Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: Phil66 Nov 10 2015, 09:06 PM

Hello everyone,

I tried to record my Yamaha FG411-CE the other night for the Bucharest thread in the creativity workshop but it sounded lifeless. I used my Boss GT-001. I think the strings have been on it for a long time and I'm going to change them at the weekend could this be the main reasons or is it more difficult than electric?

I do have some acoustic patches on the GT-001 but they sounded awful.

Any suggestions?

Cheers

Posted by: Mertay Nov 10 2015, 09:43 PM

The built in mic.'s really makes a difference in such guitars, I haven't heard a really bad one in a long time but as for expectations its hard to say if its the problem or not.

If the eq on it couldn't help enough sure new strings are always good, the thing is they all sound different too I don't own an acoustic but if you trust your store guy you can take his advice. A friend of mine likes Elixir strings if it helps...

For recording using extra eq or patch/presets will only confuse you if you aren't experienced with fx. Presets are ment to be tweaked so if you didn't like them thats cool don't worry. I for example hate presets

Try adding only a chorus plug-in (might have presets for acoustic guitar) if your DAW has one it should help, just try not to overdo it. Reverb can also add depth but I don't know how familiar you are with using fx so if you don't feel comfortable then skip this stuff, some experimentation is always necesaary though.

Posted by: Phil66 Nov 10 2015, 10:02 PM

Cheers Mertay,

I'll try the new strings first. This has soaked up so much time along with my other issue (Sex Pistols).

Thanks

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Nov 11 2015, 02:02 PM

Hi Phil, yeah, new strings is the first thing to try. Then, if you are still uncomfortable with tone you can experiment with EQ, or recording this with an external condenser mic (Do you have one?)

Check out this video:

Posted by: Phil66 Nov 11 2015, 09:55 PM

Thanks Gab,

I'll look at that tomorrow now, I decided, like a fool, to change my acoustic strings tonight That took longer than expected, bridge pins flying out all over the place

Cheers

Phil

Posted by: Darius Wave Nov 12 2015, 09:42 AM

Patches called "acoustic" are usually dedicated for electric guitar in case of guitar fx. Those are made to extend the range of highs to make you electric guitar sound closer to acoustic but it usually does not work well with electro-acoustic guitars. To be honest best would be to plug your guitar straight to line in of your soundcard and use just a little compression + reverb in your DAW. Of course only if you are not able to record through a microphone (would be the best solution - usually condenser is good for the purpose).

The problem between natural (and microphone) vs line out tone is the midrange. We get a lot of midrange through the line out(piezo pickup) that is not present in a natural tone of guitar we hear in the room. Other words...line out guitar will sound slightly "fake". There are some great preamps like fishman aura that has virtual eq match to simulate the tone of true guitar body and mic but the cost is more expensive than actually buying the mic. From the other side...it makes sense if You play live or...If you can't have perfect silence at your place, to properly record through the mic.


If you decide to use your Boss anyway, make sure to turn off everything aside from reverb and delay. We don't want the signal to be filtered by any kind of electric guitar amp simulation. Also...very often cutting a lot of middle on the guitar built-in preamp will make the tone sound more comparable to sound you would get through microphone

Posted by: Phil66 Nov 12 2015, 09:54 AM

Thanks Darius,
There is a small collection of patches on the GT001 for acoustic guitar and some for vocals. I'm starting to think they are for a mic situation in both cases rather than a line for the guitar. I'll put some screen shots on this evening when I get back from work.
Thanks again
Phil

Posted by: Darius Wave Nov 12 2015, 12:27 PM

For vocals sure but for el-ac guitar not necessary Line out connection is most often used on live performances due to unwanted feedbakc you could get from the mic (unless you you a piezo+mic preamp in your guitar). Maybe you could post a sample so we could see how it sound through your boss?

Posted by: Phil66 Nov 12 2015, 12:49 PM

Thanks Darius,
I'll post tonight, I changed strings last night so may be a little bright.
I saw Eric Sardinas supporting Mr Vai once and he was playing his electro acoustic through a bank of Marshalls it was incredible.
Cheers
Phil

Posted by: Phil66 Nov 12 2015, 09:06 PM

OK, here are some samples. I've named them after the presets. I haven't altered the presets and the EQ on guitar (I only have bass and treble) is set pretty central on each.
Please excuse the poor playing, the guitar needs a good setup and I am very very rusty on acoustic, it felt like running the hurdles

For some reason the "AC FOR ARPEGGIO" Soundcloud embedded player isn't showing

AC BODY MID
https://soundcloud.com/gmcphil-1/ac-body-mid

AC FOR ARPEGGIO
https://soundcloud.com/gmcphil-1/ac-for-arpeggio

AC FOR STRUM
https://soundcloud.com/gmcphil-1/ac-for-strum

AC FOR SOLO
https://soundcloud.com/gmcphil-1/ac-for-solo

AC 2X2 CHO
https://soundcloud.com/gmcphil-1/ac-2x2-cho

Cheers, any advice appreciated.

