[flagstaffcharli]

So after reading through the whole "evolution" thread again (and deciding I have no business buying anything more until I thoroughly get to know my gear) I sat down and did some recording of a solo guitar piece today.

Basically, I set up four 2X4 ATS broadband panels and made a wall for my mics similar to how Fran used 2 panels in his recent thread on the subject. The only difference was I opened it up a little so that I would get more reflection from the sides. I pointed my KM184 at my guitar and got a sound I liked without too much fuss, and then I set-up my AKG414 to figure eight and put it in its M/S position beneath the Neumann.

I'd never done a mid-side recording here at home and mostly I just wanted to try out the technique to see how it worked. So I duplicated the side track, and then it took me forever to figure out how to invert the phase in my DAW. But once I got it... Wow! That's the best guitar sound I've ever been able to capture on my own. And it's really enlightening to play with the faders and see how the stereo image changes as you mess with the volume of the tracks. (In fact, I can see where mixing might be an exercise in restraint because of the temptation to keep turning up the sides!)

I'm just scratching the surface with this right now, but I see a lot of potential. I might try to replace the Neumann with my new Beyer M160 tomorrow just to see what the difference will be. The AKG is the only mic I've got to go in the side postition, so it's going to live in that spot for now.

I've got two questions:

1. I see people mentioning decoder software in a number of threads. I do see how you can use that software to sort of turn the stereo image, but in the case of recording a solo guitar that seems unneccessary. Is there any practical advantage to using the decoder software as opposed to just flipping the phase on a duplicated track?

2. Is there an optimum relative level for each mic? I just got what I thought were healthy signals where there was no danger of clipping. It seemed to work well, but I got to wondering if the AKG should actually be quieter than the Neumann since it is mainly capturing the reflections. I don't know...

If someone wants to recommend a source where I could read more about this technique, I would be grateful. I might try to put a couple instrumental pieces on an upcoming CD, and I suspect I'm going to spend quite a bit of time experimenting with mid-side recording over the next few weeks.

As always, thanks!