stereo guitar recording

D

davecg321

New member
I only have one large diaphragm nt1a and a Rode M3.

Can i still get a decent stereo image if I mic the guitar at exact same distances ( 12th fret and bridge) perhaps 12-16" away?

I no longer have access to a matched pair

d
 
It's up to the engineer, so YES. I wouldn't think arbitrary MIC distances would do you much good.
 
If it were important -lets say the goal for whatever reasons was an 'accurate' (matched'?) L/R image, then matched mics would be the norm.
But otherwise, what's to say 'L body and 'R 12th fret' couldn't be unique?
Equal distance kind'a helps with minimizing phase- arrival time differences on spaced pairs.
 
Stereo, as an effect, is whatever one makes it. How are the other instrument/parts being presented ? If it's solo, one may want to play the room instead of the guitar which isn't about accurate
 
I record solo fingerstyle acoustic guitar using a spaced pair about 30-40 cms out from the guitar (have also tried XY and several other common configurations). I have a matched pair of large diaphragm condenser mics, and even with the volume matched, there is a noticeable difference in the tones coming out of the 12th fret end of the guitar and just behind the bridge.

It's just in the nature of the acoustic guitar.

I think you would be fine using different mics, although you probably should experiment to find out which mic likes which end of the guitar.

Kym
 
The conventional wisdom is LDC on sound hole area, SDC at 12th fret. Which means you will filter the LDC to get rid of bottom racket, and neck microphone will always seem thin. Here is some actual wisdom, swap the microphones.
 
I would nearly always use mis-matched mics on acoustic guitar. If it was the only thing in the mix, I would use more EQ to get the two mics to have the same "weight", not necessarily the same sound.
 
The small/large mic technique is fine for guitars and works pretty well BUT, and it is a big but - it is NOT a stereo technique, which is something totally different and does require a pair of identical mics, or the stereo sound field does pretty unpleasant things - especially in headphones. As a guitar is quite small physically, from more than a metre or two away, it's almost point source, so using two mics and blending them together positively with perhaps a small amount of separation in pan sounds good. Panning the sound hole mic left and the neck right creates a huge instrument taking up the space between the speakers that sounds terrible hard panned, with notes hopping about all over the soundscape. Good for effect maybe, but it's not stereo.
 
Yes, there is a difference between a stereo recording and a stereo effect.

A stereo recording is a technique that is meant to accurately record the space.

A stereo effect is when you record something with the intention of making it wide.

Binaural is a specific form of stereo recording.

I assumed the OP wanted a stereo effect.
 
He did say decent stereo image. But, what is it the engineer gets paid for : ) There have been long speculations online about making one MIC sound like another, for example. You shouldn't have to buy the nt1a to m3 vst
 
Because of possible phase issues, why not record a double on another track and pan them? One could be Nashville tuned. You could also make a duplicate track and use a doubler with a different EQ per track to get the stereo image.
 
Well, there's nothing, particularly, stereo about a single point source acoustic guitar. If you want some stereo effect, none of it ever caused the sky to fall, or, anything
 
The obsession with 'stereo' always surprises me - with the guitar, as said by garb, guitars aren't much more than a point source, but worst is when people take something like a piano or vibraphone and mic it wide, with a kind of hole in the middle, and then as the player bashes away, the image seems to make the instrument as wide as your entire listening room - and when they go up or down the instrument fast, the notes gradually shift from left to right - sounds majorly strange to my ears. Same a bit with guitars - I find it odd to get finger and fret noise one side, and mechanical clicks from the nails or pick the other side. It also forces you to be in front or facing the instrument to make this left and right make sense - so if you get left and right mixed up your listening position (assuming you play guitar) suddenly means you kind of 'are' the player, not in the audience.
 
rob aylestone said:
The obsession with 'stereo' always surprises me - with the guitar, as said by garb, guitars aren't much more than a point source, but worst is when people take something like a piano or vibraphone and mic it wide, with a kind of hole in the middle, and then as the player bashes away, the image seems to make the instrument as wide as your entire listening room - and when they go up or down the instrument fast, the notes gradually shift from left to right - sounds majorly strange to my ears.
Click to expand...

I solved that problem by using a 3rd, center mic when recording my upright in stereo.
I do a spaced stereo pair with the bottom, front panel open on the upright...and then I add a center mono mic up top, with the hammers/strings exposed. Basically...I usually remove all that cover wood top and bottom.
So I get the wide L/R spread...but there is also a solid center, and you don't have that hole.
Of course...that works best for songs/mixes that are more sparse and allow a wide stereo instrument to exist in all that space without causing clutter.

