AT2035 and MXL990 demo

[TBman]

This recording was made with my Larrivee and the mics xy by the 12th fret. I'm going to also experiment with other placements, but I'm happy with this pair of mics. I think they sound a bit mellower than the small condensers.

[Doug Young]

Nice playing, Barry. You're volume is pretty low on this track (much quieter than the track in your sig), and it sounds like mono to me?

Doug

[rick-slo]

Not mono but definitely low volume.

[TBman]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

Nice playing, Barry. You're volume is pretty low on this track (much quieter than the track in your sig), and it sounds like mono to me?

Doug

Thanks Doug!

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Not mono but definitely low volume.

I upped the gain and replaced the file. Its odd because on my system it didn't sound much lower than the tune in my signature. I didn't "normalize" it though so maybe that's why.

[JakeStone]

Sounds great Barry.

[rick-slo]

Louder now but not a good sound - thin and phasey. Interesting that there is so much talk of potential phase problems in stereo mic'ing
and that XY minimizes this yet recordings with it usually sound the worst (at least on steel string acoustic guitars). I suggest spaced pair
(or at least ORTF) microphone setups.

[Doug Young]

Much better. I think what rick is hearing as "phasey" is room sound, hard reflections. You also have a lot of peaky/resonant notes that leap out. That comes from micing too close, mic placement and/or room resonances. Room acoustics is the overriding factor in getting a good recording. Spaced pairs might help, as the inherent phase differences in the mics sort of blends with and masks the room issues a bit better.

[TBman]

Later last night I tried the mics as a spaced pair and I thought it sounded better. Both mics at the 12th are "chimey" in comparison. My ears aren't good/trained enough to hear "phase issues" though.

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

Much better. I think what rick is hearing as "phasey" is room sound, hard reflections. You also have a lot of peaky/resonant notes that leap out. That comes from micing too close, mic placement and/or room resonances. Room acoustics is the overriding factor in getting a good recording. Spaced pairs might help, as the inherent phase differences in the mics sort of blends with and masks the room issues a bit better.

Mostly just being XY though room acoustics don't help. Barry has had some much less phasey recordings in the past using other mike setups.

The phase problems mic'ing an acoustic guitar compared to some other instruments is that it is a broad sound source. For example the sound reaching a mike from
one part of the soundboard is out of phase from the sound reaching that mike from the another part of the soundboard a few inches away. That's the reason I have
said in prior threads that a single mike mono recording sounds phasey (even though that is not what is usually meant by phasey (one mike out of phase with another
mike)). You can mike really, really close to the guitar to have a small area of the guitar in play (volume level wise) but then you have proximity effects to combat and
not a sound as close to what you normally hear with your ears. Recording with mikes further apart and each individual mike has the same phase issues mentioned
above but as a stereo recording the brain's processing converts some of that into distance and direction information and the perceived sound is better.

Nylon string guitars have less of a gritty, harsh phase issue problem than steel string guitars due to less high frequency content.

[Doug Young]

I don't think you have phase issues in the normal meaning of the word. I suspect what Rick is calling "phasey" is that he's hearing comb-filtering - uneven frequency response with odd peaks and dips. This is indeed caused by phase differences in sounds mixing together, but not likely from 2 mics in XY. It is more likely caused in this case by reflections - short time delays in sound that arrive milliseconds apart at the mics. I supposed in theory some of these reflections could come from the guitar itself (and the Neumann videos someone posted here recently talk a bit about avoiding direct guitar reflections), but a far more likely source in home recording is just your room acoustics, walls, floor, ceiling.

As I mentioned, recording with spaces pairs is a bit more forgiving than some other setups. I could be wrong, but my theory is that since phase differences between the mics is inherently part of what creates the stereo effect with spaces pairs, it kind of blends with and washes out some (tho not all) of the issues with room reflections. XY also tends to focus on one spot on the guitar, so if your mic position is such that you're getting a boomy hot note from the guitar, it can overwhelm. Spaced pairs sort of distributes that effect by picking up different parts of the guitar. It's not that XY is bad - I happen to like it a lot, and especially Mid-Side, which is just another way of doing XY-ish-recording, but it is a setup that can be pickier about room acoustics, mic placement, etc.

[rick-slo]

It's the guitar itself that is the main problem (since that is where the relative volume from the different areas of the guitar are about the same (compared to much more distant room reflections) and where distances to different areas of the relevant guitar top are in inches and thus affecting more acutely the higher frequencies picked up by the mike. The room can have standing wave issues, but that is a different sort of sound effect.

Also the fact that a guitar top vibrates in multiple modes and that the guitar is a polyphonic instrument adds to the issues. These issues contribute to well known fact that the acoustic guitar is considered difficult to record well. Compared this to recording a smaller area, single mode (or nearly so) mono phonic source such as a voice or a trumpet where a single mike mono recording sounds much more like we hear them live with our ears.

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

It's the guitar itself that is the main problem

It's an interesting theory, but not my experience. There are zillions of commercial recordings out there done with XY, not to mention mono, and they don't have this issue. I'd suggest starting a thread on this either here (and hope Bob Womack or Joe Hanna weight in) or over on gearslutz to get some pro engineer's perspectives on this. I find it hard to buy the idea that XY recording is fundamentally flawed for recording guitar.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

I find it hard to buy the idea that XY recording is fundamentally flawed for recording guitar.

Not that you asked, but I don't think it is. And for me, vertical XY is more bulletproof than horizontal, aside from the explaining part. And it can actually be of huge benefit if the player is a squeaker.

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

It's an interesting theory, but not my experience. There are zillions of commercial recordings out there done with XY, not to mention mono, and they don't have this issue. I'd suggest starting a thread on this either here (and hope Bob Womack or Joe Hanna weight in) or over on gearslutz to get some pro engineer's perspectives on this. I find it hard to buy the idea that XY recording is fundamentally flawed for recording guitar.

Provide some links with definite XY on solo steel string guitar, not part of a mix somewhere. XY can be ok for guitar and some mike locations are better than others, but all I have heard are relatively thin and reedy compared to a number of other mike position setups I have heard. Vertical XY probably would average out better as it is more aligned with a narrower dimension of the guitar.

Stereo is more than the expected sum of a right and left mono track. I guess due to adaption of brain processing over the ages to interpret what is out there in the
real world. For example one of your recordings, first stereo as recorded, next mono of the right mike, next mono of the left mike. One thin phasey sound + another
thin phasey sound = much more. http://dcoombsguitar.com/Misc/MonoPhasey.wav

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Provide some links with definite XY on solo steel string guitar, not part of a mix somewhere. XY can be ok for guitar and some mike locations are better than others, but all I have heard are relatively thin and reedy compared to a number of other mike position setups I have heard. Vertical XY probably would average out better as it is more aligned with a narrower dimension of the guitar.

If the problem exists, it should exist even in a mix, right? But OK, here's one I know was recorded XY, 'cause I did it. Maybe not my best recording, but I don't think it sounds thin or phasey.



Here's some random XY demo on you tube. Sounds pretty good over my studio monitors. I hear no "phasey" sound



Here's a demo of MS, mathematically identical to XY:



or here's the Neumann demo of mono. I don't find this to be a great sounding recording, but it doesn't sound "phasey", just kind of small, but I think they're trying to highlight the narrator, not the guitar:



if any of those sound thin, reedy or phasey to you, I'd say we're just hearing totally different things. Maybe differences in our monitoring setups.

A couple of guitarists who I know have recorded with XY include Ed Gerhard and Pete Huttlinger (he liked the vertical variant Brent mentioned), but I can't guarantee any specific tracks.