Micing Acoustic Guitar with these mics...

[lurgan liar]

Hey guys....Here are the mics i have at my disposal ...

MXL 990
MXL 991
Shure SM 58
Shure SM 58
Sennheiser e845

Any suggestions how i would go about micing an acouustic with these mics ....

I was going to put the MXL 990 at the 12th fret about 7 inches from the fret board ....

and the mxl 991 at the bridge about 7 inches from it ....

How would you guys do it with this selection of mics?

Thanks in advance

 

[sdelsolray]

From you list of mics, the two MXLs would be a good place to start, as would be the placements you mentioned. I wouldn't be too set of the 7" distances though. You'll have to experiment with distance.

 

[emergencyexit]

58s probably wont do anything to great for you and im not so sure about the e 845, but i've gotten some great guitar tracks with just two MXLs. The one set at the 12th fret is good, although like sdelsolray said, 7 inches is not set in stone. As for the one at the bridge that can get you a really nice sound, but i've actually found that putting a second one about 4 inches in front of the guitarist's hand can really add body to the sound. Some people will swear against this though so play around.

 

[hawk]

Side question...

What's the best way to mix 2 mics for acoustic? Pan each hard L/R or blend them together?

 

[reshp1]

I personally like the "over the shoulder" mic placement (thanks Harvey). Put the 990 where you described, but the 991 goes over the right shoulder (for righties) and points down towards the bridge, just over parallel with the soundboard. You have to be careful about breathing into the mic, but this is the most natural sounding (for me as a guitar player) mic position I've tried.
I generally pan just shy of hard right/left, like 90% each way.

 

[hawk]

Okay, so assuming I'm going into a mixer, I'd pan the mics on the mixer as you said. But then in the recording software (AA 1.5,) do I record them as separate tracks? And so I need to pan there as well?

 

[lurgan liar]

Okay, so assuming I'm going into a mixer, I'd pan the mics on the mixer as you said. But then in the recording software (AA 1.5,) do I record them as separate tracks? And so I need to pan there as well?

Yeah i often wondered that myself? because in cakewalk sonar if asks you to choose which recording technique ... mono or stereo ....

would i pan the guitar on the 12th fret hard right ...then record this track into the computer as a mono track and pan that hard right in cakewalk ...

then pan the bridge mic hard left and record this as a seperate track as a mono track and pan it hard left in cakewalk ....