[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

Most tricks to fake stereo, like slipping tracks, etc, end up sounding very noticeable to me. They sound dramatic at first, but once you tune into them, you can recognize them for what they are, and therefore are distracting. I've heard some very nice solo guitar recordings that were done with 1 mic, and simply had some reverb and ambience applied, which to my ear is a far better way to simulate stereo. You basically hear a point source in a "room", artificially created by the reverb. There are some free IRs out there that do a great job of this. Just put the single source "in a room" with a good stereo reverb.

On the other hand, I almost always prefer a true stereo recording, with 2 mics. We have 2 ears, and 2 mics comes closest to mimicing that. The phase issues with 2 mics tends to be exaggerated, I think. It's a real issue, but if you use any of the common micing techniques, the effect will be minimal. Phase differences are part of what gives an image it's stereo-ness, and are part of what our ears use as cues as well. It's only a problem if you do something that's extreme. Otherwise, slight phase and volume variations are part of a natural part of a realistic sound of a guitar. Every part of the guitar vibrates, and not every part is in phase, so even when listening to your guitar when you're playing, you're hearing phase differences, and they contribute to why the guitar sounds good!

Its interesting how different people view things differently. For example the way I see it. We have 2 ears which gives us the psycho acoustic ability to localize one sound source, to one location. So to me ,any manipulation of a single sound source out to a stereo field could be considered fake, to one degree or another. For me the only " true stereo" representation is of a multiple source, across a stereo field , like an orchestra. But that's just me.