For guitars (and I guess you guys are talking acoustic guitar, but I mean for electric)...I've done stereo recording using a few different stereo miking methods...but the one that worked out really well, on a 212 cab with the mics dead center between the speakers and about 2' back...was a Blumlein mic set, using my two Cascade Fat Head mics.
You don't get any hard L/R thing...it's still all centered and sounds mostly like a mono/single point-source...but it adds a 3D fell to the sound of the guitar. This was/is mostly for lead guitar tracks...not rhythm.
Again, it was for a song with a sparse mix, where that 3D quality could be felt. In a very full mix it wouldn't be noticed, and for those, I just record guitar leads in mono....or if I use two mics, I end up piking one or blending them to one track.
 
rob aylestone said:
The obsession with 'stereo' always surprises me - with the guitar, as said by garb, guitars aren't much more than a point source, but worst is when people take something like a piano or vibraphone and mic it wide, with a kind of hole in the middle, and then as the player bashes away, the image seems to make the instrument as wide as your entire listening room - and when they go up or down the instrument fast, the notes gradually shift from left to right - sounds majorly strange to my ears. Same a bit with guitars - I find it odd to get finger and fret noise one side, and mechanical clicks from the nails or pick the other side. It also forces you to be in front or facing the instrument to make this left and right make sense - so if you get left and right mixed up your listening position (assuming you play guitar) suddenly means you kind of 'are' the player, not in the audience.
Click to expand...
It's an effect, like every other part of the recording process. Nobody really cares whether it sounds "real" or not, we only care whether it sounds good or not. Yes, it's a single source, but you could just as easily argue that your ears hear it in stereo. Both points are irrelevant, because it's the final product that matters, and if it is a great-sounding mix which happens to include a wide-panned acoustic guitar, the discussion is moot. In answer to the OP yes, you certainly can get a decent stereo image, because you are using two microphones in appropriate locations, and these are the basic requirements. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn't even think twice about it - except that the effect doesn't work so well in dense mixes in my experience, because it is too subtle to have a decent impact.
 
I don't record for effects - and I DO care if it sounds real. It's fine for you to not need this. I do really feel strongly that if you use the word stereo rather than two mics, then the inference is that you want a real sounding stereo image with width - NOT an effect. We use multiple miking all the time don't we? Does that make a top and bottom miked snare 'stereo'? Course not. Blending two mics that have totally different capture sound (like in our guitar) is simply not stereo - it's at best twin channels, blended to create a new sound.

For what it's worth, stable stereo images NEED identical mics (hence why people spend even more money matching pairs). Stereo recordings with dissimilar mics have a weirdness and horrible image shifts.
 
.."NEED identical mics"..

Good premise, should one have anything else matched within a half dB or, so.
 
This is home recording, no? Read that, "make do with what you have"...not, "quality doesn't matter."

If I had two mikes on an acoustic, it would definitely be two different. I've used an LDC/SM57 to record neck/hole and vice versa. Both worked. I DID get a bit of phase issues from both...so: Last two years, I went to a single large condenser and am getting very nice tone. If I want "stereo" I just record the part again...one for each side, notch the EQ a bit and move on.
 
rob aylestone said:
I don't record for effects - and I DO care if it sounds real. It's fine for you to not need this. I do really feel strongly that if you use the word stereo rather than two mics, then the inference is that you want a real sounding stereo image with width - NOT an effect. We use multiple miking all the time don't we? Does that make a top and bottom miked snare 'stereo'? Course not. Blending two mics that have totally different capture sound (like in our guitar) is simply not stereo - it's at best twin channels, blended to create a new sound.

For what it's worth, stable stereo images NEED identical mics (hence why people spend even more money matching pairs). Stereo recordings with dissimilar mics have a weirdness and horrible image shifts.
Click to expand...
I understand exactly what you are saying. But I think the horse is out of the barn on this one. Most productions that come out are in stereo, but almost non of them utilize your definition of stereo. The stereo image on the CD is an effect, not an actual representation of something that actually happened.

Even with a true stereo mic technique, it's still the producer's call as to how 'close' he wants the audience perspective. Some guys like the narrower image, as if the listener was 50 feet away, some like the wide image, as if the listener was on stage. So the 'reality' that gets recorded is still up for interpretation and won't sound real to anyone who doesn't agree with the producer's aesthetic.

Besides, there is a good percentage of people on this site that think that when you record something on a 'stereo track', it automatically makes it 'stereo'. You are fighting a losing battle trying to get into the semantics of a stereo recording vs. a stereo mix.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top