Best Settings for Acoustic Recordings?

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Level 1

4 points

Best Settings for Acoustic Recordings?

Hi I was wondering what the best settings are (preset preferably) for acoustic songs to get them sounding as clean/clear and professional as possible? I have a Blue Snowball mic and I record each different part on a different track...one track for lead vocals, different tracks for harmonies, and a track for acoustic guitar (by playing it into the mic, not direct in). I've tried a few things but I'm never really satisfied....Live Performance has way too much reverb and echo which kind of drowns everything out, Male Basic is too plain, and when I pair that with a good guitar setting like Bright or Natural, it just sounds off.

I guess my main thing is I can never get my voice to sound good, or good paired with the guitar. It's like any echo drowns out my vibrato, but it sounds so plain without it. One time I tried putting the Natural Guitar setting on it and it sounded great as far as vibrato goes, but it didn't sound right for a voice.

Here are a couple examples of things I've recorded to get a feel for how I play/sing. Listen to the last minute or so of the first link to get a feel for how loud I am sometimes.

http://www.zshare.net/audio/9081613535227a9e/

This one is an example of too much echo drowning out vibrato.

http://www.zshare.net/audio/91232519619d1fee/

Thanks for anyone who can help me out!

Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Jun 9, 2011 11:56 PM

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Answer 1

HangTime

Level 9

53,853 points

Jun 10, 2011 6:16 AM in response to Ptmac415

Ptmac415 wrote:

Hi I was wondering what the best settings are (preset preferably) for acoustic songs

there really is no such thing as "the perfect setting," it would be like asking "what is the perfect color to paint an image of the sky," much like that, it all depends

you might be thinking of presets in the wrong way, they are simply templates from which to start out. if you have a preset you like overall, but has too much echo, turn down the echo (and then save that as a new preset for future use). play around with the effect settings to find what you like.

sculpting a recording depends on your room, your distance from the mic, your voice, your guitar, your strings, your style of singing/playing, etc... in other words it will always be different from one person to another, and sometimes vary from recording to recording by the same person

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