Making my acoustic guitar recordings suck less

bermudianbrit

Morning all,

My current set-up is a Rode NT1 going into  a Focusrite. The room is untreated with a blanket hung behind the mic stand to kill reflections.
I mostly am doing fingerstyle recordings with just guitar or guitar and vocal (vocal recorded separately). Its a hobby but I'm fairly perfectionistic about it.
Would a set of SDC microphones be better? About £500 budget here for upgrades that will make a difference. Or is the Rode NT1 about as good as it can reasonably get at this point? Sadly the room cannot be treated for the foreseeable.

Thoughts welcome

Bod

A common technique is to play with a sheet of wood underneath the guitar to generate some controllable early reflections.  Maybe you could share some examples with us?

Winny_Pooh

You are better treating the space the mic is facing, eg placing the blanket behind you and the guitar. 

Is this solo guitar? If so then you can look at a stereo SDC set like the SE electronics SE5 or SE8 or at higher budget Aston Starlight.
But... sdcs sound "sharper" and you will want them a bit further back from the guitar than than a single LDC to soften the attack and have a stereo view, which then means you need a more carefully treated space. Ideally two gobos on a V shape behind you higher than your head when seated. If the room is too small this will never quite work as well as with a bigger room where the close reflections are softer in volume and arrive later.

However, if you are fine with mono, get the same gobo setup and a better LDC like an Audio Technica AT4047 etc etc that you can place a foot away from the 15th fret angled at the soundhole which will work in a track 80% of the time and be less fussy about the room size.

Stuckfast

I agree you'd be better hanging the treatment behind you rather than behind the mic.

Beyond that what I'd suggest is that you do a fairly rigorous experiment with mic placement. Record the same piece with the mic in, say, ten different positions near the guitar. Normalise all the recordings so that they're the same level and then see what you prefer. The general default advice is to have the mic pointing at the neck/body join but in my experience there are often much better options. For instance, below the guitar looking up at the soundhole is often a good choice.

Macca_25387

I would stick with one mic for now. Having two mics can bring in phase problems and make it more complex than it needs to be. As above some sort of duvet hung over a mic stand behind you should give you improved results. 

spark240

Do you have a pickup?