Old Time Guitar Recording

By John Williams © 2009

In 1936, when Ernie Oertle and his crew recorded Robert Johnson in San Antonio, they didn’t have much choice about what gear to use.  Plastic hadn’t been invented yet so they had no tape machines. “Direct to disc” had a different meaning too. There were only a few portable microphones available that were durable enough to travel. Nobody was thinking about frequency response or the “color” or “warmth” of the mic. “Vintage sound” was just then being invented.

They followed good basic engineering principles: mic placement, good signal path and good acoustics. They did the best they could with the tools they had.

Instead of backups they made another complete “safety take.” They dealt with hotel room acoustics, probably moved furniture, maybe even scouted different rooms. Finding the best room would be similar to scrolling through an effects processor today. Whatever room they picked, they made sure the mic and performer were in the best position– away from walls and especially corners. They had to keep windows closed in the summer so street sounds would not bleed into the recording. They had to listen for anything that rattled or made a bad harmonic.

Try this yourself. Focus on basic techniques. Put the mic about eighteen inches away from the middle of the fretboard and point it at the place where the neck joins the body. Record with good levels but don’t distort. You can fix low levels later. Consider recording in mono even if your recorder and mics easily do stereo. Not to duplicate old sound. It is easier to get a smooth frequency response across the spectrum without unwanted comb filtering.

Always scout for good rooms. A good room beats great effects. Take your guitar around and play it in likely places. Record it. You might get a magic take but you also need to know what it really sounds like. Maybe there’s an entryway at work or a hall in school you can use. You will feel your instrument come alive in a good room. An open field will be acoustically dead but will work too. Check for ambient noise but don’t be too picky.

Get your recording rig set up so that you can pop into a room, record a few takes, and be out in minutes. You can get amazing results in churches and theaters. Do a lot of takes. Nothing is more valuable for capturing a good performance.

In order to polish your tracks you need an audio editing program of some sort.  Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) is good and it is free.  First look at the waveform and smooth out the obvious peaks. Consider using or recording another take, if necessary. Normalize the entire track; then, amplify it as loud as you can go. You can compress it too, but old time blues really needs a lot of dynamics. That’s where you’ll get the blues sound – in the expression that you convey via loud and soft parts.