mixing acoustic recorded in stereo

[frist44]

I'm trying to record my acoustic in stereo with 2 mxl 603's. Previously I've just recorded in mono and then duplicated the track and set it back a little bit and pan them half way to the sides respectively.

I tried to record using both mics and when i played it back it sounded horrible using the panning halfway between the center and to the hard side.

My question is for those who mixdown stereo acoustic recordings, do you usually pan hard left and right?

I get alot of phase cancellations and i know alot of this can be solved by better mic placement, but i was just curious as to whether the two tracks are usually panned hard left and right.

Thanks,
Brandon

[Gidge]

where it gets panned depends on what else is going on in the mix and what role itplays in the mix...i can say its not uncommon to do hard left/right......

if you are having phase problems, you will have to work on mic placement as suspected......

[Gidge]

http://www.humbuckermusic.com/acguitrectec.html

check this out for some good placement ideas...

[frist44]

I've stopped by that site and it looks like some good information.

I just notice that whenever i bring the tracks back to the center together it produces weird tonal qualities of the tracks together. It pretty much gives me a sound i don't want. I like the sound of the individual tracks by themselves, but whenever i put them both back to the center the phasing issues begin and the sound goes downhill from there.

Assuming i find the right placement, will the tracks sound good when both panned to the center? is that when i know i've minimized the phasing issues?

Just for further clarification, I'm doing a solo acoustic and voice project, so I figured it would add some body to the songs by panning the guitars and putting the voices right down the middle.