Stereo techniques for acoustic guitar

[lppier]

I’m curious how one might treat a stereo signal that is made up of 2 sources, input into the daw. One source being maybe pickup and the other an internal microphone.

What are the techniques you use to get a good stereo mix of the 2 signals?

Thanks!

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by lppier

I’m curious how one might treat a stereo signal that is made up of 2 sources, input into the daw. One source being maybe pickup and the other an internal microphone.

What are the techniques you use to get a good stereo mix of the 2 signals?

Thanks!

Backing up a bit and to clarify,, a true stereo signal is always two sources
and I am guessing you must be referring to a dual source system with two discrete outputs ?

How to handle them in a mix is a tough question and can be as varied as the individuals doing the mixing and totally depends on what one is going for sound wise.

Which means anything from basically nothing to perhaps significant processing

Me the first thing I would do for a pickup and mic two 2 source recording, is use two mono tracks (not 1 stereo track ) so that any processing could be done separately

I would for sure have an EQ on each channel and at least a High Pass filter on both
From there it will be pure experimentation ( again depending on what sound you are looking for ) the possibilities are almost endless

[Gordon Currie]

Ippier:

What you describe is not a stereo signal, it is a 2 channel signal. Many people use the terms interchangeably.

For many years I used a dual-source system (internal microphone and UST piezo). I found that if I wanted any effects, they were better suited to the pickup signal only.

As far as panning, I found it made no sense to have two quite different signals panned hard, as there is no correlated center as you would find in true stereo.
I got the best sound from mixing the two channels into mono, or sometimes slight panning.

I guess the answer is - you can't get a true stereo signal from this, as there isn't ANY stereo information captured. But you can get interesting sounds!

[Doug Young]

This sort of depends on what you want to achieve. As others have said "realistic" stereo is a bit different from what you'll get from 2 pickups. Most standard stereo micing techniques are designed to simulate what we hear in the real world with 2 ears. That generally requires 2 mics and involves XY, ORTF, Spaced Pair, etc, mic placements.

Of course in modern multi-track recording, there are lots of "unrealistic" examples. You can pan any sound anywhere in a mix. People create "stereo" sounding guitars by double-tracking, putting each performance hard panned to each side, and so on. There are even "stereo" instruments, like the Fender Rhodes where the stereo effect is a stereo tremelo effect.

You can certainly get an interesting, and probably very wide sounding recording by panning your two sources according to taste. it won't be natural-sounding stereo, but it may sound very good. One issue specific to what you're doing is that the internal mic doesn't usually sound all that good by itself.

To your specific setup, I'd suggest trying one or all of:

1. EQing the mic to sound as good as possible, then panning to each side slightly (try different panning amounts).

2. Rolling lows off the mic, and maybe the highs off your pickup, blend to taste in *mono* - both tracks panned to the center, then apply a stereo reverb.

3. Do the same as above, but apply different EQ to each side. Logic has a nice plugin that produces opposite EQ on each track, creating a pseudo stereo effect from a mono source, but you can do it yourself. Just boost some frequency(s) on one side, and cut the same frequencies on the other.

here's a quick example of this approach. The first phrase here is mono, then (at about 6 seconds), I turn on the Logic plugin to apply opposite EQ to each side:



4. Play with delay. Do a mono mix as above, but add, say, 10ms of delay to one side. Voxengo has a nice plugin that lets you apply and mix in different delays on each side, called the "Stereo Touch". The idea is to leverage the Haas effect that tricks your ear into hearing different locations, not audible delays.

5. Use the pseudo-stereo approach I use live, and treat the pickup+mic as a Mid-Side source. Just put the pickup on the left channel of a stereo track, mic on the right, then apply an MS decoder. Voxengo makes a nice free one. You'll get a fairly convincing (tho not "real") stereo image.

Here's an example of my live setup (UST+mic) being used this way, with the addition of stereo reverb, so you have both the MS effect and a stereo reverb to enhance the effect:



I wouldn't record this way - I prefer true stereo micing, but this produces a fairly balanced, semi-realistic stereo sound from a pickup+internal mic.

BTW, some of the above suggestions are more mono-compatible than others... The delay approach, for example, may create comb filtering and other phasey effects if summed to mono.

[Aimelie]

There is some very good information in this thread, but a special shout out and thanks to Doug Young! Very, very interesting.

