Zoom H5 vs two large diaphragm mics

[TBman]

Originally Posted by islandguitar

Barry....my thanks!

No really, the music you post and the recording quality, like Rick's, is exceptional.

[Doug Young]

You shouldn't need to use that width plugin, definitely not max'd out. That's playing games with phase to increase the width artificially. A touch of it can be fine, that's something a mastering engineer might use, but a little goes a long way.

I prefer the sound of your original tracks - both sound fine, the XY and the external mics. Just different, the XY is more focused, the spaced pairs more "spaced". If you want a wider, more present sound, try to bring the external mics a bit closer, more like 10 inches each and see how that sounds - ideally, you want the mics about the same distance from the guitar to minimize phase issues. Getting closer is like moving your eyes closer to a picture - you get an apparent wider view. You will also get more guitar, less room. Of course, if you get too close, you may have other issues, so it's a balancing act.

The track right off the SD card should be panned correctly if you recorded as a stereo track, as long as your DAW isn't messing anything up.

[rick-slo]

You can easily have mikes at somewhat different distances from the guitar (and distance from what exactly as the guitar is a large object)
without phase issue increases, so I would not be obsessed about pulling out a tape measure. Set up mike locations to what sounds good to
you tonally via headphones. Approximately level volume R and L while recording. Post recording you can tweak the levels more. Also post
recording use a bit of track delay R or L if helpful.