gain back to its original level (+4) The unit is stereo and each channel has low pass filters which can be set at 18kHz, 12kHz, 9kHz, 7.5kHz, & 6kHz, high pass filters that are switchable from 22Hz, 39Hz, 68Hz, 120Hz, & 220Hz, 4 EQ bands can be set to either shelf or bell curves, boost or cut, a gain control, bandwidth contol, frequency control and an in/out switch.

The Massive Passive has both balanced (XLR) input and output plugs as well as phone jacks which are set at the factory to unbalanced +4. There are provisions internally to change those plugs to -10 and for reversing the phase. The Manley Massive Passive uses 5751 and 6414 tubes. If you are accustomed to digging around in new solid state gear which uses low voltage dc power supplies (9-30v dc) you might be well advised to allow experienced service people dig into the amp in case you wish to go exploring.

Love at First Sight

When I took her out of the box, I knew it was love at first sight. I put on my hernia protector and lifted her onto the table top. She weighs in at a whopping 21 lbs. If you're a muscle bound weight lifter and are used to lifting racks with 12 rack spaces of the new "chip based" equipment and plan to mount several Massive Passives in it for portable use, bring a friend and a winch.

I started my engineering career in the early 1960s, so I still remember what it feels like to pick up a piece of gear that's built to live through the next tornado. The workmanship of the Manley Massive Passive is as good as it gets. It reminds me of the early Neumann, Neve, and Telefunken gear that's selling today for 25 times it's original list price. The Massive Passive is heavy duty, and every detail in the craftsmanship is perfect and classy.

I've read reviews that tell how the Massive Passive can make great singers and instruments sound "wonderful" and make the hair stand up on the back of you neck. Hell, I met a girl like that once... so, I married her! But every session is not one in which you're recording great singers and musicians under perfect conditions. The truth is, that if you understand how to select the right mic, know where to place it, and are recording a singer who has a voice like James Taylor, and plays acoustic like he does, you probably wouldn't need an Massive Passive - or any other EQ or compressors - for that session.

Manley Massive Passive: Blue-Eyed Angel

But, let's get our heads out of our armpits and get back to reality as most engineers know it. Not that I don't look forward to using the Massive Passive on Sally Semrad's clear, exciting voice, Billy Gibbons' amp or my $180,000.00 Bosendorfer Imperial Grand, but let's face the truth, a great EQ is most important to you when you're in a "session from hell." So, instead of asking the Blue-Eyed Angel to enjoy the easy stuff, I have decided to set out to see if she would wash my underwear, clean out the fridge, scrub the dirty bathtub, and then clip my toenails for me.

That's what true love is all about.

Wait a minute, all you feminist engineer types, don't be sending me nasty emails until you know that I carry out the trash, take care of the yard, cook most of our meals, wash the dishes, give my wife rubdowns, and yes, I changed dirty diapers on both our kids and consider that to be a badge of honor among real men. OK, that's settled.

When you turn on the Massive Passive, you need to be gentle and patient with her. Remember that she's an "good old-fashioned lady." She gets her power from tubes and needs just a few seconds to warm up before her beautiful blue eyes can flash at you. She ain't like them modern wenches who turn on really fast.

I realize that true love is supposed to be based on trust, so, I set out to test her a bit to see if she would tell me the truth. I ran my pink noise generator through her and watched my real time analyzer as I twisted her many beautiful knobs from one frequency to another, tried each step in the high pass and low pass filters, and checked out her curves in both shelf and bell positions. She was as true as any man could expect. In a time when most of us spend more time setting EQs on computer-based gear and think that we're actually seeing an accurate representation on the screen of what's happening to the sound (which we sometimes aren't), it feels good to me to have all the knobs there in front of me and be able to actually use both hands to change setting of a stereo signal at once, even if it's in different directions.

As an aside, I have checked all of the computer-based EQs that I have used and was surprised at the lack of accuracy between what's on the screen and what is actually happening to the music. Of course, if you really use your ears to make decisions on EQ, and you should, that's really not a huge factor.

Dirty Work

The first dirty work I asked my blue-eyed angel to do was process some drum sounds from a "Session From Hell." This session was cut elsewhere, cause the other guy was $30 an hour cheaper.

I worked for a photographer right out of high school. He had a sign on his wall that said, "You can always buy oats cheaper if you don't mind that they've already been run through the horse once."

As I took the ADATs out of their boxes, I started getting sick as I remembered how long I had to work to trigger samples off the live drum tracks. The bleed from one mic to another was terrible and I remembered that when I did this the first time, there was so much kick bleeding into the snare mics that I never could get a clean trigger from the top mic. Thank God he had used a bottom mic. I had to trigger from the bottom snare mic and I had mixed some of the kick mic in, out of phase, to help cancel enough of the kick so that I could get a clean track to use as a trigger.