I really appreciate your having taken the time to post.

[lppier]

Thanks everyone , will be sure to try out all the suggestions here!

[Andy Howell]

It is quite common to see acoustic guitarists record into a stereo pair and supplement this with their pickup signal — three inputs. Most of them I've met seem to use the pickup signal to strengthen the low end and not use the top frequencies.

[Aimelie]

Originally Posted by Andy Howell

It is quite common to see acoustic guitarists record into a stereo pair and supplement this with their pickup signal — three inputs. Most of them I've met seem to use the pickup signal to strengthen the low end and not use the top frequencies.

Which completely changes my mind about the interface I’ll need to buy some day—I was sure a two input Focusrite Scarlett would be perfect, but now I know a four input would be better.

So, thanks!

[TBman]

My idea of a good stereo recording of an instrumental guitar is just a spaced pair of mics.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by 6747380

It is quite common to see acoustic guitarists record into a stereo pair and supplement this with their pickup signal — three inputs. Most of them I've met seem to use the pickup signal to strengthen the low end and not use the top frequencies.

Hi…

As a former studio owner/operator, I have a different take.

No pickup can match or properly supplement a high end mic/preamp/interface chain.

I've recorded a ton of acoustics with 2 mics in different arrays, and a fair share of them with their 'internal pickup' because clients asked about it. None of them ever kept the pickup track after they heard the natural recording.

If a guitar is so poor sounding it requires recording an internal pickup to improve it, I'd suggest renting, buying or borrowing a better guitar to record with.

[Rudy4]

Originally Posted by Aimelie

Which completely changes my mind about the interface I’ll need to buy some day—I was sure a two input Focusrite Scarlett would be perfect, but now I know a four input would be better.

So, thanks!

Use a pair of mics and record your pickup by routing it to a simple handheld recorder. Combine the signals in post and play around with the mix. Transducer signals tend to be bassy, which is often the thing you try to avoid by adding a high pass filter to your stereo mic signal.

My guess is that you'll quickly decide to dump the "third wheel" transducer direct in.

[SprintBob]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

Hi…

As a former studio owner/operator, I have a different take.

No pickup can match or properly supplement a high end mic/preamp/interface chain.

I've recorded a ton of acoustics with 2 mics in different arrays, and a fair share of them with their 'internal pickup' because clients asked about it. None of them ever kept the pickup track after they heard the natural recording.

If a guitar is so poor sounding it requires recording an internal pickup to improve it, I'd suggest renting, buying or borrowing a better guitar to record with.

I agree. I messed around in my earlier recording forays going through guitar pickups into interfaces and thought I was getting decent results until I got some nice mics and did a spaced pair with both mics setup in mono but with one panned left and the other panned right. The difference was ear opening.

[Doug Young]

Ippier didn't really ask about mics vs pickups, he just asked how to get a stereo sound from pickups. I agree, for my taste, mics win over pickups every time. But there are lots of different tastes out there, and lots of people in situations where mics aren't a good option. I responded to a different thread recently, trying to strongly suggest the poster use mics instead of pickups for recording, and was (rightly) reminded by others that there are other sounds possible - not everyone is looking for the stereo-mic'd acoustic tone.

As far as using pickups as an add-on to mics, I rarely do that, but it is pretty commonly done, and I know of many cases where top notch gear and engineers were used - it's not always a situation where good gear isn't available - but they still leveraged a pickup as well as mics. Here's one example:



I actually got a chance to hear the raw tracks for this recording, and indeed the stereo mics (KM184s as spaced pairs, if I recall right) sounded very nice by themselves - those alone would have been a very good recording. But in the final mix, the pickups (2 of them) added to the punch and bigger-than-life sound of this recording. It all depends on what you're going for. I have heard recordings where I thought the added pickup made the overall sound worse, but in Dustin's recording here, I don't hear any detrimental effects from the pickups and instead, I think they enhance the sound.

[lppier]

Yup I was asking in the context of recording a looper performance , I guess one could wear headphones to record from the mic, but pickups would be much easier to handle. Doug’s pickup sound is top of the pops to me!

[TBman]

There is one exception to two mic recording that I have heard here that I really liked and I can't remember who it is. He posts here in Show and Tell, and he had a sound hole microphone. It had a great tone. It was a bit on the pricey side though.