For anyone interested in guitar, jazz or blues - below is a link to the first song in a project I'm currently working on to record an album of jazz standards and originals in my home studio over the next 6 months or so.

http://soundcloud.com/steef-reid/jumpin

The song is an original slow blues consisting of two guitar parts; one playing chords and one playing melody. It's a very stripped back arrangement allowing for lots of space.

The gear list:
Aria FA-80 archtop guitar (re-fretted and setup by Chris Melville in Brisbane)
Engl Screamer 50 combo
Legacy Axis 70 ribbon mic
Boss Di-1
Apogee Duet 2
Logic 8 Express
Genelec 8020a monitors
AKG K240II and Extreme Isolation headphones

Gear I have but not used on this recording: Shure SM57, Rode NT1-A, Ibanez TS-808, Boss TR-2 and DD-7

The recording process:
The guitar playing chords was recorded first into Logic without a click. A click track was then mapped to this tempo and the melody was overdubbed. Both guitars were recorded with a close mic (Axis 70) placed around 15cm back from the edge of the speaker and a direct signal from the Di box. The Di is delayed 6ms in Logic and EQ was used to remove excessive bass and gently tame lower mids. There is no compression on the uploaded track. I'm fairly happy with the sound of the recording considering it was recorded in an untreated room. Ultimately I'd like to have the recordings mixed in a studio using outboard gear to try and recreate the sound of 50s and 60s jazz recordings.

Drop me a line if you have any advice or criticism for the recording. I'm using this project as a way to improve my playing and engineering skills to get the most out of the gear in my studio. Additionally if you're a musician in the Sunshine Coast area and would like to collaborate on a song I'd love to hear from you.

Nice playing.
I found the image shifting to be a bit distracting though. The melody guitar moved off to the left at 2:48 and then both guitars moved to near centre at 4:24. Not sure if this was intentional.

Thank you.

Well spotted. The first shift is from a separate take that was overdubbed a few days after the original and I think the gain structure must have been slightly different because it's a touch brighter too. I didn't notice it until I was listening with headphones after all was said and done. The performance of the second take was justification enough to keep it. Smoothing it out is on the to do list when I come back to it.

The part at the end was intentionally moved more to the centre as it is only one guitar. I'm still undecided whether this is necessary or not. The fact that it is noticeable seems to be reason enough to reconsider.

The main problems I've been facing with this project are:

1. Shaping the guitar's tone to cover enough of the audio spectrum to sound interesting on it's own. Without any lovely acoustic instruments to accompany jazz guitar it can sound really muddy on it's own. The trouble is the mellow tone is what I love about the instrument so it's a catch-22 to record.

2. Playing the role of musician, engineer and producer all at once. This is by far the hardest part of recording at home for me. It's really hard to get into a good place as a musician when you're constantly thinking of mic placement, gain structure, tone, arrangement and so on. Likewise when you're in the pocket playing wise but the recording chain just isn't up to scratch or set up at all!. Everything is a lot more stop and go doing it by yourself.

I've got everything set up to my liking for the moment so hopefully I won't have to move or adjust anything any time soon and can get down to business.

Thanks for your feedback.