Favorite way to pan acoustic guitar recorded on 2 mics. . .

[Nick Sevilla]

IF the song is only ac gtr and vocal...

IF I use only 2 mics on the ac gtr...

THEN I try to pan the together,to have the guitars sound as focussed as possible,
and use effects to build the ambience.

I just can't get into a fake Stereo panned ac gtr anymore, as it is mostly a single point sound sources, and not a true Stereo instrument.

And, again, depending on the song, I might try having the gtr on one side, and the vocal opposite.

Cheers

[vvv]

"fake Stereo panned ac gtr" (as above) 100% pan, no other tweaks, here.

[drumsound]

In a situation with a single acoustic and vocal, I'd usually record the guitar with an XY stereo, but not always pan hard left/right. Like Garges said, it's easy to juggle the pan knobs and see what works.

[mscottweber]

as it is mostly a single point sound sources, and not a true Stereo instrument

I'm going to have to whole-heartedly disagree with this. Any acoustic instrument, if you stand far enough away from it, is a mono, single-point sound source. And any acoustic instrument, if you get close enough to it, has WIDE frequency variations from one point on the instrument to another. Just because the lower pitched notes don't come from one side and the higher pitched notes from the other, that doesn't mean that there isn't completely valid sonic differences worth capturing in stereo.

As a disclaimer, I am merely playing devil's advocate here. In practice, I tend to like my acoustic guitar in "mono" and with stereo ambiance added. But sometimes, other approaches sound cool toooo......

[jaguarundi]

as it is mostly a single point sound sources, and not a true Stereo instrument

As a disclaimer, I am merely playing devil's advocate here. In practice, I tend to like my acoustic guitar in "mono" and with stereo ambiance added. But sometimes, other approaches sound cool toooo......

You and Nick a couple posts above mentioned this approach, which I know is pretty common, but really curious if you could be more specific about how you like to do this. If you do it in the box I'd love to know what your signal chain is, which plug ins you like to use, if you delay one side slightly from the other, multi mono vs full stereo, etc, if you care to share (and anyone else)?

[mscottweber]

I don't do anything too complicated. Usually just a reverb pluggin, with maybe a bit of delay before it in the signal chain.

[Nick Sevilla]

as it is mostly a single point sound sources, and not a true Stereo instrument

As a disclaimer, I am merely playing devil's advocate here. In practice, I tend to like my acoustic guitar in "mono" and with stereo ambiance added. But sometimes, other approaches sound cool toooo......

You and Nick a couple posts above mentioned this approach, which I know is pretty common, but really curious if you could be more specific about how you like to do this. If you do it in the box I'd love to know what your signal chain is, which plug ins you like to use, if you delay one side slightly from the other, multi mono vs full stereo, etc, if you care to share (and anyone else)?

Hi,

For a song which has the guitar or other Ac. Instrument as the sole provider of music to a solo vocal, or simply an instrumental recording, I tend to get about 3 to 4 mics on the source.

How the instrument is played determines if I would put more than one mic up close to it.

Generally, I'll put one SDC like a Neumann Km184( yes, a 184 darnit!) or an Akg 451 eb or an At 40 series, near the 12th fret, but always listening on headphones for extra squeakiness or othe unwanted noises... This requires the player to not only be present in the room, but also to play the song ad nauseam until YOU are satisfied with mic placement.

I then will place a pair of LDCs above the player, pointing down at the action, again listening through hadphones until I get a good blend between those two and the close mic.

If I am in a very. Nice sounding room, then I will place either an LDC Tube mic, or a regular LDC if no tube is available, in OMNI to capture all the rooms glory. The placement of this mic will vary until I find the best place for it. Usually the exact center of the room may not be the ideal place... Move the mic around.

Once I have these 1-4 mics set up, I run them through the same mic preamps, and buss them down to a stereo pair of recording channels, if the sound is good enough.

The commitment to this Stereo pair of busses is always according to how they sound best when blended into the stereo picture. Not always will the mics be panned hard left / right. But finding where you can really start to hear a focussed sound that tells you where in the panorama the guiyar is living in.

When done rit, it sounds very very real, as if you're in the same room with the guitar.

Oh, NO COMPRESSION. NO EQ. NO PHASE CORRECTORS.

Cheers

[jaguarundi]

When done rit, it sounds very very real, as if you're in the same room with the guitar.

Oh, NO COMPRESSION. NO EQ. NO PHASE CORRECTORS.

Cheers

cool, bet that sounds amazing, thanks for breakin it down!

[mscottweber]

All of that stuff that Nick said about how he makes acoustic guitar sound awesome

And THAT is why you get paid the big bucks. Seriously, posts like that make me want to leave work early and go record stuff. Great stuff!

[NeglectedFred]

Wow, it's been a few years since I've posted here, just checking back to see what I've been missing.

I've been recording a lot of acoustic projects lately. I was taught that popular position at the 12th fret mumbojumbo - but in all honesty, I didn't start getting great acoustic sounds til I did away with that.

Sounds like its a little late in the game, but for next time, here's what gets me great results:

First - find a great reflection (not too much), I've been setting up a big alder door about 4 feet in front of the players.

1 room mic a few inches from the reflecting surface (try LDC in omni) pan this HARD one direction - then 1 Dynamic and 1 LDC in front of the sound hole, right beside one another, identical axis, identical patterns. Keep the phase identical. Pan both HARD in the opposite direction of the room mic - blend volumes and eq's for flavor. Double parts and repeat with opposing pan settings.

Also, for double, I like to change the axis a bit on the spot mics (but keep them identical in phase and position).

For most players and in most mixes I find subtle compression to be a necessity on acoustics - unless there's no other instruments. Sometimes I even squash the room mic and give it slow attack.

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IF the song is only ac gtr and vocal...

IF I use only 2 mics on the ac gtr...

THEN I try to pan the together,to have the guitars sound as focussed as possible,
and use effects to build the ambience.

I just can't get into a fake Stereo panned ac gtr anymore, as it is mostly a single point sound sources, and not a true Stereo instrument.

And, again, depending on the song, I might try having the gtr on one side, and the vocal opposite.

Cheers

This sort of sums up my attitude about the whole thing. Usually one close mic works just fine, and if I use more than one I'll almost always end up panning them together either 100% L, 100 % R, or just plain 'ol center.