Separating Two Signals !

I had this problem but I solved it by redefining the problem. I had a song with rubato parts and that's why I didn't want to do seperate takes. But what I finally did was record separate takes.

What I did was recorded the song with 2 mics as scratch tracks that included guitar and vocal and then played separate guitar and vocal tracks locking into the scratch track.

Only other thing I can think of is close mic with dynamic mics or better yet use a guitar with an internal mic/pickup and the voice to a dynamic mic.

Use more directional mics and place them as close as possible to the source(s). Hypercardioid mics are ones that have a very narrow pickup pattern that rejects most sound that is not directly in front of the mic diaphragm.

"Isolation" is the term of art for only picking up the primary signal. It is a very big deal in live sound reinforcement, somewhat less so in the studio. You should be aware that almost anything that can help to isolate signal also affects sound quality in ways that may be subjectively good or bad. Live mics and miking techniques are often very much focused on reducing bleed-through and feedback and achieving maximum isolation. Studio mics and techniques are usually focused on an uncompromising effort to maximize sound quality. For instance most studio vocal mics tend to have a very "big" sound that is open and full-bodied and has lots of ambient resonance. A typical live mic on the other hand is likely to have a tighter, more "closed" and focused sound.

Neither is necessarily good or bad, just things to be aware of. Similarly, techniques such as close-miking and using baffles to isolate sounds can affect the sound characteristics as well.

Cheers.

ORIGINAL: Rodar6

Hey guys ,

Thanks for the replys and the suggestions !

Your suggestions were good, but I have actually tried all of them, although tell me if I'm wrong Cardioid mics are the Shure Sm58's 57's of this world !

This is a hobby for me so don't assume I know what I'm talking about !

Fep I like the idea of re-recording the the guitar track again to isolate the signal but with the vocals I always feel uncomfortable without playing an instrument, I think my voice reponds to the position of the guitar and the vibrations playing live than it does listening through headphones.

Joe Bravo & Yep What you guys said about isolation gave me an idea so I went looking on the web and found a product by SE electronics and found something called a reflection filter, they surround the mics with acoustic treatment and at present the difference in the mics picking up the vocals and guitar is 5db. Maybe a reflection filter would help.

All of this is to help the mixing process at the end of the day.

If you good men could look into stuff on the reflection filters and let me know what you think it would be greatly appreciated !!!!

Cheers

Rod

Links are helpful when asking about particular products.

That said i know about those reflection filters and they will further isolate somewhat, as will any number of homemade solutions. Bear in mind that to be effective it would have to be placed between the guitar mic and your mouth mic which may interfere with your technique/comfort level. It is also going to affect the sound quality. Maybe in a way that you think is good, maybe bad, but it's gonna be different.

BTW you are not at all crazy for wanting to record both at the same time. It is extremely common to have one's playing and singing techniques respond to each other in real time. I have very often found that folk-rock singer/guitarist types play and sing with a great deal more expressiveness and confidence when they do both together.

However, I would encourage you to explore the possibilities of working WITH the bleed-through rather than against it. Perhaps even to the point of trying single-mic solutions. There is no reason in the world why having two isolated tracks is inherently superior to having a single track or a couple tracks with some bleed.

But to further reduce bleed, something that you could try is a mid-side mic configuration, which provides better ability to control the directionality than most conventional mic setups, all else being equal. This requires a figure-8 mic plus a regular directional mic. you can read up about it here:

http://www.kellyindustries.com/articles/stereo_miking_techniques.html

Again, any attempt to reduce bleed-through carries the possibility of simply creating more headaches and a less musical, less inspiring scenario for you to work in and you may find that you are degrading the quality of your performances to achieve dubious or purely theoretical improvements in fidelity.

I think the biggest reason for musicians to work in a professional studio is so you can have someone else to think about and deal with this stuff. It is very easy to start spending more time, money, and creative energy on trying to engineer your recordings than you spend on playing and writing. I am not trying to discourage you from trying to make better home recordings but I do suggest that you consider how far down that road you want to go before you begin. You have a couple of decent mics and a good software package and a decent understanding of home recording. This puts you right at the sort of knee where your commitment level has to go progressively higher for progressively smaller sonic returns. From this point on every dollar spent and every technique learned is going to be experimental and the attrition rate is going to be high. A lot of the stuff you buy and setups you try will not be a clear improvement over what you have now, just sort of lateral additions to your toolbox.

If you really want to come up with a good and useable recording "recipe" for your particular style and sound, then set aside a few hundred bucks and book a couple hours at a well-equipped professional studio. There a bona-fide engineer will be able to evaluate your approach and material and performance technique and they can show you how they would do it. Then you can simply copy what they did and you'll get good home recordings that way.

If on the other hand you really want to learn the ins and outs of sound engineering and commit to that road then all these suggestions are experiments for you to try.

Cheers.