[Video] Overture

Hi Guys,

Woke up at 12:30 am and can’t go to sleep. Anyways here is a link to you tube of me playing one of my pieces for classical guitar in my living room. The mic set up / room is pretty much the same for every song I have posted after I moved to this house which is around 2005. The mics are a pair of Oktavas MK12 in ORTF position. The actual video was taken with a Panasonic lumix T2 digital camera which doesn’t do well with low light which you will notice immediately. I feel pretty lucky I was able to sync the cubase audio file with the video under iMovie since the way I did it was dragging manually the audio file until it sounded to be in sync. Anyways, here is the link:

Cheers :slight_smile:

Nice! I like how the ORTF places the instrument over to the left quite naturally (just like the video). I’ve been using a “modified” ORTF lately (mic’s at 90 degrees) Can’t you brighten the video just a tad?

Good to hear from you again!

Very nice, Felix! I especially enjoyed the section from 1:53 - 3:00, but it’s all good.
If you ever record this in Cubase, the strummed part might benefit from a melody
on a wind instrument or something - at least that’s what I was hearing as I listened.

Good work!

Lenny

HI Doug

It’s been a long time. As a matter of fact I posted this video as a result of having some time alone after attending family matters while in Orlando, Florida. About the ORTF. Although ORTF is my own set up of choice I have noticed not many use it for recording acoustic guitars. Later on I will be posting another song I re-recorded this time in an actual recording studio while in Orlando (my very first time recording in a real recording studio) and the set up was very different which was using an AKG 414 looking straight to the neck and another one towards the bridge. As a matter of fact I will also post a video of the place so you can have an idea of what 45$ an hour will give you. But I digress. Regarding the video brightness. I guess I could play with the IMOVIE settings to see what I can do but because the image improves as more light gets in the window whatever I do to improve the the first half might be too much for the second half. Anyways, I am looking forward the meet you guys again in the next LGT.

Hi Lenny,

I agree with your assessment of adding an instrument on the strummed part. But I think I am going to wait to re-record this before doing that. The sound used in the video was actually recorded using Cubase. If you allow me to digress again, I was having the crazy idea of using Midtown Sound recording studio in NYC to do this. But is not a definitive because it is an expensive high end studio which usually asks 150$ and hour. We are talking Nora Jones and Chick Corea have recorded in this studio. The reason I’m interested in this place is because I met the owner Scott Noll under special circumstances and maybe he might be up to helping me in the project if he still remembers me when I get the courage (and money) to do it. Anyways, we should get together on a weekend now that the weather should start to warm up. P.S. I was watching today the video I took of the CT LGT and couldn’t remember If I sent you a copy of it. Let me know so I can send you one I you are interested. Oh and by the way if you know if there is a video from the LGT at your home let me know cause I would be interested in having a copy.

Cheers :slight_smile:

Wow, thats some very nice playing!

Body and neck is a great mic setup for accoustic guitar. I used almost the exact same setup on a track I did recently…


Re: “Twin” A new track from the project I’m working on

Postby Karl » 03 Mar 2011 08:55

twilightsong wrote:I thought I had commented on this in another thread

But now I must ask for acoustic guitar recording “secret” --signal chain, etc



No real secret to it. Recorded in my finished basement… carpeted floor, normal drywall etc…nothing unusual, ceiling is about 7.5 ft high. As a recording space for acoustic guitar, it’s probably no different from a normal bedroom home studio.

I used 2 mic’s, an AKG C414 XL2 on the body of the guitar, about 12" away, and a Sennheiser e914 small diaphram condensor pointed at the neck/13’th fret, also at about 12" away. The sound you hear is a mix of the two with a bias towards the Sennheiser (the neck mic will give you more of the sharp/percussive “string” sound but will also be a bit thin).

Both mic’s ran through a Steinberg MR816 mic pre (which I use solely as a mic pre/converter because it’s performance as a firewire audio interface doesn’t come close to my RME interfaces).

Very light compression on the track (just used a Steinberg Cubase standard compressor plugin) and a reverb send to a Waves Rennaisance Verb plugin (dont recall the preset i used but i did minor tweaking…mostly on the pre-delay and diffusion settings).

Dont recall what brand guitar it was, a pretty nice one but nothing spectacular.

Some folks (myself included) like to use a small diaphragm condenser for the neck…the smaller size can give a possibly better high freq response.

BTW…for whatever reason, the 13’th fret generally seems to be the best place to start aiming at.

that is a real artform on its own how you presented it, much respect!

What Bob said :smiley: and congratulations on your guitar playing skill.

Nice! :sunglasses:

Just wondered, can you not boost the vid brightness a tad with iMovie?

Thanks guys for the kind words. I did go to IMovie and played with the video brightness adjustment. It’s a tad better but there is only so much you can do when the original source is crap. However I have to say that the Panasonic Lumix TS2 camera is able to catch decent video if the light is bright enough. Anyways here is the link with the same video a tad brighter now.

cheers :slight_smile: