DEMO: D’Angelico Guitar & RØDE Mic
This morning I had a short practice session with an acoustic-electric guitar and a USB Condenser mic. I then recorded a short DEMO video that you can see below. Here is some information about each item. I am also providing Amazon links, just in case you want to check them out for yourself.
D’Angelico New York Premier Acoustic-Electric Guitar
This is one of my classroom instruments. That means I don’t own it. I purchased it for my General Music classes, and I sometimes use it to lead the students in singing basic songs.
The instrument features an all-mahogany construction, which makes for a sound that will carry through a full band. The sound is bright but full, and even when played fingerstyle, the sound will project quite well. Of course, I am a classical player and I have longer fingernails on my right-hand fingers, so the sound will be naturally brighter when playing fingerstyle. When playing with a pick, the sound is even brighter and will cut through lots of background noise.
The electronics include a 9V battery (active pickup) as well as a built-in digital tuner. I did not plug the guitar into an amplifier for this recording. The instrument not only sounds great plugged or unplugged, but it is very comfortable to play, The neck has a very comfortable profile, the body is not a true “Thin” body but it is a bit smaller than a dreadnaught. The action of the strings is very low with no buzz. It was set up like that right out of the box.
D’Angelico New York Premier Acoustic-Electric Guitar on Amazon
RØDE NT-USB+ Condenser Microphone
I used the RØDE NT-USB+ Condenser Microphone for this recording. I plugged it into a MacBook Air and went via GarageBand, with very minimal edits. This RØDE microphone records acoustic guitars very well. I’ve done a couple classical guitar recordings with it and I am very happy with the results.
It comes with a very nice box that you can actually use for storage of the microphone and its accessories. What’s in the box? … Microphone, Adjustable Stand, Pop Filter, Connection Cable. I use a two-feet long large bubble wrapt sheet to wrapt the microphone in, for protection inside the box, and everything else fits perfectly in there on the side.
RØDE NT-USB+ Condenser Microphone on Amazon
I use D’Addario strings on all my guitars. For my steel-string guitars, I usually go with light gauge (EJ16)
D’Addario EJ16 Acoustic Guitar Strings on Amazon
Below is the video I recorded today. I am playing without a pick, but like I mentioned above, I have longer fingernails on my right-hand fingers, hence the brighter sound.
The song is just something I made up today. Not really a song but there are glimpses from other songs I’ve written before, so if you listened to my music for a while, you might recognize some musical ideas from before.
By the way, can you spot Cocoa, our Mini GoldenDoodle in the background of the video? She knows my wife is almost home from work, and she usually waits by the window, all sad. Apparently, my presence is not enough to make her happy, even though I searched for her, found her, adopted her, paid the adoption fee, take her to the vet … wait, maybe that last bit is what breaks the deal for her :-)
Thanks for reading the blog entry and watching the video.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to use the comments section below.
