The nylon-stringed Guitar......is acknowledged to be one of the hardest instruments to record, seriously! The top end of a nylon-stringed guitar is sort of velvety or silky and no pick-up I know does that justice. Compared to a steel-stringed guitar the nylon-strings are so subtle!!! A much more delicate in the mid-range and with a very tricky treble! And I feel that gets lost with a pick-up. I have tried the Baggs pick up systems, I have tried the RMC, and I have used the B-Band (in fact I am still listed as their endorser)...well, of those pick-ups mentioned, I truthfully do prefer the B-Band.....but in the end I have returned to just using a microphone, because I feel that the nylon strings need to breath and can only be reproduced with a microphone at this time. Of course a Digital microphone would be great, but I am very happy with my Neumann M149 in the studio and my Shure KSM 44 for live performances. Last year I used only the microphone for our performances and no pick-up whatsoever, and I am planning to do that again this year.
The nylon-stringed guitar is very intimate and small and probably the most unlikely instrument for a large venue! I remember how hard it was to be loud enough when we played with Santana in 1996...loud enough for 15,000 people to hear...well, of course all subtlety is lost in that context anyway....
One of my favorite performances is a private show I do at a California winery every couple of years. I play un-amplified in a wine-cellar in front of about 30 or 40 people - by invitation only. You could hear a needle drop, it is so quiet when I start playing...no microphone, no amplification, no speakers...and nothing to hide behind...this is the way a nylon-stringed guitar is meant to be heard....
Well, we are going to try to create that intimacy for you this year...it's that much harder for our engineer when I take away the pick-up, but Alan always rises to the challenge....
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