Mic Placement demo
 

Hi, I just posted a demo I originally shot for the Acoustic Guitar recording article I did a month or two back, but that we didn't end up using for the magazine. The attempt is to show a handful of typical mic placements and demo how they sound. Mic placement's always tricky, you can get different sounds from minor changes, and I had hoped this would turn out a bit better than it did, but maybe it will be useful to someone!

Very nice and helpful. Thank you, Doug.

That was easy to understand and very helpful for this recording novice. Thank you.

You probably know my favorite! ;)


Bob

Thank you. This was helpful. I will try some of these.
The explanations were easy to understand.

Just a note about playback systems: Listened to the video at work on my computer monitor speakers at fairly low volume and all the mike setups sounded exactly the same.

Indeed, I see people listening to stuff on mobile devices, laptops with tiny speakers and so on. In those cases, you'll totally miss the nuances of mic placement, stereo image, etc. I guess it's a way to test how much it matters - if you can't hear any difference on the types of systems you listen to, then any recording setup will do!

I had a similar experience years ago when I was helping Fran Guidry finish his 1st CD. He'd recorded it over the years, using different setups, different micing techniques and so on. Listening in my studio was a head-spinning experience as tonality and stereo image changed radically between songs. Then I put it on my home stereo - not a terrible system, but not studio quality. There I couldn't hear any differences between tracks...

I was thinking of you when I did that one! I've tried that setup several times before, ever since Pete Huttlinger first told me about it, without much success. But this time, it seemed to work - I really like the consistency in tone between the left and right channels. In a lot of ways, it sounds more natural than some of the others. I've used it a few times now.

Pluses and minuses I guess. I have some early on recordings I did that I don't care for due to thinness and harshness.
One day a receptionist was playing some of those on a smallish boombox type system and I heard that from a distance
and it actually sounded more mellow and ok. On the other hand I really like the experience of good recordings on good
playback systems.

Thanks for the excellent video, Doug!

Bob ..... Inquiring minds want to know; which IS your favorite?
Steve

Very informative.
Thanks for posting this video.
Nick

He's talking about the "Vertical ORTF" placement. Bob's described it very well many times, and I referred to some photos he's posted when I set up for that. I should have labeled the placement "Bob"!

Vertical Ortf , could be a great song title or name of a band :D

I guess it's actually Vertical Reverse ORTF, so an even crazier band name :-) "VRO" for short...

BTW, after I shot this video, I actually asked the guys who make mic mounts on Shapeways - I used them in some other placements in the video - if they could make a mount for this. It's not all that hard to just do it with the stereo bar as I did in this video, but it's kind of nice to have a mount that has the angle and distance fixed. It looks like they actually created one:

https://www.shapeways.com/product/8E...ionId=84980007