Use two channels to record acoustic?
 

I play a steel-string acoustic guitar with in-built pickup - bog-standard mid-low end guitar (see sig). I also have a clip-on acoustic pickup that goes across the sound hole, which I bought for my classical guitar.

I was wondering, when recording my steel-string acoustic, is it worth clipping on the acoustic pickup and recording both ways as two channels?

If you like the sound (or combination of sounds), then do it! :) realistically, the best acoustic sound is going to be recorded by mic-ing the guitar in a good-sounding room.

+1 for using mics in a decent room.

Recording two pickups simultaneously may sound better than one, but neither will sound great.

If you have the capacity for recording on two channels simultaneously, your guitar will sound so much better if you use a pair of condenser mics. There are a couple of classic arrangements for stereo micing an acoustic guitar, but depending upon your room, you can play around with all sorts of setups.

You can buy condenser microphones for peanuts these days. You'll need a preamp for each, but if you have an audio interface for your computer (if you're recording that way), your AI will most likely have a built-in 48V preamp for each mic input - you just have to plug in, switch on the phantom power, and you're set!

Way too upmarket for my needs/taste :) I'm basically just asking if this mix will be better than using one of those two channels alone, in a singer-songwriter mucking about setup. Setting up fixed mics isn't the way I want to go (at this point anyway).

Sure John, put 'em on separate tracks and mix to taste or choose one and leave the other out, or choose one and let the other drive the reverb just to be tricky.

Regards,

Ty Ford

You will just have to try it an see because no one but you is in your ears