Getting a wider stereo image

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Do like the sound of this recording and to clarify the tracks are panned hard left and right ?

KevWind, you can do this for yourself on any recording to see what happens to the sound with panning, but I
did it for you in this case:

I think it is hard right and left (correct me Doug if that is not the case) and if you don't mind Doug, here is a
portion of the recording done with different panning amounts.

What sounds best to you KevWind?

Full right and left pan
http://dcoombsguitar.com/Misc/Doug.wav

Panned in 20 percent to center
http://dcoombsguitar.com/Misc/Doug20.wav

Panned in 40 percent to center
http://dcoombsguitar.com/Misc/Doug40.wav

Panned in 60 percent to center
http://dcoombsguitar.com/Misc/Doug60.wav

Panned in 80 percent to center
http://dcoombsguitar.com/Misc/Doug80.wav

Panned in 100 percent to center (mono)
http://dcoombsguitar.com/Misc/Doug100.wav

[RRuskin]

Originally Posted by anton

Here is my ADK pair using Alaska picks.

https://soundcloud.com/antonemery/ad...w-alaska-picks

I had kind of hoped it would sound alot different than flesh and nails, but comparing the two maybe not so much. With the picks its maybe a less dark on the high end.

The overall sound is the same but with a bit more of it.

Is that a picture of your right hand position on the clip page? If yes, it validates my opinion of where your tone comes from. No matter what you wear or don't wear on your right hand fingers, that angle will always put a scrape at the head of every note. The only way to change your sound is to change the angle your fingers meet the strings. The "flatter the angle, the "fatter" the tone.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

KevWind, you can do this for yourself on any recording to see what happens to the sound with panning, but I
did it for you in this case:

I think it is hard right and left (correct me Doug if that is not the case) and if you don't mind Doug, here is a
portion of the recording done with different panning amounts.

What sounds best to you KevWind?

Full right and left pan
http://dcoombsguitar.com/Misc/Doug.wav

Panned in 20 percent to center
http://dcoombsguitar.com/Misc/Doug20.wav

Panned in 40 percent to center
http://dcoombsguitar.com/Misc/Doug40.wav

Panned in 60 percent to center
http://dcoombsguitar.com/Misc/Doug60.wav

Panned in 80 percent to center
http://dcoombsguitar.com/Misc/Doug80.wav

Panned in 100 percent to center (mono)
http://dcoombsguitar.com/Misc/Doug100.wav

Hey thanks
Best ? Actually they all sounded pretty much the same frequency wise at least on my laptop spks and ear buds ( I'll get into the studio later this evening and listen again ) I did not notice any significant phase cancelation or comb filtering issues as the panning was brought in . There was obviously a narrowing of the sound stage.
But honestly I thought that while the hard panned did have a nice big feel I thought it sounded the most fake or perhaps the most obviously spread , personally I thought the that 20% ,and 40% sounded more realistic and perhaps the 60 % being the most realistic. I did notice that the energy or perceived volume did rise a bit as the panning came in so I tried to incrementally adjust the playback volume by ear to be more balanced going from from hard panned to mono
I was a bit surprised actually how good the 80 and 100 sounded so I am guessing the actual phase differences between the source arrival times at the two mic's was minimal

If I had to pic a best (completely subjective) I would say the 40 or 60 works for me

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by KevWind

H
But honestly I thought that while the hard panned did have a nice big feel I thought it sounded the most fake

To the point of Anton's question, clearly everyone has different taste, and wider isn't always better for everyone. I like a wide spacious sound myself, but other sounds are good, too, so there is no "best". We even had someone on here a while back arguing that mono was the only valid choice.

On these tracks, I clearly hear the effect of panning on the tone, and wouldn't go this route. (And yes, Rick, confirming, these would have been paned hard left and right, I just never pan inward).

Once in a while, I get an urge for a narrower, more focused sound, in which case I set the mics up for that. I just recorded a CD for a Mel Bay book and for some reason decided to go with MS, which basically gave me an X/Y-like sound. I liked the change, but by the time I was done, I was craving some spaciousness again! The nice thing about MS is that you can adjust the width all the way from mono to ultra-wide without affecting the sound very much. So it's a good way to get the ability to adjust in the mix that Kev wants.

Anton, I think this recording sounds fine, but there are a lot of clicks. It took me months to get used to using nails and a thumbick, so if you think this is a good direction, you just have to give it some time and keep working on it.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

To the point of Anton's question, clearly everyone has different taste, and wider isn't always better for everyone. I like a wide spacious sound myself, but other sounds are good, too, so there is no "best". We even had someone on here a while back arguing that mono was the only valid choice.

On these tracks, I clearly hear the effect of panning on the tone, and wouldn't go this route. (And yes, Rick, confirming, these would have been paned hard left and right, I just never pan inward).

Once in a while, I get an urge for a narrower, more focused sound, in which case I set the mics up for that. I just recorded a CD for a Mel Bay book and for some reason decided to go with MS, which basically gave me an X/Y-like sound. I liked the change, but by the time I was done, I was craving some spaciousness again! The nice thing about MS is that you can adjust the width all the way from mono to ultra-wide without affecting the sound very much. So it's a good way to get the ability to adjust in the mix that Kev wants.

Anton, I think this recording sounds fine, but there are a lot of clicks. It took me months to get used to using nails and a thumbick, so if you think this is a good direction, you just have to give it some time and keep working on it.

