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Originally Posted by Luke_
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I understand that there are large and small diaphragm mics. Both seem to have good results recording acoustic guitar rom what I've read. But what are the characteristics of the two? It's it size of the inlet, the surface area of sound capture? Seems like one or the other would have an advantage over the other?
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I wouldn't worry too much about Large vs Small. People will ascribe various differences, but in reality "it depends". It's a lot like asking what the difference in woods used in a guitar. So many things affect the sound, not just the wood, that people can generalize, but you can easily find guitars that defy the generalization. I doubt that anyone could listen to a recording and identify whether it was recorded with an SD or an LD mic. Maybe some very experienced recording engineers could, but I suspect even they could be fooled. The differences tend to be small, and are dwarfed by other things, such as mic placement, room acoustics, the guitar, the player, effects, etc.
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In reference to pointing the mic like a flashlight. Don't suppose I've pointed the "point" of the mic at the source. Suppose I'll try that and see if there is any distinct side effects in comparison to other sides
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Fran's pointing out that a mic isn't 100% directional - even a directional mic picks up something in all directions. But you definitely want to "aim" the mic, it makes a difference whether you play into the "front" or the "back", as you've heard, but even smaller changes matter, too. With a cardiod, you need to know which is the front of the mic. You will hear differences in tone depending on where you place the mic - both where you "aim" it, and where it is relative to the guitar. A mic near the headstock is going to sound a lot different than one in front of the sound hole. There is tons of info on mic placement on the web, so I'd do some reading, and experimenting. I'm not going to claim this is the best of what's out there, but here's an article I did for Acoustic Guitar a while back, with a video demo, that might get you started.
http://www.acousticguitar.com/How-To...Home-Recording