New mic position - critique?

[Wrighty]

Hi all



Following my recent move and new recording space, I have been experimenting with mic positions - the recording below is the first time I have deviated from AB and tried XY in an over/under configuration (side entry Mics - see pic) and panned about 80% left/right.



I am playing into a V shape of large acoustic panels and with some smaller panels to my right and above my head.



Two versions here, one is clean with some EQ added to taste and the other is clean with nothing but a high pass around 60hz.



it sounds to me slightly more warm and "together" than the spaced pairs but would love to hear more experienced ears thoughts.









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[rick-slo]

XY? Are the capsules at 90 degrees?

Bit phasey. I wouldn't pan inward at all.

[Wrighty]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

XY? Are the capsules at 90 degrees?



Bit phasey. I wouldn't pan inward at all.

Yes, as near as dammit 90 deg.

I panned out not in?

What does “phasey” sound like?

[keith.rogers]

How are you applying the EQ? on the individual tracks or on the stereo mix?

I actually preferred the "dry" one because you are definitely picking up some room. (The moveable panel, akak "gobo" thread might be of interest.)

I would stick with 90° and play with placement a bit more, then probably mix/pan them in closer (not sure what you're doing in the mix), and try to let the mix do a lot of the EQ work.

I was liking XY when I had a pair of SDCs set up for that (now back in a box), but lately use a spaced pair of whatever's out, and play with a kind of typical mic off the neck joint for the main sound and move the 2nd mic around on the body, out from the bridge, maybe overhead, just depends on what I'm doing and who I might record. (I don't keep any notes though I almost always wish I had...)

[Doug Young]

Not as nice as your spaced pairs track. I also prefer the dry. When recording XY, you're trying to get the mics to create a stereo image, so don't pan inwards - either use a stereo track, or pan each L/R track hard left and right.

I think I hear what Rick is referring to by "phasey". When you pan stereo mics inwards, you get phase cancellation, sometimes called "comb filtering", where some frequencies are cut, others are boosted. It creates a hollow sound, like if you have a phaser pedal without the "swooshing" dynamically changing.

I don't know why people pan stereo mics inwards, but it seems to come up a lot. My advice is to never do that. If the image is too wide (a problem I never have - I like wide), change the mic placement.

[keith.rogers]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

Not as nice as your spaced pairs track. I also prefer the dry. When recording XY, you're trying to get the mics to create a stereo image, so don't pan inwards - either use a stereo track, or pan each L/R track hard left and right.

I think I hear what Rick is referring to by "phasey". When you pan stereo mics inwards, you get phase cancellation, sometimes called "comb filtering", where some frequencies are cut, others are boosted. It creates a hollow sound, like if you have a phaser pedal without the "swooshing" dynamically changing.

I don't know why people pan stereo mics inwards, but it seems to come up a lot. My advice is to never do that. If the image is too wide (a problem I never have - I like wide), change the mic placement.

That's better advice that what I said! (Maybe why I don't use XY anymore :|)

I used to play around with a MS plugin on the panned mix. Maybe a better way to fool with the image of XY recorded tracks?

[Wrighty]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

XY? Are the capsules at 90 degrees?



Bit phasey. I wouldn't pan inward at all.

Derek - sorry, I’m being completely bone headed and of course understand now that I am panning in from 90’

[Doug Young]

I've not had great luck getting an XY sound I like from large-body mics. Your 2020s are small diaphragm, in spite of not looking like it, but the bodies are big enough that you don't really get the capsules very close. While we could argue about how close is close and how much it matters, I've had better luck with small pencil mics where you can line them up very close and accurately, and the best luck from stereo mics where the capsules are even closer and aligned "perfectly".

The 4050 stereo mic I use at times is actually a mid-side configuration, which when decoded results in the same sound as XY, and means the capsules are perfectly co-incident, because each side comes from exactly the same capsule(s), so they're producing a theoretical XY that you can't even get from any pair of mics (since it's not possible to have to mics occupy the same exact space - there's always some distance, and therefore always some phase differences, however small). The difference is subtle, but various stereo mics, usually in MS, is the only way I've gotten an "XY" coincident sound I like.

