Over Mic Experiment Question
 

Have any of you used five, six or ten mics to record an acoustic guitar? I know it's a crazy useless idea so I figured someone here has done it. :D I was looking at a recorder that had ten mic inputs which would be more than I would need to record a vocal and acoustic guitar. Then it struck my mind that I have more mics and extra inputs why not? I suspect you'd dump most of the tracks.

There's a Tommy Emmanuel video I've seen with 5 mics, but that's not normally seen with acoustic guitar recording.

When I see multiple mics used all I can think about is wacky phasing.

You know what they say, "Just because you could do something...."

It honestly strikes me as a serious waste of time. Getting better at recording acoustic guitar, for me anyway, has been about reducing variables, not introducing more.

(P.S. I used to have 12 mic inputs available on my little desk, with the F'rite+ADAT. Figured out I never used the extra 8 except mobile, so sold the ADAT. Now I use field recorders for mobile recording. I can do 8 easily, and 16, by connecting my F8s together with a single cable. Never occurred to me to add more mics on the same instrument, though 2 mics and a DI, sure, so 3 is not irresponsible :).)

With the exception of drum sets, most instruments do not sound better or even interesting the more microphones you use.

Overwhelmingly I prefer a 2 microphone approach to guitar. I have heard 3 mic setups that were excellent, but going beyond that, diminishing returns.

Part of this is phase problems as Rudy4 posted, and part is insufficient differentiation between microphone signals.

First, you'd better have something to get the phase of all those tracks in alignment (as has been pointed out), but that issue aside, I have some questions to anyone doing the multi-multi-mic thing:
If you go with 10 mics, what will the 10th mic give you that the other 9 will not?
If you go with 9 mics, what will the 9th mic give you that the other 8 will not?
If you go with 8 mics, what will the 8th mic give you that the other 7 will not?
If you go with 7 mics, what will the 7th mic give you that the other 6 will not?
If you go with 6 mics, what will the 6th mic give you that the other 5 will not?
If you go with 5 mics, what will the 5th mic give you that the other 4 will not?
If you go with 4 mics, what will the 4th mic give you that the other 3 will not?
If you go with 3 mics, what will the 3rd mic give you that the other 2 will not?

I do know the answer to the next logical question:
If you go with 2 mics, what will the 2nd mic give you that the other 1 will not?
Answer: A stereo image

All kidding aside, if someone is really unsure about what mic pair to use for a particular recording, I can see setting up two pairs (i.e. a pair of LDCs and a pair of SDCs) with the intention to dump one of the pairs as the needs of the song become more clear. Other than that, I don't see any real upside to this that would make it worth the effort.

Exactly what I found. All that work and I ended up using one or two tracks. I thought it would be time better spent to learn more about how to get those one or two tracks :D

I usually use 4 mics (two pairs) and either combine them or choose between them, depending on how it sounds. I've tried 6 (3 pairs) and have yet to find a case where the 3rd pair adds anything. If you had a spectacular-sounding room, I could see using different room mics to capture the ambience. But most of us don't have that kind of acoustics, and there are plenty of plugins that can produce the same sort of effect, usually sounding better than what I can get in my room, at least.

One use for all your channels, tho, would be to compare different mic placements all at once, and see what you like. The limiting factor will likely be space and the clutter of stands, but set up a couple of XY pairs, an ORTF pair, a couple of spaced pairs in different locations, etc. But it's hard enough to dial in the best mic placement with one pair, doing it with 10 mics sounds like a lot of work, even if you an manage to squeeze everything into place.

Well I mean you don't have to use 'em all at the same time. I suppose you could have an xy pair, a spaced pair, something out further, over the shoulder, etc. etc & just pick & choose, see what works for you on the particular track.

hahah, nevermind, DY covered it above.

A couple of times I recorded a solo fingerstyle tune using eight mics, set up as four matching pairs, with each pair using a different stereo mic placement. The goal was to compare the four pairs with each other.

I did playback all eight mics at the same time just to listen. It sounded close to horrible.

For solo guitar I tend to think that 2 is optimum. Maybe 3 if you want a full stereo spread and a pronounced middle.

For guitar and vocal for a single pass (live feel) 2 on guitar, with 3 rd on vocal
For Dubbed guitar and vocal 2 on guitar.

For multi instrument/vocal mixes 2 max., often 1

Yeah, you could put up say twenty mikes and record a guitar with all of them going and then post recording use say just the combination of the two mikes than sound the best in stereo. Of course that's a way to second guess yourself a hundred plus times and drive yourself crazy.

You should have tried harder to get it all the way there. :D

You were two mics short of perfection!

I have wondered if placing, say, 4 mics pointing at different spots between the bridge and where the neck meets the body might give a bigger, fuller sound, especially if different amounts and types of (slight) reverb and chorusing were applied to each. And I wondered if it would help to place them in different parts of the left/right soundfield.

If I were to try such a thing, I would place the diaphragms of all those mics as close to the same distance from the guitar as possible, to avoid phase problems.

Has anyone ever tried anything like this? Interesting idea or stupid idea?

That does not really make a difference.