I would like to know what you think and what experiences you have.

The rooms in my house are 5x7 meters. I have a very wide natural reverb.
Now, when I record with the microphone close up, I don't like the bounce sound it has, and I always end up isolating the microphone somewhere else, or removing reverb from it with some plugin. Then later I put a reverb of a vst.
But I was wondering if I put another microphone away to pick up just the reverb, would that be a good idea. Will it be better than a plugin reverb? or it could have phase problems and other things that could mask the sound?.

Another thing that I tried that I liked (in a certain way) how it turned out, is to record the sound of the electric guitar without amplifying, that is, that the microphone takes the ambience of the "Pick" and then I mix it with what I recorded by line. And I think it gives it a certain touch of realism. This I saw what they had done with the NI guitars, since investigating the samples they have the recording of the line and recording of the environment.

Well what do you think?

 

ANY time you can record a real space, and it works and sounds good, I would. Qualifier is that it sounds good.

 

I wrote 250+ scientific and general public articles on it and I disagree power 10000.

Me and my colleagues too.

Copy / pasting anything that you find on the web is really not the way to go. It's in fact more than boring.

END.

( Staff has explained me several times now that I'd rather not give details about ( my ) real life, so, that's it. I understand why now and agree. )

 

Last edited: Jul 22, 2022

Go for it !
If you'd knew how my " heroes " in this domain have recorded a certain number of absolutely MYTHICAL albums this way, you'd be astonished ( maybe you do know ).

Avoid removing the reverb, it'll sound very unnatural.

A SM57 in front amp cab with Celestion Greenback(s). Ask ( or Google / Bing ) Mike Frazer : no reverb, nothing, just dry. And for Malcolm Young, you get " Back On Black ", as pure as this. The solution used everywhere, all the time. Why ? It simply works.

For vocals : we recorded a (magnificent) lady singing in a " dead " echo bathroom, trapped inside there because of some huge noise coming from the road works ( despite isolation of the studio ). I had just to cut out a " strange sound " here and there ( water drops from the tap, every 2 min or so ). It went into the final mix.

Many amazing vocals have been recorded with a simple SM58.

A little one sweetie who I had to record very quickly for a demo in my home, despite a thunderstorm coming outside in the mountains. The SM58 heard nothing of that storm. She sang beautifully and the almost no ambiance demo track made it on the final album too. All songs 2 takes max for her vocals, what a talent !

Absolutely.

Absolutely again. As used by the Mixers of Mixers Bob Clearmountain : for amp cabs or for generic reverb in a staircase ( with different flavors depending of the humidity that day in the staircase ).

Same for George Massenburg.

And of course same at Abbey Road Studios for Gilmours' guitars. Etc. Etc.

I use NO cabinets since years. And certainly none of those fake " IR " which represent not at all the reality.

ANYONE into acoustics knows that it is impossible to describe the behavior of a speaker cabinet which is a NON-LINEAR system, with a Dirac / IR theory which applies EXCLUSIVELY to linear systems. ( Already demonstrated, I won't start again, it's boring. )

A reactive load. No need to be expensive : I use Frank Zappa's Silent Speaker ( Harry Kolbe ) + the Palmer PDI 09 " The Junction ".

The PDI 03 is good, but it's NOT reactive, it's just some resistors + " The Junction " inside a 1 U rack. ( Resistive only because of a patent issue; " another company " had already one patent for such a reactive load idea, so it was the resistors + Junction filter or nothing ; a quick résumé here. )

If you can't find a Silent Speaker, the people at Tube-Town ( Germany ) make a nice copy ( ok : inspired ahem... ) of it for 100 € / 50W ( " Kit TT Tonehound " ).

If you know how to solder, you buy the electronic / electric components only, that would be... 30 € ? As you'll see from the " Kit TT Tonehound " pics, there is not much in there : a basic RLC circuit.

Most of guitars /amps on albums we recorded like this, since 20+ years. Some use(d) the Palmer(s) live, as that guy Edward Lodewijk V. H. ( )

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Mr Ryck : you're on the right track, as prove your questions and ideas ( and I don't usually abuse of compliments ) .

