[habiTat]

Hi,

As you may have heard, a lot of my recordings are just me and my guitar. I generally prefer to work this way and feel that my vocal is better when I am playing the guitar as well. I have recorded a number of songs which I've posted on here, most recently 'Heavy' as a 'one take' thing, recording myself playing guitar and singing, with just the one mic..

The big disadvantage with this, (and it has been commented on) is that the guitar is often 'too thin' or needs to 'come forward' in the mix. The problem being, there is NO mix..As it is only one track that's been recorded. It also means that I'm limited with the reverb effects etc. because the guitar tends to develop a bounce back sound if too much is applied retrospectively.

My question is, how do I set myself up with two mics to record the vocal and guitar separately?

I have a Samson G Track USB condenser mic which doubles as an audio interface (it has a line in for guitar etc) but if I plug another mic or the actual guitar in to it, firstly I get an unacceptable hiss, and second, it plays into the laptop as ONE TRACK...therefore..NO GOOD 

I have another, cheaper condenser mic which I bought to record the guitar but I have no way of pressing record on two tracks simultaneously... and the only available place to plug it in is the 'mic' socket on the laptop.

I mainly use Audacity software but thanks to Boydie I am gradually trying to learn Cakewalk Sonar. I have also downloaded Reaper but have not tried it or paid for it yet.

Here is a video of Robin Pecknold using the exact type of set up I want 

nAxDA&index=26&feature=plpp_video

Please help, I really dislike recording the guitar and vocal separately and I never seem to sing as well when I do..

hab..

[habiTat]

Sorry, just to add, I know that there will be an inevitable 'leak' of vocal into guitar track and vice versa but I'm willing to accept this to get a clearer, more workable guitar recording. Something with which I can turn up a bit, or add bass/treble etc. It will also mean I can stick a load of chapelly reverb on the vocal without it trashing the guitar..

Thanks

hab

[Michael]

I've taken a look at the G-Track Mic online, and it seems to me there's no way for you to record 2 tracks simultaneously with just the mic as an audio interface.

What you'd need here is an audio-interface with a minimum of 2 inputs (for two mics) that can also send those two input signals seperately to Audacity or Sonar for recording on two seperate tracks. Maybe others have some suggestions about aoffordable devices here.

My suggestion is this:
Make two seperate recordings, one just for the guitar, with the mic placed very close to the instrument, and another one for the vocals. Try to experiment with the mic placement here, so that you can play along while singing, but mainly pick up the vocals. (Of course there's gonna be some bleed-through of the guitar.)
That way you can at least vary the volume of vocals and guitar in the mix and apply reverb etc. seperately

[habiTat]

Ok thanks Michael, with greater knowledge I may have gone for a different mic  the other thing I forgot to say is that the cheaper condenser mic has a standard 3.5mm jack plug so in theory, I could use the laptop mic socket as the separate line in.. could I?

I've just looked at Sonar, if I open up two audio tracks, then select each one's input as different things, then arm them both to record, would that work? (I'm not able to test it right now..all the recording gear has been packed away    )

[Michael]

Yeah, the condenser mic should work with the laptop's mic socket. I'm not sure about the resulting audio quality, but it should work.

Recording two tracks from two different sources should in principle be possible the way you described it, but I think there might be a problem because the two different sources are coming from two different hardware-parts on your laptop (the mic socket on the built-in sound-card on the one hand, and the audio-interface/USB-mic on the other hand) and the software can usually only run on ONE audio-device...(Usually for multi-track-recording the different sources are all supplied by the same interface, but I think that's not possible with the hardware you got)
That's the way it works with my DAW anyway, I'm not familiar with Sonar, so go ahead and give it a try.

Best of luck, let me know how it goes

[habiTat]

Ah ok, I'll look at that, you might be right about the single hardware point though..

Just grabbed the instructions for my mic and it says you can record two channels with it, each on mono tracks. ie. it says to set one audio track to the left channel (the mic itself) and one to the right channel(for the instrument that is plugged into the mic) I'll dig everything out and try it I think..

I think I tried this before but got a nasty hiss on the second input.. but we'll see..

Thanks for your help

[habiTat]

Right, it says in the instructions that it can record two separate tracks ie mono left as the mic, mono right as the line in (instrument/other mic etc) but when I set up a track for each (usb codec left and usb codec right) it just transmits the 'mic' (ie left) to both audio tracks, when I switch the mic button to 'line' as opposed to 'mic/inst' it just transmits the line in to both audio tracks (ie. right channel to both) 

Anyone got any ideas..?

[Michael]

You could try recording only one track with both the mic and the line as source, so you'll end up with a stereo track with the mic signal on one channel and the line signal on the other, and then divide this stereo track into two mono tracks

[habiTat]

I think I have cracked it!!

I tried plugging the cheap mic straight into the laptop and setting the input of one of the tracks to receive the 'stereo ext mic' whilst setting the other track to receive 'stereo USB codec' (good mic) and this has worked.

When both are armed and I press record I get two separate recordings at the same time, one from each! I've listened back and there is NO HISS

Yay 

Now I just need to properly rig it all up and try to record a song.

Thanks Michael, talking it through with someone has sorted it (hopefully)

[Michael]

Nicely done ! 
Looking forward to hearing the first results