Acoustic and a Couple Room Mics

[AngryMcMuffin]

I'd like to record some acoustic stuff, but I want a really open, airy, reverby, room soundy, distant effect. On both the guitar and the vocals, so would a room that sounds pretty good to play in and two room mics tried in various positions produce any possibly desirable sounds?

 

[shnizzle]

yeah, but how about recording close and using a reverb effect afterwards? you´d have way more options and control that way.

 

[tedtan]

Perform in a great sounding room and use a couple (or more) of room mics along with the close mics. That way you can blend in the room mics to get the wet/dry balance just right. You'll just have to play with positioning the mics so you avoid phase issues.

 

[Winspear]

Yeah, a room mic likely isn't going to sound as ethereal as you're looking for. It'll just sound..like a room mic.
The above are the best suggestions.

 

[AngryMcMuffin]

All probably very very good ideas, as I have no experience, but I'm not exactly going for ethereal. I want to get the same effect as the last few seconds of this song where you hear him take a drink. But, like, for a whole part of a song, or even a whole song. Maybe, the entire song I Do by Margot and The Nuclear So & So's is a good example, but more distant and more room noise and the sound be less focused in on the song itself.

Does that make sense, or do I sound crazy?

Link to the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKXY25iBsdg

 

[Drew]

All probably very very good ideas, as I have no experience, but I'm not exactly going for ethereal. I want to get the same effect as the last few seconds of this song where you hear him take a drink. But, like, for a whole part of a song, or even a whole song. Maybe, the entire song I Do by Margot and The Nuclear So & So's is a good example, but more distant and more room noise and the sound be less focused in on the song itself.

Does that make sense, or do I sound crazy?

Link to the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKXY25iBsdg

Doesn't sound particularly like a room mic to me - rather, it's probably just a fairly conventional close-mic'd technique (there's a great thread on recording acoustics stuck to the top of this forum), run through a chorus and with a fair amount of a room reverb with lots of early reflections in the mix.

If I had to GUESS there's a large diaphragm condenser capturing the vocals and a lot of the guitar, with possibly a small diaphragm condenser augmenting the acoustic, but it could very easily be a single mic positioned close enough to capture the acoustic while the singer sung (quietly) into it. Either way, I'd bet most of what you're hearing is a chorus plugin and a room reverb plugin.

There's no reason you couldn't just use a room mic but it'll give you a somewhat different sound. Darker and less present, mostly.

 

[AngryMcMuffin]

Doesn't sound particularly like a room mic to me - rather, it's probably just a fairly conventional close-mic'd technique (there's a great thread on recording acoustics stuck to the top of this forum), run through a chorus and with a fair amount of a room reverb with lots of early reflections in the mix.

If I had to GUESS there's a large diaphragm condenser capturing the vocals and a lot of the guitar, with possibly a small diaphragm condenser augmenting the acoustic, but it could very easily be a single mic positioned close enough to capture the acoustic while the singer sung (quietly) into it. Either way, I'd bet most of what you're hearing is a chorus plugin and a room reverb plugin.

There's no reason you couldn't just use a room mic but it'll give you a somewhat different sound. Darker and less present, mostly.

I'd like sort of the same, but darker and less present, that's pretty much what I'm going for. I'll check out that thread and see what it holds for me.

 

[AxelvonKreon]

Make sure that you've got some decent preamps/mics cause otherwise you're gonna get a shitty signal/noise ratio. But it's fun to mess around mic positioning so you should try it anyways!