This time, I was able to get a clean track for triggering in about 2 minutes with the Massive Passive. I used a combination of high pass filter and bottom EQ channel to clean up the kick, the low pass filter to trim out the cymbals and the remaining EQ sections to find and boost the unique frequency of the snare rattles. When this test was over, I realized how frustrating it is for me, and other engineers who spent decades with equipment that did not restrict the human-machine relationship by requiring all communications to go through a mouse. It makes me glad that many manufacturers of computer based gear are finally giving us a human/machine interface that allows us to be more productive.

The next dirty job I gave her was to take the breath pops out of the vocal track. Even at $30 an hour cheaper, the guy should have been able to afford a pair of panty hose and a coat hanger, and I guess he probably didn't have a monitor that showed how bad the pops really were. I not only worked on my big monitors while doing this task, but I patched my real-time analyzer on the output to assist me in determining just how much high pass I could get away with. I discovered that by using the high pass filter in conjunction with the low section of the EQ, I could remove most of the breath. With other EQs, I have experienced phase disturbances when working at or near the limit of the EQ. The Massive Passive was smooth as silk even at the more aggressive settings. And, the added pleasure came from the fact that the shelving on the second section from the bottom was able to reduce a lot of the proximity effect while the top section set to the shelf setting brought the highs up to brighten the top end of the voice without creating nasty peaks. Once again, the Blue-Eyed Angel lived up to her reputation.

Next, I asked my blue-eyed angel to help me take the cymbal bleed out of the electric guitar mic without destroying the crispness of the guitar so that I could flange the guitar without flanging the cymbals. Gosh, it really doesn't take a lot of flange on the cymbals to be very noticeable. It'll kinda make you feel like you're drunk. This was the toughest of all and required that I work quite a while arguing with myself about where to lop off the high end to reduce the cymbals and yet not lose the definition in the guitar. Actually, a little Vintage EXR exciter after the Massive Passive gave me the best of both worlds.

This is where the real knobs on the Massive Passive made the task so much less frustrating than digital gear with layers and pages, whether it be computer-based or stand alone. At first, I kinda missed being able to save EQ settings like I do on the computer and compare them. However, the in / out on the Massive Passive switch does allow you to compare the original signal with the processed signal, and after using the Massive Passive for a few hours I didn't even miss the save option. After all, I cut some pretty damned good records on an old 2 track Ampex with drums, bass, piano, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, steel, fiddle, and mandolin on one track and the lead singer and background group on the other. Sometimes I think we've all become anal-retentive about preserving all our options until the very end of the process.

The next job was an easy one. I have been running evaluations on the new line of GT Tube mics from Alesis. The AM 62 sounds a lot like a Neumann U67 in the midrange. However, it has a high end is designed to provide a breathy high end that is more like a Sanken. By playing with a shelf high end on the Massive Passive, I could reduce the crispness and make them sound almost identical. The smoothness of the operation of the Massive Passive combined with the "tube" sound of the gain section make it a breath of fresh air in the new digital world.

One word of caution. Many of the "session from hell" kind of uses I have described involve massive amounts of boost in one narrow frequency. Since the Massive Passive has no meters, you should be careful of your levels. I suggest returning the Massive Passive through the console with the fader set to unity gain. If you start getting in trouble, just leave the fader at unity and handle the gain adjustments on the EQ. In most cases, you would get in trouble at the console's input before the Manley Massive Passive would crater. (She NEVER cratered during our date.) And, in the kind of uses that you would normally be involved in, it's not a problem.

Pros

1. You can't get a better built piece of gear. This is a device that will literally last so long that it should be listed in your will.
2. If you were raised on digital gear, you will love the ability to grab her with both hands (she likes that, too!)
3. The "tube sound" of the gain section will help warm FET mics and samples. You might just want to leave it in the mix section all the time.
4. The four separate EQ sections with shelf and bell settings plus adjustable high and low pass filters make it possible to clear up problems while simply enhancing other frequencies.
5. If you spend a lot of time using either digital or analog Graphic EQs, you will probably be able to hear the difference in the smoothness of the passive shelves.

Cons

1. She's really heavy and takes more rack space than digital gear. So what?
2. She's a little pricey. Aren't most beautiful women?
3. I don't yet own one. I plan to change that as soon as possible.
4. No meters. If you don't own a console that has plenty of meters, you probably can't afford her anyway.

Beware: She's a heartbreaker! I now have to pack my Blue-Eyed Angel back in her box and send her back to Manley! I will be lonely without her. She's truly a work of art! If you have a choice between a vacation in Paris and a Massive Passive, stay home and start a relationship that will surely last a life time