Crazy Vertical XY Stereo MICing

[EleKtriKaz]

Don't know if anyone has tried this, but a local producer told me about it and sounds amazing.

Take a pair of SDCs, set them up in an XY position (90 degrees, coincident) on an acoustic guitar at the 12th fret. Then take that setup and turn it vertical, so instead of micing left and right, you're micing top strings and bottom strings. This is much easier to do if you have a stereo bar...which I did not, so I had to get creative with my mics stands.

Pan one hard left and one hard right...and wow, you've got a great full sounding acoustic, with a nice not-too-wide stereo image.

Maybe this is common knowledge, but it was like an epiphany to me on playback. Hope this helps someone.

 

[Kevin Deschwazi]

Cool, I'll try that when I get home. I'm a bit skeptical about panning hard but hey, I'll just see how it sounds.

 

[bean....]

I think I remember watching 'Surreal Life' with Flava Flav and Charo and co., and they recorded Charo's guitar like that when they recorded their big song.




.........aaaand I just admited to watching Surreal Life........damnit

 

[JazzMang]

.........aaaand I just admited to watching Surreal Life........damnit

Ahahahaha.
hey, i'd be interested in hearing what that sounds like. Anyone got any audio clips of this???

 

[EleKtriKaz]

I'll see if I can't put a clip up this weekend.

As to Kevin's concern about hard panning, the stereo image doesn't widen all that much, it just sort of spaces out the frequencies just enough.

 

[BrettB]

I guess you'll get a sort of piano effect, with the low strings on the left and the others at right.

 

[ecktronic]

Sounds interesting but i think ill stick with the good old horizontal XY.

 

[bennychico11]

hmmm, sounds cool
i wish you would have mentioned it a few weeks ago BEFORE i tracked this guitarist

how's it micing top and bottom strings separately though?? i'm having trouble invisioning a difference in sound. so the mics are pointing vertical at the floor?? or is one mic parallel to the neck length of the guitar and the other pointing down at the floor?? hmmm...i'd be interested in seeing a picture of this

 

[scrubs]

I'm envisioning it like this (forgive my weak skills with ms paint):

 

[bennychico11]

i'll join you in the crappy drawings club
i invisioned it flipped 180

 

[EleKtriKaz]

Those drawings pretty much have it...Benny's being the closest, except that the capsules are pointed at the strings. So basically put your hand out flat, palm facing down...that's your normal XY configuration with the capsules being in the horizontal plane. Now turn your hand 90 degrees so the sides of your hand are facing left and right, that's what you do with the mics. I don't know if that visualization will help anyone or not. Basically the mic that points at the bottom 3 strings (G, B, and E) is pointing down from above, with the mic stand pretty much as high up as it can go and the arm extended all the way out...I even have to slide the long body of my SM81 almost all the way out of the clip. Then the mic pointing at the top strings (E, A, and D) is pointing upwards from the floor, as low as it can go. If I had the cord for my digital camera I would just take a picture and post it.

The mics aren't pointing at the floor...one of them is pointing "mostly" at the top 3 strings while the other is pointing "mostly" at the bottom 3 strings. It's tough to get it perfect...I just try to get as close as I can. The other thing I forgot to mention is that the guitar player can't be moving around. It gets weird if there's movement with the guitar.

 

[bennychico11]

iiiii gotcha
that makes sense.
maybe i'll give it a try sometime