suggestions for realistic acoustic duo recording

[Gian]

hi all

I play guitar (steel and nylon) and wife and I both sing.
She also does shaker/percussion stuff.

We do acoustic stuff, folk-ish, but in italian and spanish, french and english.

I would like to record about 3-4 songs that show what we sound like live so that I can give that to people and they can hear what a realistic live sound of ours would be.

I am going to record it at home, but would like some suggestions about where to put things in the mix.

I have logic and can record two things at once.

So, some questions:

I don't want to put everything in the centre, or should I?

What about the mono to stereo spreader patch in Logic for my guitar.

Should I pan my vocals and her vocals at say 10-ish and 2-ish?

Should I get it mastered?

What else should I be thinking about?

thanks

[TimS]

hi all

I play guitar (steel and nylon) and wife and I both sing.
She also does shaker/percussion stuff.

We do acoustic stuff, folk-ish, but in italian and spanish, french and english.

I would like to record about 3-4 songs that show what we sound like live so that I can give that to people and they can hear what a realistic live sound of ours would be.

I am going to record it at home, but would like some suggestions about where to put things in the mix.

I have logic and can record two things at once.

So, some questions:

I don't want to put everything in the centre, or should I?

What about the mono to stereo spreader patch in Logic for my guitar.

Should I pan my vocals and her vocals at say 10-ish and 2-ish?

Should I get it mastered?

What else should I be thinking about?

thanks

Gian,
The band I play in just did this as a venue wanted a 4 track demo (what the!!) before they booked us.
We just recorded everything at home in Tools and did a quick mix and sent a copy up with 10 posters (we are going to be playing in the country)
I just did the electric guitars using Waves GTR3 and the keyboards, acoustic gtr, and bass were DI. Drums were programmed by me - as we didnt have time to record our drummer..
I kept the mix close to a 'normal recording as possible' - no major panning, FX or anything - I wanted it to sound live-ish, and it came out pretty good considering.
Admitedly, its a slap together demo and they wanted to hear how we sounded, so I tried to keep it "straight up"..
Played it to the band at last rehearsal and they said it rocked (which it did).
Dont go bananas doing stuff - keep it true to what you do/play live and you'll be in the ball park..
Tim..

[Gian]

*snip*
Played it to the band at last rehearsal and they said it rocked (which it did).
Dont go bananas doing stuff - keep it true to what you do/play live and you'll be in the ball park..
Tim..

What part of the "country" was/is the gig at?

I think you're right about keeping it real. You can spend endless hours tweeking.

I have programmed some percussion.
Done the guitar - nylon, DI'ed through a JLM 99V500, spread it a bit and a tiny bit of reverb.
Done my vocals, when I sing by myself, it is centre, when I sing with my wife, i go to about 2 o'clock.
Wife is harder to record than myself.

[heathen]

You could try a bit of M/S micing on the guits and shakers and stuff, would give more of sense of depth, though keeping it simple with a bit of stereo reverb would work fine also. I'd probably keep the vox centered but I could'nt be sure on that till I started mixing.

[TimS]

*snip*
Played it to the band at last rehearsal and they said it rocked (which it did).
Dont go bananas doing stuff - keep it true to what you do/play live and you'll be in the ball park..
Tim..

What part of the "country" was/is the gig at?

We are playing at The Globe in Rylstone (near Mudgee) in Oct..

[Kurt]

If it's a decent sounding room why not just use a good camera to video the show and use the audio from that?