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Extremely weird recording problem

olethros	Date: January 30, 2006 @ 3:32 AM I have two mics. I have a classic guitar. The mics are of a completely different quality standard. One is a very cheap, all-plastic, sanyo, the other is a mid-price audi-technica. They are both dynamic and I use a good-quality pre-amp. Everything works fine, but it seems that whenever I play an empty A string it is recorded twice as loudly as every other string - I hear a kind of analog distortion whenever the mic is too close to the guitar. But this never happens with other notes. It just weirds me out.
pog	Date: January 30, 2006 @ 7:17 AM Open strings are always louder than fretted notes. It's because the strings contact points are hard materials... the hard plastic nut, and the hard metal tuning peg.... as opposed to the soft metal fret, and the soft fleshy finger. This is not always that noticable to the naked ear, but it's always got slightly more gain when you play an open note. As for the mic buzzing, it seems the mic is picking up the louder note... this is most likely being amplified by the cheaper mic's diaphragm. Think of it like what would happen if you plug a pre-amp into a 10w amplifier with a smaller/cheaper speaker. You would find that a louder note, or a strummed chord would make the amp buzz, often undesirably. This is the same sort of effect if you overpower the mic's diaphragm. I suggest that the most effective way to get around the problem would be to back off from the mic, and maybe even use the cheaper mic as a room mic and the better quality mic as a mic concentrating on the guitar (try switching then around, you may find the cheaper mic to be better as a close mic). Then you can correct the overpowering A string with a little carefully placed e.qing and compression. Hope this helps.
olethros	Date: January 30, 2006 @ 8:32 AM Ah, so you think the diaphragm is getting limited.. maybe.. hm - thanks
olethros	Date: January 30, 2006 @ 8:34 AM I guess since the mechanical frequency response cannot be controlled very well and since both mics are round the same size, their diaphragms should be tuned around the same frequency.. and wham.. yeah, I didn't think it could be a mechanical response effect.
zedsalt	Date: January 30, 2006 @ 11:49 AM Or, it could just be one of the dominant frequencies of the room. I've encountered the same problem with different frequencies. Often, I was able to avoid it by just playing in a different part of the room, but in a couple of tricky spaces, I've had better luck by hanging a towel across a boom and moving the mic stand around the room until the feedback stopped.
olethros	Date: January 30, 2006 @ 1:19 PM I'll try that too, thanks
wailingmiserere	Date: January 30, 2006 @ 3:48 PM Yes, the first thing I thought when I read your post was that it might be a room-related problem, especially if you're recording in quite a small place, near a wall. If you have no choice but to record in a small room try and sit right in the centre.

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