Hey Doug I agree with you, but I was just giving the basics for the guy asking about our favorite mic techniques. This way the guy can try it without having a decoder, and sometimes I just like to process the individual tracks:)

Agreed, it's a good idea to know what's actually happening. The biggest obstacle to people trying MS is probably the rarity of figure-8 mics. They tend to be pricey - not many people have a U89 lying around, and their use is a little more exotic than most day-to-day recording, so you get into a chicken and egg problem. You don't know about the cool things you can do with one because you don't have one, so you can't discover the cool things you can do with one (or 2) :-)

Yes figure 8 mics are expensive:) And yes u89's are really expensive. But if I was to help somebody just getting into recording, here's a M/S set of mics that are cheap and work great together, and I would totally recommend.

The CAD M179 with a CAD CM217. Check out the reviews on these budget mics and you could do M/S with these and use them also on many other sources.

CAD M179 (B&H has these for $130) this may be one of the best bang for the buck deals out there!

CAD CM217 (these sell for around $50)

Nice sense of space on your track. The background track seems extremely wide, but it all works well together for me!

Here's a very short MS example I posted a long time ago on a different thread. Very basic, no processing, just the raw MS-decoded track of one guitar:

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

I love the way your track fills up the stereo field.