[ChuckS]

Very nice playing, and very nice recordings. At this point it's mainly preference.

To me, this recording using X-Y seems to have a narrow stereo width, which is typical of what I hear with X-Y. Panning hard left and hard right might give a bit more width. As Doug had mentioned, using SDC mics for X-Y might also be helpful to ensure they are more of a coincident pair arrangement.

I think X-Y is a pretty safe bet for a recording technique, as it seems to most always sound pretty nice, but I much prefer A-B spaced pair recordings. Your earlier spaced pair recording had way more width to it (somewhat more than I usually prefer).

As far as these two recordings, I prefer the one without the EQ applied.

My starting point is a spaced pair, mics spaced about 15" apart and back about 20" from the guitar.

[Wrighty]

Originally Posted by Wrighty

Hi all



Following my recent move and new recording space, I have been experimenting with mic positions - the recording below is the first time I have deviated from AB and tried XY in an over/under configuration (side entry Mics - see pic) and panned about 80% left/right.



I am playing into a V shape of large acoustic panels and with some smaller panels to my right and above my head.



Two versions here, one is clean with some EQ added to taste and the other is clean with nothing but a high pass around 60hz.



it sounds to me slightly more warm and "together" than the spaced pairs but would love to hear more experienced ears thoughts.









Attachment 40985Attachment 40986

So here is the un-panned version with no EQ but a touch of reverb - is it better or do I revert to AB?

[Doug Young]

Originally Posted by Wrighty

So here is the un-panned version with no EQ but a touch of reverb - is it better or do I revert to AB?

This appears to be mono, now. Are you recording to two tracks? If so, hard pan one left, the other right.

[rick-slo]

Yes, latest is mono. To say to not pan is a bit confusing. For two mono tracks you do pan, but you pan outward, one track to 100% hard right and the other to 100% hard left. If you record in stereo this has already been done by the software.

For solo guitar I always record in stereo and I leave it that way (hard right and hard left). If you record with the mikes quite away apart you could have a sound stage hole in the middle when you listen back to the recording. I suppose you could pan a bit the right and left sides towards center to fill that hole however I never have recorded something where I thought that was beneficial.

If you record more than one sound source, say as when recording a small band, you do want to pan things around and you often (not always) are recording each instrument in mono.

[Doug Young]

I second the suggestion to record to a stereo track - I think nearly all DAWs support them now. It avoids this confusion, and just makes things so much easier for recording solo guitar. Nearly all plugins will operate correctly on a stereo track, so you can basically treat the stereo recording as a single entity for adding any processing, sending to busses, and so on. I reserve mono for the (rare, for me) occasion of recording a multi-instrument track where you are artificially creating a stereo soundscape by panning - placing sounds at various points in the stereo field.

[Wrighty]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

This appears to be mono, now. Are you recording to two tracks? If so, hard pan one left, the other right.

Oh dear..

I am learning a lot here so thanks all for the help.

I had assumed that because of the mics already pointing at 90 deg, that by not panning them at all I would get a stereo effect.

I had previously always used two mono tracks for AB because it offered more control over stereo width and also the ability to reversed pan the reverb to each channel, but will revert to a single stereo file and try again.

It’s also a good opportunity to practice mic positioning..

[Wrighty]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

Yes, latest is mono. To say to not pan is a bit confusing. For two mono tracks you do pan, but you pan outward, one track to 100% hard right and the other to 100% hard left. If you record in stereo this has already been done by the software.

For solo guitar I always record in stereo and I leave it that way (hard right and hard left). If you record with the mikes quite away apart you could have a sound stage hole in the middle when you listen back to the recording. I suppose you could pan a bit the right and left sides towards center to fill that hole however I never have recorded something where I thought that was beneficial.

If you record more than one sound source, say as when recording a small band, you do want to pan things around and you often (not always) are recording each instrument in mono.

Thanks Derek - understood.