One mic recording in stereo sound like two?

[freedomfarm]

I've been reading with great interest on this section of the forum about using two mic's to record a guitar for a rich and full sound. Eventually I will buy a couple of mic's and mounts to do that, but for now I'll have to make do with what I have. If I record my guitar with one mic, but in stereo (recording two channels, one panned each way) is there anything I can do to one channel to enhance it? Different EQ settings? add delay/chorus to one side and not the other?
Thanks . . .

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by freedomfarm

I've been reading with great interest on this section of the forum about using two mic's to record a guitar for a rich and full sound. Eventually I will buy a couple of mic's and mounts to do that, but for now I'll have to make do with what I have. If I record my guitar with one mic, but in stereo (recording two channels, one panned each way) is there anything I can do to one channel to enhance it? Different EQ settings? add delay/chorus to one side and not the other?
Thanks . . .

There are a lot of options. A mono recording with stereo reverb on it can sound quite nice without doing anything more drastic. Some people add a slight delay to one side. The approach that is perhaps safest from a phase/mono compatibility perspective is to EQ each side a bit differently. Basically, put a graphic equalizer on each side, and whatever you do to one side, do the opposite to the other. There are some plugins that will do this for you. You might try a subtle stereo chorus, tho that will sound "chorusy". if you have a pitch shifter, you can do like a 1 cent pitch shift to one side (thanks to Howard Emerson from that trick!) There are a number of stereo simulator plugins out there that do some combination of all these things to produce a stereo effect.

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by freedomfarm

I've been reading with great interest on this section of the forum about using two mic's to record a guitar for a rich and full sound. Eventually I will buy a couple of mic's and mounts to do that, but for now I'll have to make do with what I have. If I record my guitar with one mic, but in stereo (recording two channels, one panned each way) is there anything I can do to one channel to enhance it? Different EQ settings? add delay/chorus to one side and not the other?
Thanks . . .

IMO recording with a single mic will never give you stereo field, you can simulate it with effects, but you're still manipulating a single point field from your instrument.

Panning left and right does not produce stereo, but produces a mono signal panned left and right. It will sound exactly like (and is) a mono signal split to two sound sources.

You CAN get some very nice spatial simulations by feeding your mono source to a device like the acoustic-specific processers (read the Zoom A3 topic) and feeding the stereo output to two channels panned left and right. Alterrnatively you could get creative and process the same signal panned left and right differently to create a faux stereo field, but it will never sound as realistic as true stereo micing.

If I were in your position I'd probably opt for a inexpensive multi-effects unit with stereo outputs as opposed to trying to do something with it in editting. you'll spend tons more time editing than playing, and that's a bad thing!

[Ty Ford]

Originally Posted by freedomfarm

I've been reading with great interest on this section of the forum about using two mic's to record a guitar for a rich and full sound. Eventually I will buy a couple of mic's and mounts to do that, but for now I'll have to make do with what I have. If I record my guitar with one mic, but in stereo (recording two channels, one panned each way) is there anything I can do to one channel to enhance it? Different EQ settings? add delay/chorus to one side and not the other?
Thanks . . .

Sure. Use Stereo Reverbs; usually two of them, one set short the other set long will fill a stereo filed nicely.

Regards,

Ty Ford

[Doug Young]

Here's a quick and dirty demo of some of the techniques I mentioned. This is 1 mic from an originally stereo recording I did as a demo for something else, so it's not the best mono recording sound, but it should do. Short clip, so I just commandeered it for this. All in one mp3, here's what's on it:

1 Mono
2 Adding 2 stereo reverbs (as Ty just suggested)
3 Mono to stereo with opposing EQs applied (actually the Logic stereo tool)
4 delaying one side by about 10 ms
5 applying +1 cent pitch shift to 1 side, -1 to the other with the Wave's doubler plugin.

I actually left the reverb on the last 3 versions as well.

http://www.dougyoungguitar.com/mp3/mono_stereo.mp3

[adventureboy]

These follow-up posts and tips are great. On the subject of using two reverbs on a 'dry' or dead room recording, is it the done thing to put the dry signal through a room reverb send to put some space around it and then, say, add a longer tail in the chain from a hall reverb or something like that or would that cause convolution/chaos?

