Great Studio Improvements!
We’ve been very busy!
So, as well as being really busy with loads of great bands coming through (we had the wonderful “Adore” in today) , we’ve also been hard at work improving the studio. We’re so pleased with the changes, we thought we’d share them with you in a quick blog post.
If you are a liker of our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/univibeaudio1) you may well have seen some small previews of the additions and improvements, and if you don’t frequent the page, you should!
Firstly we spent some time on tweaking the Live Room. It sounded great anyway, and we’ve always been proud of the great drum sounds we achieve. Things changed a little after gained some space from removing the little used vocal booth. This changed the room quite substantially so took the opportunity to really test the acoustics and improve them wherever we could. After measuring the room’s reverb time and other characteristics, the treatment was designed and built and, in our opinion, was a complete success.
We pride ourselves on not only sounding amazing, but creating a vibe and being a great environment in which to be creative. The new live room is an absolutely great tracking space and we’re sure that you’re going to love the huge sound. We’re keen to always make sure that our customers are getting the best bang for their buck, so we’re proud to show off these amazing improvements.
Another thing we wanted to make better was the headphone monitoring situation. We really like to give the band/artist the power to control their own headphone mix. This makes for the most comfortable experience and better performances. We had a good setup, with cables going to 4 separate mixers in the room, but this was limited in some ways.
Now, we’re supremely proud to say we’ve upgraded our setup to the Hearback Headphone Monitoring system! You can read all about this on their Website, but we can tell you that we now boast the highest quality headphone monitoring! We can now offer up to 4 separate mixes (up to 8 monitor points for players) in pristine stereo quality. The system is run digitally, so latency is less than 2ms and there is absolutely no loss of quality, no matter how long the cable run.
We strive to offer the best recording experience we can, and this system will allow unrivalled comfort and ease during the tracking stage of your recording.
Don’t forget to head over to the Facebook page and hit like to keep updated with the studio. We’re also on Twitter and Instagram!
Cheers.
Tip # 4 – Recording Acoustic Guitar
Acoustic guitar is a one of the most used instruments in modern music. It is just as comfortable in a country, pop, rock and blues as it is in R n’ B, dance or anything really.
So recording it is a large and varied subject, but there are a few key things to remember. The three main elements to a good guitar sound are:
The guitar itself
The actual tone and sound from the guitar is the most important factor in this. If the guitar sounds like a bag of bones, its not going to sound any better once recorded. make sure strings are fresh, and with plenty of life in them, make sure the guitar is well tuned, and has a good intonation.
There are some beautiful and very expensive guitars available, but often a modest ‘just above entry level’ guitar is perfectly capable of producing a great recording.
The microphone choice
The choice of microphone is also imperative, often a small diaphragm condenser is preferred such as Neumann KM84, ir Shure SM81 etc. Thes often provide a more accurate sound than a large diaphragm equivalent, however if all that is available is a large diaphragm condenser, such as Neumann u87 or AKG 414 then with careful placement great results can be achieved.
Microphone placement
The placement of the microphone(s) in front of the guitar can alter the sound dramatically some ideas are:
Place the microphone in front of the 12th fret, roughly 30cm from the guitar pointing towards the soundhole, for a warm, balanced tone.
For a brighter tone try placing the mic near to the bridge, pointing toward the soundhole, or in front of the soundhole (not too close) pointing at the bridge to get a warm tone with a slightly exaggerated top end.
A great way to find a good placement is to route the microphone to some good quality headphones, and whilst the guitarist is playing move the microphone around in front of the instrument until the sound is close to what you are looking for. Sometimes a very unusual placement provides just the osund you are after.
Hopefully these quick tips will help you in your acoustic guitar recording for the future.
Thank for reading!
Univibe Audio