With all this talk about all kinds of stuff, but no actual music yet, I thought you deserve some music. While working my way through the book and fiddling around in Cubase, I did some recordings of the intro of the first song (cover). The intro is done with only guitar and is currently recorded with a Condenser microphone and the pickup of the guitar. So let’s have a look at the first recorded piece of music!

Listening to this piece teaches me some things. I had to think about the ‘Good Rule’ from the book I’m reading: Good musician + Good instrument + Good performance + Good acoustics + Good mic + Good placement. Unfortunately, most of those are not so good here. But, no reason not to evaluate, learn and improve!

Good musician & performance:
Certainly I am not a good musician in regards of acoustic guitar yet. The performance was one of the better ones, but leave room for much improvement. The strikes on the strings are not equally in volume and some strings are not properly muted in between segments. This is a point where we can improve.

Good instrument & mic:
If you have read my latest gear post, then you know that in the mean time I do have a good instrument. In the hands of a master it should be capable of a lot! 🙂 The mic is a cheap one however. This leaves room for a better one, but the budget also needs to agree with that (which it does not for now).

Good acoustics & placement:
So the acoustics is something that is not ideal yet. If I clap my hands, I can hear an echo, so probably some more dampening material could help with the acoustics a bit. Also the placement of the mic might have been too directly aimed at the sound hole of the guitar, which makes the recording sound boomy and bassy. The pickup however, has a lot of high tones, this compensates a bit, but the bass is still there.

All in all, we keep learning and keep trying to improve in every aspect of the recording process.

Stay in tune!