Doubling up on acoustic guitars in a mix...

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copperandstars

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Hello,

I am soon to begin recording an acoustic guitar project with a drummer friend of mine. Usually when I record guitars, electric that is, I double up and pan one left and the other right. For these songs, there are two acoustic guitar tracks, and I am thinking I will use the same technique. But my question is, what mic placements should I use for this? Is it possible to record each guitar in stereo with two small diaphram condensors, even though each guitar will be panned left or right after? Or should I just do each guitar with a single mic? I also like how the guitar sounds out of the pick up but would not want to completely depend on it. Is there any way I could work that into the mix?

I would appreciate your opinions/comments very much.

-Ryan
 
what i sometimes do when i double accoustic guitars is record them with one mike up close (12'th fret) and one room mike. the up close tracks are panned l-r and the room tracks middle (at a lower volume).
 
Another effect I've heard of but never tried is to record them out of phase, then pan them. It gives an 'out of the speaker' ambiance. I've also heard they cancel out if you make a mono mix.
 
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Try this out...you could record one track with the pickup completely, copy the track and print it to it's own track...then pan the two to 9 and three...then put a delay on one of the tracks between 8 and 35 milliseconds. Then do the same with the second acoustic part...but when you put the delay on this time put it on the side you didn't put delay on before...this will give you a wide open stereo kind of sound....might have some trouble when put in mono however...but try it out and see how it goes.
 
copperandstars said:
Hello,

I am soon to begin recording an acoustic guitar project with a drummer friend of mine. Usually when I record guitars, electric that is, I double up and pan one left and the other right. For these songs, there are two acoustic guitar tracks, and I am thinking I will use the same technique. But my question is, what mic placements should I use for this? Is it possible to record each guitar in stereo with two small diaphram condensors, even though each guitar will be panned left or right after? Or should I just do each guitar with a single mic? I also like how the guitar sounds out of the pick up but would not want to completely depend on it. Is there any way I could work that into the mix?

I would appreciate your opinions/comments very much.

-Ryan
Click to expand...

While it is certainly possible to use 2 mics on each guitar, one-mic recordings are easier to work with at mixdown when you have multiple acoustics in the mix. When you take a stereo acoustic track and start panning it, weird things can happen (phasing, etc.). For that reason, I would start with one mic and really focus on getting a good placement. If you must add a second mic and/or a DI signal, record it to a separate track and see if there is any use for it when you mix.
 
i do one small diaphram at the 12th fret, & another large diaphram facing the soundhole a foot & a half or so back. seems to work ok.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions!

So MikeDMusic, your method sounds interesting, I will definitely try it out. You suggest only using the pick up though?

I am thinking I might just try going mono for each guitar track. Has anyone here had any experience mixing together a mic and DI signal into one track, to give a more textured sound?

-ryan
 
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