Mounting acrylic between guitar mic and mouth
When I play a guitar solo, my congested breathing gets onto the guitar track. It is very loud and my mics are very sensitive, and a pop filter and many of the other suggestions here are not practical for the uncontrollable loudness of my high-pitched breathing (which can go on for months in the super-dry AZ climate). Placing an acrylic material to stop the noise from entering the mic makes sense to me. But how would I mount it?
My guitar mic is placed at 45" high so I would need something higher than that- a stand or something - and some kind of frame, I guess, to mount the piece of acrylic in. I am no handyman. I don't even know where to buy pieces of acrylic. Does anyone have practical suggestions on how to build such a device?
It'S an acoustic guitar. My mics are all AKG C1000S condenser mics. made in Australia. Full specs are at eshop.macsales.com/item/AKG/2331A00070/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2IfAx9392AIVDJJ-Ch1DggIfEAAYASAAEgJ_EvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
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Have you tried to wear a simple dust mask or respirator? you can get them for or less.
An acrylic guard could reflect noise from the guitar giving an unwanted "tinny" sound and would not absorb the high pitch sound.
The other thing you could try is buying some studio foam and keeping it close to your face and between your face and the mic.
If the breathing noise is only audible during silent parts you can put a gate on it or manually mute the track during silent parts in post.
are you placing the mic on an acoustic guitar? You could always go direct out of the guitar if all else fails.
The mics need to be positioned to capture the sound you want from your guitar. If you don't WANT a very close-up sound, it would be a pity to be forced into it. So the answer really has to involve muffling your breathing sound. Acrylic sheet is a horrible idea, it's just asking for nasty reflections. Before we get complicated, don't count out the possibility of training yourself to relax, breathe more slowly and gently. It will probably improve your playing too!
Also, would it be unkind to mention that your AKG C1000S are often reviled as 'worst microphones ever'? This may be going a bit far, but they ARE renowned for being harsh. Have you anything a bit more mellow to try?
But you know the C1000 is 'dual pattern'? It can be made more directional by simply clipping the provided plastic cup over the capsule. THat might be worth a try.
I get the impression that you feel the breath noise is caused by dryness in the air. That leads me to think a humidifier might help, but that's just guessing on my part. If you were to try this as a solution, I expect you'd need to shut it down for actual recording to avoid humidifier noise instead of breath noise.
Get a standard orchestral music stand.
It's height-adjustable, and the main face of the stand (the metal face with small tray) is adjustable in angle, pretty much 270 degrees or more.
A perfect, affordable sound baffle.
Oh, and you can place your song lyrics on it as well.
Set your microphone to hypercardioid. This has its minima at about 120° from the main axis. So you put your mic pointing down (elevation maybe 45° downwards and quite close pointing into the sound hole so that it "sees" your mouth at about 120°). This will put your mouth at an angle to the mic where its response is minimal.
If you still need more, acrylic is not a good idea since it reflects and will result in strange polar characteristics with regard to your main object. Instead mic screens and baffles can be used. But try the directionality first: it should at least cater for most of the job.
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