Acoustic Sound, i have a feeling that... Options

[mrben]

nobody really records live instruments on this forum?? r atleast not with garageband. I recently got into garage band which is great and I love all the setting I can make for my guitar... however an nice clean acoustic sound I have not been able to get. It always sounds to quite or something compared to everything else... anyone got any tips how I can get a fuller richer sound? Are there any more plugins I should try. I am using a mic if that makes any difference?
cheers!

[ideaslinger]

Hey mrben

I've been doing a ton of testing and stuff in GB with recording of guitars although not, as yet, with a microphone.

I've been taking my stuff from guitar straight in via an M-Audio FW 410 interface into GB. I agree some of the initial sounds are not too full but they can be improved immensely by stacking them up. For instance, I will record a refrain into a track then create several other guitar tracks (sometimes with the same preset start, sometimes not) and then Option-drag your recorded region into these new tracks. Now get to work with mixing the levels and pan...

Stick one track hard left, another hard right, turn off the 'Snap to Grid' feature and nudge one track a FRACTION out of phase with the other one. Then create a third track straight down the middle with a touch of 'verb on it or chorus and you can get some great sounds in GB.

Hope that helps a bit... (of course you can double up tracks from a track you've recorded in on a microphone too)

If you get something like GuitarRig you can also split your incoming signal into A and B and send each through totally separate amp configs to fatten up a sound too...