Phil

Posted by: Phil66 Nov 14 2015, 08:33 PM

Any tip folks? It does sound better with the new strings in though.

Thanks

Posted by: Mertay Nov 14 2015, 08:43 PM

Could you share a downloadable link? even a better quality mp3 would help. Dry sound with strumming would be perfect (so you can add the fx you like later)

Posted by: Phil66 Nov 14 2015, 10:09 PM

Is this ok? Completely dry, not even the acoustic processor as pictured. The options in the right hand drop down are "small" "medium" "bright" and "power".

 DRY.mp3 ( 1.3MB ) : 53


As you can see everything in the effects chain is off.



Thanks Mertay, your help is much appreciated.

Posted by: Mertay Nov 14 2015, 10:58 PM

Cool, this is the eq setting I came up with try matching it with any eq you have. The shape doesn't have to be perfect but keep an eye on the values on the left like the decrease on 800hz is -12 on graphic.

When listening I also thought the pick you are using doesn't sound ideal, after applying this eq make sure to try different picks too. Maybe a softer one thats brigher sounding.

After that you can try the presets or add individual fx to personalize your tone. From the picture you shared, it seems like an acoustic guitar fx for electric guitar though I'm not 100% sure.

Don't get into too much detail if anything else will be recorded, after everything is recorded then you can adjust anything to you liking as deatiled as you want. Let me know how things go

Posted by: Phil66 Nov 15 2015, 12:49 PM

Thanks Mertay,

I don't really understand what you are telling me to do here I'm afraid, sorry for my ignorance I only have bass and treble on the guitar plus vol.



I used a Dunlop nylon .73mm pick, I have a .60mm but that is the thinnest/softest I have at the moment.



This is what it says about the effect in the patch I used, don't forget everything was switched off within the patch though.


I'm not asking you to trawl through the manual for me but the parameter manual link is http://i353.photobucket.com/albums/r394/PhilDY6/Acoustic%20processor%20from%20manual_zpscmyvj030.jpg in case you have a friend that needs help with this unit (GT-001) or the GT-100 which is virtually the same.

Thank you so much for your help Mertay. I really appreciate it.

Posted by: Mertay Nov 15 2015, 01:24 PM

No problem, lets go step by step;

-on reaper, go to the recorded guitar track and tick FX
-on the menu, at the left there is "cockos", click that and you should see the bundled fx plug-ins that comes with reaper. If not then probably you didn't enable them when first installing reaper.
-there you see reaeq, there are 4 dots (bands) now hold one that writes 3 slide it and you see some numbers change at the bottom.

Bring it to 800 and drag it down till the gain is set -12 again on the numbers. You'll notice the shape where the dots are slowly looking the like the picture I shared. Now go to band nuber 2, set it to frequency 100hz and gain +9. This is a basic setting I selected for you but feel free to experiment

As for the pick, maybe it was strummed too low to the bridge? this is another thing about tone, from where you strum it will affect the tone like if you strum closer to the neck the sound will get fuller.

From the explanation, as I understand it was designed for pickuped acoustic guitars while your guitar is mic.d. It doesn't matter really as long as if it makes the sound better for you, no matter how experiend when tailoring the sound its always about test and trying when applying these kind of "fixing" fx.

The important thing is to finish when thought "its close enough" as one can spend a lot of time dealing with settings I do encourage you to spend some time though, specially with the eq as its the no.1 problem solver/enhancer for audio when needed.

Posted by: Phil66 Nov 15 2015, 01:32 PM

Thanks Mertay,

I'll look at the other things later on, I have to go for a while now

I think if you read it again, it says it is to make the pickup on an electric acoustic guitar sound more like an acoustic with a mic.

Thanks buddy,

You deserve a medal for your help on GMC

Posted by: Mertay Nov 15 2015, 01:35 PM

lol hehe no problem post again if anything needed

Posted by: Phil66 Nov 15 2015, 08:28 PM

Hello Mertay,

This is the same mp3 "re-amped"

 DRY_with_ReaEQ.mp3 ( 1.3MB ) : 57




What do you think?

