Microphone placement for recording acoustic guitar

[K-vegas]

I have always positioned a large condensor mic in close, level with neck, around the 12th fret or so.

Pro: It's a balanced bass/treble placement, needs little EQ.
Con: Picks up a tad more left hand/neck noise when changing chords.

Lately I thought I would try other placements to see if there were advantages that I was missing. So...

Where do you prefer to position your microphone(s) and why? Also might help to mention type of mic for reference. I still a novice at this and trying to improve

Thanks for any tips you can offer. Mark

[mr. beaumont]

I had decent luck recently with a large condenser pointed around the neck/body joint on my gypsy jazz guitar, blended with a dynamic mic about 4 feet away, in an uncarpeted, rather "live" room.

I'll try to post some samples...I hope others will post ideas--recording acoustics at home is new to me...

[rick-slo]

A lot of prior threads on this so research old threads.

Single mike recording with it placed around the neck to body area is pretty typical. You can aim it more towards the soundhole (not directly at it) for more warmth.
Experimenting with mike placement while wearing good headphones (eg Grados) is helpful. Of course your recording will not sound exactly like that since you will not be hearing the guitar directly and the headphones at the same time. Having the headphone volume up somewhat helps mitigate this.

Post recording a little reverb and perhaps a bit of equalization is usually about it.

For a more full sound stereo mike (some people record guitar with more than two mikes). You can try different mike positions (eg XY, ORTF, spaced pair). You could stereo mike the guitar and record the voice on a third mike. If you do that then use coincident (or nearly so (XY,ORTF)) mic'ing on the guitar if you want to pan the guitar somewhat off to one side (spaced pair recording tends to sound phasey when panned). Of course you could leave the guitar in the center and pan the voice a bit.

[rhancox]

I have a small and large diaphragm condenser mic. I like to place the small one at the neck/body joint, pointed slightly toward the soundhole. Then I place the large one behind the bridge, pointed towards the soundhole. Both are placed at string level, about 8"-10" away.

[K-vegas]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

A lot of prior threads on this..

Thanks guys. After some looking around and listening to some of your stuff, I think I'll play around with using 2 mic's instead of 1.