Hello friends Could you give me some tips for some acoustic mixes I'm doing? Two guitarists, bass, voice and percussion ( soft ) The idea is to make it sound as natural as possible. I have tried to compress the signals a bit with some compressors, but it loses the natural acoustic. Thank you very much !

 

a time ago i´ve had an recording session with two Mandolines and a Accordion.
same here, less eq&comp=better/natural
if i remember well, i´ve did´nt done much at all accept gainstaging, panning etc.
so, less is more...
(besides miking)

 

Last edited: Nov 30, 2019

Simple rule: the more you treat it, the less natural it sounds.

I'd clean some unnecessary low freqs to give it more transparency (do this while all tracks are running), tame some too sharp peaks (dynamic EQ), add a bit of rms/opto compression (you can put an opto on almost everything to fatten it a bit), a bit limiting and a nice room to give it some ambience, if necessary.

 

You might think about using minimal mics. Maybe just do a M/S config to capture all! Can sound very natural, and may be better because the more mics you involve, the more that phase cancellation is a problem.
I've captured exactly that line up with 2 mics in M/S and it was beautiful and had the full-range of frequencies.

Ah; but I'm assuming (I don't know why!) that you want to capture a live take of those musicians?

If not, and multi-tracking, then obviously you have more options.
Acoustic bass is upright or not?
And if those guitars are semi-acoustic, then definitely get a line out from them and mix it in with the mic.

I don't know, I'm just throwing you things to think about!

What are your mic choices?
And what is the environment?


Podrías pensar en usar micrófonos miniaturizados. Tal vez sólo haga una configuración M/S para capturar todo! Puede sonar muy natural, y puede ser mejor porque cuantos más micrófonos se utilicen, más problemas habrá para cancelar la fase.
He capturado exactamente esa línea con 2 micrófonos en M/S y era hermoso y tenía la gama completa de frecuencias.

Ah, pero estoy asumiendo (¡no sé por qué!) que quieres capturar una toma en vivo de esos músicos?

Si no, y multitracking, entonces obviamente tienes más opciones.
¿El bajo acústico es vertical o no?
Y si esas guitarras son semi-acústicas, entonces definitivamente saca una línea y mézclala con el micrófono.

No lo sé, sólo te estoy dando cosas en las que pensar.

¿Cuáles son sus opciones de micrófono?
¿Y qué es el medio ambiente?

 

Last edited: Nov 30, 2019

Well, that's exactly what happened to me. I put a compressor on it that I really like...and it sounded nice...but then I said...this is not what I want...it starts to stop being acoustic and natural. It is that there are so many tools in these times that I thought something subtle, could help. But I agree that sometimes less is more

 

Thanks, buddy. I hadn't thought of that...you're right. Cutting in the low frequencies will make it sharper. I made the mistake of giving presence to voices and guitars in the mid-high, but then I took out all that eq .....that opto compressor did not know ... now I will try ... very useful.

 

Hello friend how are you ? You took the trouble to translate it. Thank you very much, you are very kind The recording is me alone xd. Unfortunately I can't buy anything. Here is the economic crisis Tracks are already recorded (although you could record again) My room is very big 5x5x10 meters high. What I have had very bad experiences recording the acoustic guitar by air...so I had to record it by line... I have a cad gxl 220. And a common bass and guitar jajaaa. I know I can't ask much of the sound, but I'd just like it to sound natural.

 

Saturation, especially freq dependent ones, mostly sound more natural than an EQ.

 

Last Time I did this I great time with switching out preamps from the henry olonga nebula bundle,
it's old and maybe absolute at this point (especially what Acustica is offering right now)

but I got some general points to add:

1. if you're not compressing at all, it might be a good idea to re-think your gating tactics.
   
2. pay extra attention to the sibilance overall. try to manage sibilance by how it interacts with the room/reverb/mic
   
3. A guitar that occupies the full frequency spectrum keeps being un-impressive every time you listen to it, You need to commit too a "sound" by cutting excessive meat.
   
4. when you collapse the stereo mix too mono the guitars should not collapse "over" the vocal, overcome this by grouping the guitars together (after panning)and fiddle with mid-side eq. (preferably static to maintain dynamics)
5. delays are naturally occurring phenomena, so do consider applying some too acoustic mixes.

 

Last edited: Nov 30, 2019

Just yesterday I was thinking about it...I was going to ask if there was any vst that could create natural harmonics according to the instrument or the mix...then I remembered that the harmonic saturation towards that...I will try that too. Thanks bro

 

Thanks bro for aswing...i try this now...and a time ago i try nebula...but never for something acoustic...i try so

 

This is the idea ( no have nothing eq , compresor,etc).