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Dawn Langstroth : " Stranded "

album " Highwire "

Blackbird Studio C aka the Massenburg room, with Mr. George Massenburg, mixing live :

( That room has been transformed ; it's for Dolby Atmos mixing now ; ... sad ... )

 

Last edited: Jul 23, 2022

Thechnique aside, i don't think there's a lot of benefit from a real room mic unless the source is too big, there are many sources making sound at the same time, or you just want a room mic for other specific reason.

Asuming it sounds good, in theory it's still a relatively small room. Do you use room reverbs a lot? Also consider you won't be able to fiddle with it a lot so you'll have to adapt everything else so it plays nice with that sound. If the source is a guitar and nothing else, i'd say stick to plugin reverbs.

If you have the extra mic, just try it yourself. There are plenty of ways of using a room mic on guitars and for some genres it might be great. Just record a few takes and try doing the same with a room reverb, see which one fits you better.

Yup, but if it's just a guitar and one room mic (plus the close mic) it should be pretty easy to get things in order.

If you're doing this for a living just go for what it works consistently, probably the plugin. But consider miking the room anyway, there are lots of interesting spots and ways of miking a room, some of which will be unique to yours, so it'll be a lot of fun and a good exercise about miking stuff. A well recorded room is really some gourmet shit, but it might take some practice.

THIS.

 

Don't contemplate, just use a room mic if you have it - find a sweet spot. Throw it on a track w/ fader down. Raise the fader a bit or not at all for that session. Keep all of ur tools n' options at your fingertips if you need them.

 

My first thought about using real reverb was the reverb chamber at Capitol Records and how they have used it in the mix of the Beach Boys Surfin' USA.

The dream that slipped away from me was to be able to buy our family's ancestoral farm in southeastern West Virginia. Under the land are caves that I would have used as natural reverb chambers, running lines through the ground up to the studio and placing a speaker inside the cave to run a track to be picked up by a pair of microphones. Oh well.

 

This is what Beta16 does all the f**king time. Google + copy paste the first result, even if it is irrelevant.

I called him out once, but I was outnumbered because he is more popular. Definitely one reason I don't really bother engaging on this forum.

 

yes ¡ if you like how it sounds just DO it ¡

 

Sir, that's EXACTLY why I almost never come here. 2 times this week, first one was cool++, but that's enough with this one now.

Sad as there are nice people here it seems. But that continual copy/paste of that " BEAT16 ", really ?!?! Everywhere, all the time! All he finds, " even if it is irrelevant " as you wrote. I'm old enough to read Wikipedia by myself ( and correct it, it happens ).

When I loggin into AZ, and I see AGAIN the so-called " feed " filled with his yada yada : no, no and no! Even more of course when I read some assertions totally wrong.

I can assure you that " showing off " with something like : " I wrote 250+ scientific and general public articles on it and I disagree power 10000. " is NOT something funny at all to insert here. I really hesitated. But at one moment, one must stop the proliferation of those cockroaches of claptrap with a definitive, clear, sharp and definitive - authentic of course - weapon.

Popular ? On this site ? WOW. Who cares ? Those who just downloaded a free software which once installed on their computer makes them think they are suddently a " recording engineer " or " mastering engineer " ? I'm impressed.

The real students and passionates shut up and listen.

Now I yell as Nisargadatta Maharaj : excellent, I'm making progress ! .

Or Ritchie Blackmore .


PS : That : " The Ritchie Blackmore Story " documentary shows him exactly as he is, as for this rare moment he " opens up ". And how funny he is ! Or that interview where he explains that Smoke on the Water = Beethoven''s 5th in reverse, going on with his really (fake) serious look and that idiot journalist believes him !

 

Last edited: Jul 22, 2022

I think if you really have the time and energy to actually set this "system" of mics to try to get this reverb effect, and like it, then go for it.