Cheers

Posted by: Mertay Nov 15 2015, 09:33 PM

Way better! after applying this eq, did you try the presets of your boss unit? if it sounds worse with the boss try this;

-again click fx on the recorded guitars channel, add, cockos (same as we did with the eq)
-now select "reaverbate" so we can add reverb to it. Even just by opening it sounded better to me, set the dry parameter to zero.
-if you want to adjust this reverb, you can use the "wet" slider to increase or decrease the fx.

Posted by: Phil66 Nov 15 2015, 10:30 PM

Thanks Mertay,

I'm starting to understand a bit more of this now. I haven't tried to use the Boss unit yet. I did want to get away from plugins as I don't know if my system is really up to using very many, that's why I bought the GT-001 (I may change to GT-100 soon and have a Line 6 UX-2). I'm starting to find things a little annoying having an interface that is also an FX Processor. I can't have an interface AND the GT-001 on the desktop so I might go for a GT100. Not sure yet.

Cheers

Posted by: Mertay Nov 15 2015, 11:33 PM

The fundamental principle on anything related to recording/audio engineering is to capture the source as good as possible. Plug-ins are just there for little enhancement, fix or compansate for a hardware.

That reverb plug-in was the last thing to add for this topic, the plug-ins we used are really low on cpu usage, did you experience any crackle? keep in mind, we can always set a low buffer for recording, then increase the buffer to add fx.

Many people I know uses their mic.ed (in your case if wanted the emulated output of blackstar) amp and pedals at home for recording. If soloing over a backing track, then adjusting level and maybe an eq plug-in is enough.

But having a processor is also handy as analog tone options can never be as rich as digital, saving lots of cpu your gt-001 is also a very valid solution specially as it can internally re-amp though I don't know if you use that feature. Also I guess the boss fx you shared here are also not using the cpu? gt-100 won't be able to do these as it will only work as processor.

What I'm trying to say is you know setting up a DAW (and that gt-001 was a hard one ), audio editing and (like now) using fx for audio shaping. Getting better is an experience thing but you know the territory now, its all about the workflow you prefer.

Who knows, maybe when the hotbird arrives you'll prefer to go all analog...just take your time as for these sort of decisions you know the best for yourself.

Posted by: Phil66 Nov 16 2015, 10:14 AM

Thanks Mertay,

All the effects I currently use are from my GT001. I think you can use the GT100 in the same way as GT001 even re-amping because the GT001 is a desktop version of the GT100, the images of the software you saw are for GT100 and GT001.

I do use the re-amping feature, I have a template project because I don't understand the routing

Cheers again

Posted by: Mertay Nov 16 2015, 10:46 AM

I see, you might miss re-amping with a normal soundcard+processor or analog gear as there is more work to it.

You have to record both direct from guitar and your rig at the same time. Then if you change your mind, route the clean guitar through the rig again and play+capture the recording again...also have to adjust the tracks latency. To me this isn't ideal for home studio use.

What can be done thats easy with this method (recording both dry guitar and amped) is inserting a plug-in on the direct guitar recording. Then if you want blend or just use the plug-ins sound. This is easy but needs some cpu. Your gt001 exactly does this with the dry signal, but faster and without cpu need.

Then I guess its all about using the re-amping feature you currently have or not, its a nice thing to have but up to you if you can do without it or use the alternatives. I'd limit myself for a while trying to not use the re-amping for lesson or collab. recordings, then we'll discuss again if you need a change.

By the way, are you happy with the current acoustic guitar sound? we can always adjust the 2 plug-ins we inserted if you feel it can be better?

Posted by: Phil66 Nov 16 2015, 04:31 PM

Thanks Mertay,

I am much happier with the acoustic sound now, I haven't had time to fiddle with reverb or chorus but I will try this week. I'm falling behind with practice with all this tone seeking

Cheers

Phil

Posted by: Phil66 Nov 27 2015, 09:48 PM

I'll be back soon with some recordings. Just fetched guitar back from luthier. WOW sounds and feels better than I can remember!!!! He used D'Addario Phosphor Bronze EJ26 .011-.052 strings, fitted a new bridge saddle, dressed the frets and oiled the fretboard.

Incredible difference

Posted by: Mertay Nov 28 2015, 12:47 AM

Qurious

Posted by: Phil66 Jan 18 2016, 09:43 PM

Sorry I didn't answer this Mertay.

I guess it's all in the "GAS What next?" thread