Doug what was the relative spacing and positioning of the mic's in that recording ? ( your post #102 ) I will have to check out MS also thanks

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by KevWind

Doug what was the relative spacing and positioning of the mic's in that recording ? ( your post #102 ) I will have to check out MS also thanks

I can't be exact, but it looks like the mics are roughly positioned where the neck/body meet and below the saddle, so that's around 15 inches +/-. Pretty typical spaced pair positioning. On videos, I usually try to keep the mics out of the picture, so I tend to set them up lower than I would when I record. My mic positioning on videos is dictated more by visuals - not wanting a mic plopped right in front of a camera than by sound. I don't even usually do a sound check on stuff like this, compared to setting up for an audio recording, where I usually spend a lot of time fine tuning the position.

Here's a short MS example:

http://www.dougyoungguitar.com/mp3/MS_sample.mp3

and some of my older videos used it, and you can see the mic placement easily, like this one:

[Trevor B.]

Can you tell us what mikes you used in the MS sample mp3, Doug?

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Trevor B.

Can you tell us what mikes you used in the MS sample mp3, Doug?

Schoeps CMC6/MK41 for the mid, CMC6/MK8 (figure 8) for the sides

[Trevor B.]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

Schoeps CMC6/MK41 for the mid, CMC6/MK8 (figure 8) for the sides

Thanks. Much appreciated!

[anton]

Rick Ruskin, yea that has pretty much been my right hand position. Nail tips at an angle to the strings. I have been working on keep them more parallel to strings to cut down on that initial scraping noise. But it is going to take some time to drill that into muscle memory.

I do like the Alaska Picks. They are alot more solid to dig in with and it would be nice to have something much more maintenance free than nails. I need to order a bunch and get the shape just right, so my flesh touches the string right before the pick.

A small part of me is tempted to try acrylics again. But I am hesitant because it tooks my nails months to recover once I took them off. I liked em for regular fingerpicking, just didnt work for clawhammer banjo or guitar. Ill probably stick with the Alaskas for a while and see how that goes.

[anton]

I picked up a Zoom H6 recently largely based on Doug's comparison and wanted to post a few clips if folks are interested. I got tired of worrying about computer noise being part of the equation, at least when recording quiet solo guitar tunes. Ill still use Logic when overdubbing or doing things with multiple parts.

Two different sets of mics, my ADK's, which folks are familiar with by now and a pair of Line Audio CM3's

ADK https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...zoomh6_adk.wav

Line Audio https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...h6_LineCM3.wav

The Line Audio is a wide cardoid mic that seems particularly flat. http://www.lineaudio.se/CM3.html I owned a pair a while back but ended up selling them. They are less sensitive than most mics, so I couldnt get a decent signal going in without really turning up the pre amp. I was recently listening to some old recordings I made with them and liked the sound, so I borrowed a pair to see if I could do any better with them. Sorry the track pulls to the right, I just couldnt get them balanced. The mics are in a spaced pair and only a few inches away from the guitar.

[anton]

Here is a better clip I recorded tonight with the Line Audio mics.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/..._Line_Dmp3.wav

I ended up having to use my M Audio Dmp3 preamp into the Zoom. I activated the pad on the zoom's inputs and kept the gain on it relatively low, getting the neccessary gain through the Dmp3. These mics just are not overly sensitive and to get a hot enough signal with only the Zoom meant boosting the preamps to high. Even with this recording the mics are only six inches or so away.

I like the tone and the fact that they seem to pick up less noise from the outside world. But I am not sure I want to deal with hooking up an external pre amp to my zoom, and thus being tied to an electrical outlet. I'm going to work with placement on my ADK's more.

I hope folks find some of this useful. Recording quiet delicate acoustic guitar sure is hard.

[Ty Ford]

I find a pair of TLM 103 into the right preamps do that because of their low selfnoise.

Regards,

Ty Ford

[Doug Young]

Hey Anton, next time you're down this way, maybe bring the ADK's and we can play around with them. I don't understand your noise and level issues.

I just tested my Zoom H6 using a mic plug with a 150 ohm resistor terminating it, which Fran gave me a long time back. Apparently the resistor has a known noise level of around -130db, so you can use it as the input to a preamp, and any noise that comes thru above -130 + the gain of the preamp is self-noise from the preamp. At the 5-6 level that I normally need on the Zoom, the noise level is -84 db, which is quite low, and lower than the level of my room noise in my studio, so I'll never notice it on a recording. At a volume setting of 8, I get -60db noise level, which is still pretty quiet, and quieter than the level we heard from your room. All the way up, on 10, it's -54db, still quieter than your room noise level, if I recall. I don't know what the gain of the zoom is at that level, but it might be 50-60 db, which would mean that the expected noise level if the zoom had zero self noise was -80 to -90 db, (the self-noise would be the difference) so I think that's pretty good for added self-noise, if my math is all right here. I'll have to try my Great River, as a comparison when I have a chance. I know if I crank it all the way up, there's plenty of noise.

But aside from all this, what I heard on your earlier recordings with the Zoom was room noise, which means it's sounds the mic is picking up. If that's the case, using an external preamp in front of the zoom won't change anything. Any way you do it, you're amplifying what the mic is picking up, so using different preamps shouldn't make things any quieter. Turning the level down doesn't help either, since eventually, in the mix, you'll raise the overall level and the noise will come up, too. So adding preamps, padding down, etc, it should all end up the same when you're finished. This is easier to demonstrate or explain with a picture than with words.

Maybe we're doing something different, so it'd be good to be able to try it in person some time.

[rick-slo]

On the latest recording I do not hear either background noise or self noise. So congrats on that. However if you want a wider soundstage without trying to solely simulate it with reverb, then you need to space the mikes further apart and further back from the guitar. As far as playing, I would try to play a little louder and a little closer to the bridge.