[AcousticDreams]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

As KevWind mentioned, room acoustics are a factor in sounding "big". When you record in a bad sounding room, the guitar sounds weak and distant from all the noise (literally as well as reflections and "room sound"). Think of a flashlight - it seems really dim in the daylight, but can be blindingly bright in pure darkness. When you get the room out of the sound, the guitar is what's left, so it sounds "big".

I do find the most useful approach to multiple mics - at least the only way I've had any success with it - is what you described, spaced pairs with a mic in the middle. I often put an MS pair in the middle. More than that becomes mud. However, you have to be careful, and it's easy to be fooled with multiple mics. For example, if you have 2 stereo tracks, listen to each by themselves, then switch both on at the same time, the sound will probably get "bigger". Why? Because you've just increased the volume by about 3db by having both tracks on. You might very well get the same effect with just 2 mics, and turning the volume up! You have to be sure you're listening at the same volume to accurately assess whether adding in an additional mic is helpful or not.



Getting a good acoustic guitar sound can be tricky, lots of small details around mic placement, room acoustics, the guitar itself, how you play to sound right on the recording, etc, etc. At the same time, I think you'd get a chuckle out of any audio engineer who deals with complete bands - micing drums sets, managing bleed between different instruments, dealing with the extreme dynamics of some instruments, etc, if you told them recording a solo guitar was hard :-)

Love your Flashlight Theory! This comparison makes the most sense I have ever heard.

Like so many, it is hard for myself to invest in acoustics over equipment. It is hard to turn a place of habitation into a recording set up. Thus it has not been in my priorities.

However, after hearing your flashlight analogy, I am beginning to truly understand the value of room treatment. Makes so much sense, a flashlight in sunlight verses the dark.

However, one microphone manufacturer offered another solution. He claimed that you could also try recording at different angles in rooms. Claiming that by turning small degrees you could eliminate some of the room problems and find those sweet spots. I have yet to try this though. Building a close quartered isolation booth as you have done seems an easy enough fix.