Mixing/Panning Suggestions

[mikerofone]

Curious how others approach placement along the stereo spectrum of two acoustic guitars. Think of duo collaborations such as Bryan Sutton's Not Too Far From The Tree or the Kritter/Lage recordings.

I typically record my dreads using two mics.

If I have a rhythm part and a lead part and two tracks per part, how would you place/pan each to achieve blend but with enough separation for each part to be heard easily?

[Doug Young]

I recently mixed the "DUETS" CD I did with Teja Gerken, and it was definitely a challenge. If I had it to do over, I might use different mic setups. MS would let me control the stereo spread of each guitar and treat each as anything from mono to wide stereo. Or the vertical XY approach might have worked well, since both mics sound more similar. But as it is, I generally used spaced pairs on each of us when recording, and then just slightly panned each. It didn't take much to make the sound seem to come from one side more than the other. In some cases, I had to swap channels, if I'd decide that one mic sounded better than the other as the dominant mic.

I did pretty much the same on the video we just shot, tho. Teja used a pair of KM184s, spaced, and I used the AT4050ST mic, which is an MS mic, but I pre-decoded it, so it was basically XY. Then when mixing, my part was panning just a very small amount left, and his a very small amount right, like 11 o'clock and 1 o'clock or even less. That sounded like this:



EDIT: actually, I just checked and a bit further panned on the video than I said:

Screen Shot 2020-10-29 at 4.34.28 PM.jpg

but obviously may vary, depending on how it sounds, how it was recorded, etc

[Doug Young]

BTW, I think a lot depends on the music. Another duet CD I mixed "recently" (pre-covid) was Fran Guidry and Led Kaapana's CD. There, if I recall, we ended up with the guitars panned much more, like Led really in one ear, and Fran in the other. I can't recall if the tracks were mono or not. Led and Fran playing together creates a fairly consistent wall of sound, so having one in each ear seemed to work well. Fran's done a lot of mixes of the two of them as well, including some where he just put a stereo mic between them. Maybe he'll have some thoughts here.

Teja and I tend to jump around a bit more, one of us might be playing just a single string harmony line, or even laying out briefly, so it seemed odd to have extreme panning. I'd think the same would be true of a sort of standard rhythm/lead split, it might be odd to have someone strumming in one speaker, and a lead line coming from the other. Or maybe it'd be fine, all depends.

[min7b5]

The album I did with Mark Goldenberg, artifact, is two 00 guitars a few feet apart (in same studio/engineer as the last Kritter/Lage record) using two u87 microphones about a foot and half out from each of us pointed the 12th fret. We panned it at about 10 and 2 o'clock, or maybe hair a narrower..

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by mikerofone

Curious how others approach placement along the stereo spectrum of two acoustic guitars. Think of duo collaborations such as Bryan Sutton's Not Too Far From The Tree or the Kritter/Lage recordings.

I typically record my dreads using two mics.

If I have a rhythm part and a lead part and two tracks per part, how would you place/pan each to achieve blend but with enough separation for each part to be heard easily?

So can we assume with "two tracks" per part you mean two mono tracks per part "

If you are looking for something different the often used "in the room" one left and the other right

With one rhythm and one lead part I would consider panning the rhythm out about 65 % to 100% L & R and then the lead in at about 25% L& R .
Also I would use subtle subtractive EQ, at different frequency ranges , to carve out space and get even more separation.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

BTW, I think a lot depends on the music.

Agree. Sometimes panning makes the music fall apart, sometimes it's the icing on the cake, sometimes it's a needless distraction. Trust yourself. And until you find yourself mixing a Major Label Release, you get as many do-overs as you want.

[min7b5]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

I recently mixed the "DUETS" CD I did with Teja Gerken, and it was definitely a challenge. If I had it to do over, I might use different mic setups. MS would let me control the stereo spread of each guitar and treat each as anything from mono to wide stereo..

Very interesting. Jamie Stillway and I are talking about tracking a guitar duo album in the next few months and I've thinking about recording it with double mid/side set up..

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by min7b5

Very interesting. Jamie Stillway and I are talking about tracking a guitar duo album in the next few months and I've thinking about recording it with double mid/side set up..

It should give more options. At worst, you'd have two mono mics (which might be all you want...), but still have the option to add a little stereo spread. I use the Voxengo decoder, which also has some interesting options, like panning the mid signal only, or panning the sides only. Teja and I were usually a bit pressed for time when we got together to record, so I never got around to trying experiments that might not work, we never really spent much time on mic setup. I should try it myself, but that'd be a bit different than recording two people at once.

[Al Acuff]

A friend gave me this album of acoustic guitar duets a while back. Well recorded and nicely mixed.