WEEK TWO: The Musical Voyage!

Khiem Nguyen yes for sure Sergio has thought about a lot in those sketches.

Blaise Laflamme great! Really liked your character on this one, which is the opposite to mine, where I like being more percusive and agitated. It's amazing to hear all of these different and inspiring approaches! 😎🙌

Daniel Beltrán thank you... same for me about you! 🎉

Martin thank you Martin, yeah the glissando makes even more sense when you play the piece at a slower tempo, I figured out I could use it as a «momentum» near the end of the section.

Steve Pederson thank you Steve, this is a 1999 cedar top from luthier Rene Wilhelmy I bought last year from someone around here, my first Wilhelmy was a 1991 that I unfortunately sold 15 years ago 😭. He's also a good friend of mine and I'm waiting impatiently a new spruce top one I've ordered from him 🤪.

Steve Pederson thank you, and you seem to also play on a spruce top, I like the clarity and precision of the planting and sound of a spruce top. I hope you'll make sure to share with us the sound and beauty of your next guitar when it's done!

About the videos, in fact as you can see on the others I did in previous challenges, my room is not really a good background so I figured out that using a green screen would help, and combined with a black shirt it would make the guitar and my hands more visible (the interesting parts). I'm using headphones to track what I'm doing while recording, I realized that how I play is not always reflected in the recording as I hear it from the instrument so it helps me to compensate by hearing whats being recorded. Here's the setup...

Blaise Laflamme I finally had time this morning to go back to the challenge thread and look at more of the submissions. I was just about to ask about how you did your cool videos and found this where you show the amazing setup you have.  Do you have a general recommendation for the best type of microphone for recording guitar?  I'm assuming the one you use is expensive, so looking for more modest upgrades over the cheap one I'm using now.  Thank you.  Always enjoy your videos.

Brett Gilbert I'm glad you enjoyed them and I have to say I was super impressed by how quick you were able to pick up and play the guitar in so short amount time... wow! In fact I'm not using super expensive microphones, for sure expensive is relative, but compared to what I would have like to buy or what Martin  is using as a professional sound engineer, those microphones are affordable if you want to level-up your sound. I'm using 4 microphones, stereo cardioids and stereo ribbons, and the revelation to me was the ribbons. I suggest you to listen to Martin's recording course on Tonebase, this was my starting point. He was kind enough to provide us a lot of info about microphones and suggest us what is the best bang for the bucks! I'm using a pair of CM4 from Line Audio and a stereo SRM1 from NoHype Audio, you can buy directly fro them. Lately I also added a stereo fixed X/Y Rode NT4 for quick setup and mixed with the SRM1 it gives good results, this is what I'm using on the image above and for the Assad challenge. Feel free to ask any question you have, I would be happy to share my experience, even if it's quite limited and recent, and I'm sure Martin would be more than willing to complete with his extensive experience!

Blaise Laflamme Thanks for the detail and I was unaware of the past livestream about equipment.   I can see how A/V recording could end up being an expensive side-hobby if I'm not careful but you've given me some great starting points.  

Brett Gilbert you're right it can be really expensive if you don't give yourself a limit. I would first invest in a good instrument, I don't know what you're using now, but that'd definitely be the strong base of your sound.