Godin 5th Avenue Archtop Direct and Mic Recording

I have bought this fantastic guitar a while ago and I absolutely love the feel, look and tone.

The price point is absolutely fair, and if you can find a used one, even better. 

The tone unplugged is great, although it will not project as much as a full jumbo acoustic guitar, for example. 

But it’s definitely not too quiet unplugged, and you can easily practice without plugging it into an amp.

I fitted a set of flat-wound strings, which gives the tone a more softer shade, almost a hybrid between the normal steel sound of round-wounds and the warm tone of nylon strings.

The biggest problem with Arch-tops is to find a recording technique which will give the instrument some justice. Many subtleties could get lost, and it would be a pity, given the tonal differences that separates an arch-top from a normal acoustic guitar. 

I therefore set up the recording as follow:

- Direct into my DAW through an Apogee Jam guitar interface. 

- In Parallel, a USB Apogee MiC (reviewed here) positioned near the lower f-hole of the guitar.

I managed to record in parallel both inputs, simultaneously, in my DAW. I then blended the electric direct sound with the acoustic.

The standalone direct sound was too sterile and it would have completely lost the acoustic character of the instrument. On the other side, only the acoustic one would have been too weak, not cutting through the mix.

You’re welcome to hear the outcome in my track below "Yellow King", which features as main instrument the Godin, both as a backing guitar and solo lead.