Guitar Mic Techniques for Guerrilla Recording

As another addition for your guerrilla field manual, several short video tutorials on the basics of recording guitars. CHiTT Productions weighs in with other insights after the jump.







Recording guitars on fly? The slightest microphone adjustments, not to mention the microphone you pick for the job, can be the difference between a full bodied sound or weak tracks. Remember, isolation is key in guerrilla recording, because your room might not be ideal. The best and clearest recordings most often come by capturing a faithful representation of the source material without a lot of unnecessary coloration or haphazard experimentation. You want your tools to be as transparent as possible, only adding that coveted "character" (whether from a mic or an effect) only when it's necessary.

Often we choose to record with one mic as the "transparent" mic in a close-mic position (with as little room sound as possible, positioned at the "sweet spot" of the instrument/speaker). If we've got extra tracks to play with, then we'll add another mic for experimentation, maybe off axis or placed further back in the recording space. Once the mix is sounding pretty balanced in its later stages with just the dry mics laying the foundation of the mix, then we add the tracks with more daring mic positions to spice the overall flavor or character. We might even choose later on to swap out the experimental track for the conventionally mic'ed one if it sounds good, but we'd hate to be trapped down the road with a mix full of experimental mic positions that can't be used because we weren't hearing something right at the time. While and entirely close-mic'ed mix will sound, well, like a closely mic'ed mix, unless you're recording in the Taj Mahal of locations, you're probably better off letting digital reverb liven up a mix while guerrilla recording.

The quickest and truest way to get awesome tracks while guerrilla recording (since in the field we don't have the luxury of a sonically balanced mix station/control room) is to get a pair of Extreme Isolation headphones and a 30-50 ft. headphone extension cable. Get right up in the thick of it with your isolation headphones on and solo the channel of instrument in question and move the mic around until you get that sound. What's that sound? Shoot for what you imagine it would sound like if you took your headphones off and stuck your ear right close to the speaker or instrument (pain threshold notwithstanding). Let the music be as dirty as it wants to be, but good guerrilla recordings come from being as clean as possible right up front (i.e. good gain structure, isolation, conservative mic placements, etc.). We experiment in the field when time and tracks permit, but save most of the fun for the non-destructive mixdown stage.

Since guerrilla recording is often without a budget, chances are you're not going to have golden mics at your disposal. Never fear, budget mics still can kick some serious burgeios butt, and you'll never end up missing the cash you would've spent.

For electric guitar speaker cabinets, the Shure SM57 obviously ranks as the most accessible and time-tested solution for close mic'ing speakers. The best part of this mic is that it still turns up in yard sales, 18 years old, dented and still working; still a perfect addition to the mic stash, and it can mic just about anything else in a pinch. But for ~about~ the same store price as the 57 the Sennheiser e609 wins the day for guerrilla recording, even if it is just a little too pretty. It makes close-mic'ing a breeze because it hugs the grill and its supercardioid pattern rejects bleed from other instruments in your small recording space or live situation (works great for toms too!).

For acoustic guitars you've got to go condenser. The SM57 sounds too "rugged" and unintentionally lo-fi in most applications (although there are times it can actually clean up some really bad sounding instruments). Ideally we'd love to use condensers with crystalline rapport-- of course, everyone would, but they're hard to come by on a beer budget. Rode mics, such as the NT-5, seem to be the mid-pro level choice for honest and accurate mic'ing, but for the price, we've never laid our hands on a pair so we can't vouch for its authority (any donations?). More modestly priced are the awkwardly vessel-like AKG C-1000s. Nice presence with clarity, but enough bottom end to feel the wood of the guitar. If you're recording in a suitably vibrant room with little extraneous noise, the standard cardioid pickup pattern will pick up a nice amount of room sound. If not, the hypercardioid capsule will tighten the pickup pattern without sacrificing too much range.

On even more of a budget? The AT2021 is a versitile small diaphragm condenser that just works. Although it's a little active and bright in the high end while still managing to be less articulate with the high-mids, its still a reasonably impressive and budget-minded choice for recording detailed instruments. The selling point is that the AT2021 comes only with the AT2020, its side-adress bigger brother, sold as the AT2041 package. With a little searching you might find both for lower than its minimum advertised price, costing only about as much as a new SM57 in a store. Both mics share the same capsule design, take high SPLs and are very versitile, whether overheads, vocals or instruments, without adding too much flamboyant color.