For me, I'm a really lazy person so I would never be bothered to put the effort of a native reverb like that. But I think if you want to go ahead

 

At least im not the only one who is so turned off by that behaviour.. when i had a problem he bombarded me with copy paste "solutions" that had nothing to do with anything but just distracted from the problem and when confronting him with that, letting him know his behaviour was that of a bot, he was trying to insult me, but didnt even stop his copy paste attacks. even when i asked him to please just stop replying lol.
And i still believe he is some kind of bot.

 

Last edited: Jul 22, 2022

Wikipedia (/ˌwɪkɪˈpiːdiə/ (listen) wik-ih-PEE-dee-ə or /ˌwɪki-/ (listen) wik-ee-) is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers through open collaboration and a wiki-based editing system. Individual contributors, also called editors, are known as Wikipedians. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read reference work in history. It is consistently one of the 10 most popular websites ranked by the Similarweb and former Alexa; as of 2022, Wikipedia was ranked the 7th most popular site. It is hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, an American non-profit organization funded mainly through donations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia

 

That's exactly the issue. I'd rather come on here and see an incorrect but genuine reply, than an unrelated copy paste - you can still learn something from an incorrect opinion. Otherwise it feels like taking to a bot, as you pointed out.

I used to discover lots of things I didn't know and go down some interesting rabbit holes, thanks to the experience of members here like @DAW . Now I click on a new thread and 85% of the time the first reply is a huge irrelevant copy paste from you-know-who - really bloody puts me off.

When I called Beat out on this he called me a "foreign troll" which I found quite amusing. Aren't we all foreign to somewhere else? Oh well.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisargadatta_Maharaj

Nisargadatta Maharaj (17 April 1897 – 8 September 1981), born Maruti Shivrampant Kambli, was an Indian guru of nondualism, belonging to the Inchagiri Sampradaya, a lineage of teachers from the Navnath Sampradaya and Lingayat Shaivism.

The publication in 1973 of I Am That, an English translation of his talks in Marathi by Maurice Frydman, brought him worldwide recognition and followers, especially from North America and Europe.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritchie_Blackmore

Richard Hugh Blackmore (born 14 April 1945) is an English guitarist and songwriter.He was a founding member of Deep Purple in 1968, playing jam-style hard rock music that mixed guitar riffs and organ sounds.He is prolific in creating guitar riffs and classically influenced solos.

 

Reported for making me spit my tea all over my phone.

 

Thank you for taking the time to explain and share your experience. I'm just recording with Shure 58 (I only have one) I also have a condenser, a Cad. But it takes a lot of treble and I don't like it very much, since it doesn't sound as natural as the Shure. And I always wonder. But shouldn't I record with the condenser? But then I hear shure 58 and say, this is more like my voice! The idea would be to sing with the shure and for the condenser to pick up the reverberation. I think I should put the microphone on top of the room and as they said, try several places. Yesterday I did a quick test with another dynamic Mic (low quality) and I took very little reverberation, but I liked it when I moved the track a little creating a double effect, it gave it another color. I also have an old amp, a peavey, but I kept it because I thought vsts were more realistic, I think I'll take it out again and try to use it. It's true what you say that the Shure takes almost no noise, and that's why I use it too. That song sounds great the one you shared, I don't know what microphone it is, but you can tell it's very good, it seems to be from a large capsule.

 

That real sound of the caves must be fantastic, but more than anything, if you are there listening to it.

 

I couldn't see carefully what BEAT16 wrote because yesterday I quickly saw the answers from my cell phone, and now I connect it to the PC to read it carefully. Now I see that he deleted it, I think there was a video and I was going to see it.

I don't really know what he said or what it was about, I'm also very noob with reverbs so I don't know.

Anyway I have seen several people who sometimes put irrelevant answers in other posts. But I take it that they want to help, and in their good will they are wrong. I explain? I once asked about something specific and received a barrage of answers that had nothing to do with the answer, but I took it as "attempted to help". In addition to me in particular, although the answer is not entirely relevant, it helps me to orient myself when I am lost.

But I understand that there are people who could get upset and stop participating, because if they ask something like
"You know a reverb plugin" and you put a link to a Chorus, he might get annoyed.
But hey, it depends on each person.