Aproaches to a good acoustic tone?

[stringsandkeys89]

Hello, I have some questions reguarding tracking acoustic instruments with Pro Tools 8 with the digi and waves mercury plugins. I use an MXL 992 condesor mic thru the mbox 2 pro.

From when ive started ive come along way with tones and tones on pro tools, but I always want to improve and learn,hear & see new things. I know the best method is to experiment and I do lots and lots of that. I would like to hear about other peoples aproaches and get other musicians and engineers input and hear about there techniques. Sometimes experimentings I feel like Im hearing something deaf like ( where I just dont understand it) or I hear something and its either I dont know or spend time trying to find out what is.

Basically I start by micing my takamine about 6inches from the guitar more from the neck side. I put my volume on the mbox for the input at somewhere around quarter and half way. I almost always double the acoustic track or part of whatever it is. I do not copy and paste. I make a new track and rerecord the part following along to the first recorded. Once both of my tracks are there I put the SSLEQ on both of them just one of the tracks focus on more of the high freq and the other eq focus on the left mid and low eq. Then I compress both tracks, but I do not use the same compressor for each. On one of the tracks I put the digi compressor/limiter on the acoustic guitar preset and put the gain up the tiniest bit. On the other guitar track I put the SSLcompression and set the thresh about half way between center nd left side. the gain all the way to the right, attack either 1 or 4 the release I put auto, the rate i put somewhere to the right side.

Is this a good starter. I mean I like the sound that I get but I know my gut feeling tells me it could be alot better. I know with this way of doing it I do some stuff right, yet doing wrong.

Any insight tips

Thanks for reading! Greatly Appreciated!

[lincol1]

Can't help but see some things that don't seem to add up. If I were you I would sell mercury and buy some books, mics, and maybe a new mbox. Experimentation is good, but I've found it necessary to learn the rules before breaking them.

I'd recommend moving away from some of the habits you are building right now. Instead of turning a knob (almost as a rule) to the same position each time, start to work with the response you are getting from your equipment - your meters.

When talking about compression, threshold settings will depend on the amount of gain reduction you are seeking, which will determine the amount of make up gain to apply. The attack and release times will depend on things such as the instrument, (or voice), genre, and over all sound desired. Etc...

Maybe learn a little more about the tools you are using, I bet you'll be exposed to so many more possibilities at that point. I say this this with all due respect. This is meant to be a constructive post.

Oh yeah Ill also throw some of the basics of ac gtr recording at you. As for micing I usually prefer a small diaphragm condensor depending on the actual gtr and genre. I generally employ some sort of high pass filter to remove low end rumble. This could happen on the mic itself, the preamp, or a plugin. As for mic placement, sounds like you are pretty close on this. A great starting point is 6-12 inches from the gtr aimed slightly off axis at the 12th fret. But then, I tend to put on a set of headphones and move the mic around while the guitarist is playing to find any sweet spot. Then depending upon the room, the genre, the player, the tempo, the song, the guitar, steel or nylon, the arrangement, the overall sound, might employ another mic etc...etc.

As for which preamps, way beyond the scope of this post - but the level from the preamp - I shoot for peaks just hitting in the yellow so to speak. Anything after this I tend to see as artistic choice, such as doubling, eq, comp, reverb, delay, etc...

Let me stop here and make room for others to chime in. Best of luck

[stringsandkeys89]

Thanks man! And none offense taken, im here to learn I want to know what im doing right and wrong. As far as returning everything lol well I cant necessarily do that, I have a presonus firewire box but have not bought the wires for it. Once I have that hooked up I was planning on selling the mbox, but as for now im not ready to do that yet. As for the waves, My friend who plays in a band called Life Between Sleep also engineers hooked me up with them to give me more to expirement with.

I do appreciate your feed back and yes I have been reading books forums etc all over. I even have an audio engineering textbook that goes over everything that i have been reading and looking back to for referannce. That is another reason why I am posting on here to see options and hear other musicians and enineers input and feedback.

Thank you very much for your feedback.

I guess im looking for a little more specificly what I can do with what I work with or some tips that are almost universal for everyone, and with adding rtas plugins what am I looking for and how would I go about it.

[stringsandkeys89]

Anybody?