Panning when micing acoustic with 1 mic

  • Thread starter Thread starter Elmo89m
  • Start date Start date
dmbpettit said:
would an example of having something different in the left and right be just eq each differently or add reverb to one side?
Click to expand...

well, yeah, technically that would make the two channels different now...but it wouldn't make it a stereo signal. The original source would still be mono. You've just created an effect to manipulate the mono sound coming from the two speakers. If you want a true stereo image, you need to record a stereo image.
 
To do this I would need to record with 2 mics, but do they have to be the same mic? How about micing my amp and using its direct outs. Could I pan these opposite of each other and have it me true stereo?
 
Farview said:
don't bother with this, it does nothing.

Put a different reverb on the guitar than on the vocal. This will separate them. Don't make it a drastic difference, I would use a similar reverb with the decay time shorter on the vocal than on the guitar.
Click to expand...

totally with Fairview on this, but if u really wanna double the same track, try adding a little delay to one of the tracks or something, really subtle, and pan both tracks considerably but not totally hard left/right. works for me. or adding some reverb to one track and a little less to the other and panning hard...try different stuff.
 
dmbpettit said:
To do this I would need to record with 2 mics, but do they have to be the same mic? How about micing my amp and using its direct outs. Could I pan these opposite of each other and have it me true stereo?
Click to expand...

stereo=two sources. whether it be two different channels or two different sounds. when you play your electric guitar through an amp do you hear two different sounds coming from the speaker? your electric guitar is a mono instrument. you only have one jack on it sending one signal to an amp.

the reason acoustic guitars are sometimes recorded with two mics is because the acoustic guitar has different sounds in two places. engineers discovered that if you mic around the 12th fret you can capture more of the highs of the instrument while micing the body you get more boominess of the lows and the resonance of the body. when you're recording think first if the instrument produces two different sounds in two different places. If so, should you try and record both those sources?

Now, recording with two mics does not necessarily make it stereo. When an engineers uses two mics on a snare (top and bottom) he'll probably put both snares in the same spot in the stereo field. Panning the hard left and hard right will confuse the listener..."why does the snare sound different in the left than the right??"
If you run a DI guitar signal into your mixer and also mic the amp, you want to experiment, but you may find blending the amped signal with the DI signal in the same spot in the stereo field will give you better sounding results than panning them hard L/R.

there are no set rules, but these are ones that engineers find listeners have been accustomed too. And if the listener is annoyed at how the guitars or snare sound, all your work has gone to shit.
 
diogo said:
totally with Fairview on this, but if u really wanna double the same track, try adding a little delay to one of the tracks or something, really subtle, and pan both tracks considerably but not totally hard left/right. works for me. or adding some reverb to one track and a little less to the other and panning hard...try different stuff.
Click to expand...
Is it really that much trouble to play it again? It is worth the extra 5 minutes of work.
 
you can use any combination of mics you wish. It is not the same as a stereo pair for overheads. Overheadsare trying to capture a stereo source. An acoustic guitar is a mono source that you are getting two sounds out of. I use a dynamic mic for the boominess on the body and a condencer for the high end off the neck.
 
While we're on the topic--what exactly is a matched pair?
Is it any different than having two of the same model mic?
 
A matched pair is a pair of mics that have been tested and have the same response within a tight tolerance. Two of the same mics off the shelf might not sound exactly the same.
 
bennychico11 is correct: Stereo requires two tracks but two tracks are not necessarily stereo. For a true stereo image you must have two mics which pretty close to similar and position them in one of the several ways in which you can GET a stereo image (X/Y, Blumlein, etc.).
 
Does anyone record their acoustic in mono, copy it add some reverb and pan it slightly, i do this alot and it sounds pretty cool, but i also have another 2 tracks of acoustic besides the copy, just seeing if anyone else does this
 
my thread was hijacked....oh well im learning from this stuff too
 
Elmo89m said:
my thread was hijacked....oh well im learning from this stuff too
Click to expand...
..And in the sprit of liberation for the original question.. ;) Where is it said that two sounds can't share the same space'. It happens all the time quite naturally and as they say, 'it is what is is'. If what it is is a problem, then you scoot things around a bit.
:D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top