Two Microphones and VU meter needle bouncing....

bachelorb

Cowboy Chord Virtuoso
I've been recording both voice and guitar at the same time on some of my recording. Yesterday I noticed the needle just bouncing randomly when I turned on the channels. In this case I was using two mics (one condenser, one dynamic) to record to only the guitar to a subgroup. It was the dynamic mic that was bouncing. The condenser mic was fine. I was listening through headphones and couldn't hear any noise or interference.
Then I remembered a recording a few back where I had a "chorusy reverb" type sound to my voice without adding any effects (in this case one mic was for guitar, one for voice, directly to the tape tracks. No subgroups) and it got me wondering....... Is this that "phase" thing I keep hearing when there are two mics? If so, is there any way to control or prevent it?

Thanks again,
Brad
 
Technically its called comb filtering and it occurs when the same sound source is captured at different distances so that the waveforms are offset , usually less than or greater that 180 degrees (which we call phase cancellation as the opposing waveforms cancel each other). This is what flanging does and that's exactly what you heard. This is also where the 3 to 1 rule comes in:What is "3:1 Rule of Microphone Placement - inSync"? I don't think that this really has anything with the VU bounce though, that's more likely do to the difference in circuits with the mics
 
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