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  #16  
Old 09-01-2019, 05:39 PM
NoodleFingers NoodleFingers is offline
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Originally Posted by rick-slo View Post
That does not really make a difference.
Why not? Wouldn't they be responding in unison to pressure waves arriving at the same time? That's what I was thinking.
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  #17  
Old 09-01-2019, 06:26 PM
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Why not? Wouldn't they be responding in unison to pressure waves arriving at the same time? That's what I was thinking.
The guitar radiates sound from a broad area (unlike say a trumpet) with a different frequency content coming from different places on the guitar and thus different frequency content going out in different directions. Just considering the guitar top there multiple node and antinode positions for each frequency. Regardless of how far each mike is from the guitar the waveforms are not going to line up for each mike, and if they somehow did you would just have a mono sound (might as well have used one mike to record).

A good sounding stereo guitar recording actually depends on the right and left channel waveforms not lining up throughout the frequency spectrum.

When I set up two mikes for stereo I like the mikes in the same ballpark distance wise so the volume amount of direct guitar and room reflections is near the same in each mike but that's about it.
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  #18  
Old 09-01-2019, 06:50 PM
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Hi all

I've seen a studio (where a friend of mine records all his albums) and they use three differently spaced pairs (three matched pairs from three different brands), and then they choose in post.

My friend usually carries half dozen guitars to the sessions, and he feels it speeds up the overall recording process because the engineer doesn't have to keep returning to adjust mics.

His albums always sound professional.

I've never done that. I've actually used my matched pair and then only used one side later.



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  #19  
Old 09-03-2019, 05:26 PM
Trevor B. Trevor B. is offline
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I've experimented with one, two (different matched pairs) and three. The experiments with one wind up, as has already been pointed out, too narrow. I tried setting up three mikes to give me a literal mid/side approach (LDC in the centre and a matched pair of SDC mikes for the sides). It worked in terms of stereo image control, mono compatibility and a very full overall sound. However; the sound of spaced pairs has won me over. I find the spaced pair(s) give me as much control over the stereo image as I need and a cleaner, more transparent sound than the literal mid/side effort provided.
On another note I've recently been exploring the compatibility or lack thereof between mikes and guitars. Specifically, how much better a matched pair of Gefell M300s sound compared to my Sennheiser MKH 800 P48s when recording classical guitars. The opposite is true when recording steel strings.
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  #20  
Old 09-05-2019, 12:22 AM
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I was playing around tonight, and thought I'd put some actual audio into this discussion. I played a short noodle and recorded with 6 mics, a pair of LDs, a stereo ribbon (that I'm counting as "2") and a pair of SDs. LDs are 14 inches apart, spaced, Ribbon is centered in MS mode, SDs were 4 feet apart for a wide spaced pair. Here are mixes in order:

LD spaced pair (2 mics)
LD+MS Ribbon (4 mics)
LD+MS Ribbon+SD wide space pair (6 mics)
MS Ribbon+SD wide spaced pair (4 mics)



There are of course, nearly infinite variations on placement, relative mix options, etc, and this is just one example. One thing I'm usually thinking about when doing this kind of thing is mixing the different mic characters, not just the placement. For example, ribbons are smooth, but a little dark, so combining them with a condenser, I hope to get the best of each. With different placement, you get some different elements of room sound and mixing different stereo images.

An interesting aspect of this is that as I'm playing around with mixes, bringing in a 2nd mic raises the overall level (until I adjust levels), so it seems like adding the 2nd pair makes a big difference. For the demo here, I level matched all samples, and a lot of that disappears, so the differences are far more subtle to my ear than they seemed as I was mixing.

I prefer 2 of these over the other 2, but I'll be interested in what others hear.
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  #21  
Old 09-05-2019, 12:53 AM
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I like one and four the best. One was the clearest and with the closest presence. I assume when you volume leveled the
examples of the four and six mikes that each pair of mikes contributed equally volume wise to the total.
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  #22  
Old 09-05-2019, 08:41 AM
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Doug Young
That was enlightening. For you guitars ringing tone and the style that is played the two mic set up sounded best to my ear. The first actually. The second example sounded fuller though. I could see using the 4 close mic set up for a D-18 being flat picked or something of that sort. Overall your recordings sound great.
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  #23  
Old 09-05-2019, 10:08 AM
Trevor B. Trevor B. is offline
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I'd also say one and four. One seems more detailed and a bit clearer. Two, three and four all sounded very similar to me, darker and less detailed than one. That's probably because of the ribbon. Four was a nice compromise of the darker tone but clearer than two and three. I liked three least. That said, I was surprised that three didn't sound more cluttered.
Thanks for posting the sound clips. Very informative!
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  #24  
Old 09-05-2019, 10:15 AM
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I'm not a good set of ears, but just so that the mediocre are represented as a data point I thought they all sounded fine.

1. sounded least smeared, most direct. Maybe a tad dark, but not unpleasantly so, and that could be my old guy hearing. On a busier piece it might be my favorite.

2. Sounded wider with a touch of delay and a bit brighter. Pleasant, particular with this piece.

3. Like 2, but even more. At first I thought I liked 2 better and that this one was bit too much widening, but on the third listen I started to prefer it. When I'm mixing myself, I always tell myself not to trust the "more's better" effect though. If I came back to it in a different order or a fresh set of ears I might change my ranking.

4. Darker again. Liked 1 better than this one, though it's not objectionable.
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  #25  
Old 09-05-2019, 12:41 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rick-slo View Post
I like one and four the best. One was the clearest and with the closest presence. I assume when you volume leveled the
examples of the four and six mikes that each pair of mikes contributed equally volume wise to the total.
More or less, yes. I didn't calibrate each mic level, but for this I mostly mixed them equally. That's obviously something that can be played with, tho, just mixing in a small amount of one mic or whatever.
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  #26  
Old 09-05-2019, 03:28 PM
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Just listening with earbuds on laptop
All are great recordings

I think overall I like #4

I thought
#1 was the most detailed
#2 and #3 for me were pretty close and good solid recordings

#4 was a bit darker but I thought perhaps the "smoothest" overall (whatever that means )
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  #27  
Old 09-05-2019, 03:37 PM
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You realize of coarse that we all have expensive monitors to make our judgements from.
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Last edited by KevWind; 09-05-2019 at 03:58 PM. Reason: opps hit edit instead of quote (my bad)
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  #28  
Old 09-05-2019, 03:53 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Jelly View Post
You realize of coarse that we all have expensive monitors to make our judgements from.
I have some monitors also but I was just being lazy
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  #29  
Old 09-05-2019, 10:52 PM
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Thanks for the feedback on these. My take is that #1 is too thin and bright, I prefer a warmer, fatter sound. But the stereo image is clearer. #2 is what I usually use these days, but I think I like #4 a tad better, I'll have to work with that setup a bit more. #3 surprised me - this is the best sound I've gotten with using 6 mics. But I think comparing #2 and #3 demonstrates the point most people made in this thread - those 5th and 6th mics don't really add very much, not really worth the extra hassle.

I was just listening to just the ribbon mic alone (I didn't post that), and with a bit of EQ, I might just prefer that to any of these. It has the warmth along with a very clean well-defined stereo image. I keep coming back to ribbons...

But it's always a variable thing. What might be my favorite on a little test noodle like this might not be the one I'd choose when recording a real song. And of course, different guitars introduce more wrinkles. I've set out to record some stuff using just the ribbon mic before and ended up thinking it was too dark.
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