[ukejon]

Great examples Doug. Stereo Reverb is nice. Also, it is interesting how the last one sounded a bit like a phase shifter.

[freedomfarm]

Doug, Rudy & Ty,
As always, thanks much for weighing in . . .
Doug, thanks for taking the time for the examples!
It's much appreciated . . . I really want to get the two mic set up, but I've spent way too much "fun money" lately. I don't need the low brow from the wife. For now I'll try some of these ways to enhance things a bit.
Thanks!

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by ukejon

Great examples Doug. Stereo Reverb is nice. Also, it is interesting how the last one sounded a bit like a phase shifter.

Yeah, that's the Wave's doubler. I set its sweep depth to zero, but I can still hear it. All the pitch shifters I have create some kind of artifacts. If you search for the thread we had on this a while back, we had various attempts to make this work better. Only Howard's ProTools use (on his latest CD) seemed to work without any tell-tale signs.

[redavide]

Good, informative thread . . . a few simple techniques that can really make a difference. Thanks.

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by adventureboy

These follow-up posts and tips are great. On the subject of using two reverbs on a 'dry' or dead room recording, is it the done thing to put the dry signal through a room reverb send to put some space around it and then, say, add a longer tail in the chain from a hall reverb or something like that or would that cause convolution/chaos?

You can do that. Try a short reverb for early reflections and a longer one for the tail. Some reverbs can do both well, otherwise you need two or more reverbs together. All of it will remove detail from the original recording, so listen carefully. Adjust pre-delays and use what sounds good.

[ombudsman]

Here's another point of view; (true) stereo micing of guitars, or other multi mic techniques, do not always sound good, nor objectively better than mono for a particular application.

I'm a recording nut and have at least 100 mics around the house, including omnis, figure 8s and pairs of multi pattern dual capsule mics with which I can do any stereo mic technique. When I record solo guitar, most of the time I record in my dining room using one Beyer ribbon mic straight out from the 12th fret, through a clean preamp with a simple circuit right into the converter, and then I send some of that channel to a stereo aux with a reverb plugin using the plate reverb preset that I like the best ("Blue Plate" in Logic).

It's hard to go wrong with that approach, it can be set up very quickly, and it sounds great; it's focused and detailed with as much space as you like and no need for EQ. You won't get into trouble with the mix or with phase.

[adventureboy]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

You can do that. Try a short reverb for early reflections and a longer one for the tail. Some reverbs can do both well, otherwise you need two or more reverbs together. All of it will remove detail from the original recording, so listen carefully. Adjust pre-delays and use what sounds good.

Thanks for that, Rick
I was watching Doug's detailed walk-through and saw that he had used a room setting and a hall in sequence together, it does make a nice combo. I'm going to try that. Thanks

[KevWind]

Couple more thoughts, what people are actually getting with two mics falls predominantly into two categories. 1. slight time domain differences and 2. slight differences in the frequencies. So if you do not have 2 mics. There is one other technique besides the ones already mentioned.

If your DAW has the ability to slip a track in time, i.e. move one mono track physically in relation to the other track by a few milliseconds this will address the the time domain difference and then EQ the tracks slightly differently and that will address the frequency aspect. The EQ part is particularly more effective if your using a multi band EQ that can also adjust the Q or width or range of the frequency that each band is affecting. Also often with single left and right tracks try setting them less than hard left ( 100 % ) and hard Right say something like 45 L and R

[Doug Young]

Yeah, that's sort of combining 2 of my demos. The 10ms delay between tracks, I did with a plugin, but if you have 2 separate tracks, you could also just slip them. The EQ, I also did with a Logic plugin that automatically applies alternate EQ to each track, allows me to adjust the Q of each change, and how many bands to apply. If you have a graphic EQ that lets you draw an EQ curve, you could play with different shapes (Q). And you could use both of these at once, or even add in the pitch shift, reverb - do them all! I think a little goes a long way, tho. There's something nice about a mono recording and stereo reverb, simple, focused, but with a sense of space.