A while back I was reading one of my favourite books on recording, ‘The Recording Engineers Handbook’ by Bobby Owsinski when I came across a trick I promised myself I would try.
The trick itself itself was to tune an acoustic to the key of the song your recording, place said acoustic next to amp then place a mic near the body facing the soundhole.
This trick was designed for a clean guitar sound and is supposed to have the effect of creating a tuned reverb chamber.
So today a friend and I decided to give the trick a go.
We used my Mexican Fender Telecaster and set up my Fender Champion 600 as below.
Mics used in above picture are a SM57 and a SM58.
Set amp volume to middle and set Electro Harmonix Double Muff (single muff)
First recording we did was micing the strings and body. We used a Takstar PCM 6100 – cheapo condenser mic that is worth much more than the £4 I paid for it on fleabay.
The second recording we did was by placing the mic over the F hole as pictured below.
Each time we recorded we split the recording onto two tracks.
In each case Track 1 we have the ‘tuned reverb’ and Track 2 we have our main track.
To boost(exaggerate) the reverb I then placed a compressor on the the ‘reverb’ track.
So first recording: Mic on the strings ->
no reverb
[audio:http://www.untidymusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Strings_hole_clean.mp3]with reverb
[audio:http://www.untidymusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/Strings_hole_Reverb.mp3]Second recording: Mic on the F hole ->
no reverb
[audio:http://www.untidymusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/F_hole_Normal.mp3]with reverb
[audio:http://www.untidymusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/F_hole_Reverb.mp3]The resonator is a Harley Benton HBN100 that I was bought. It came from Thomann and for £200 it’s well worth it.
Apart from the compression applied to the first track there has been no other processing applied.
Best to listen with headphones or dedicated speakers.