Acoustic Guitar Stereo Recording Experiment: Rode NT5 pair

[bonzo898]

Greetings

I wanted to share a recent exercise I did to determine my preferred method of stereo recording acoustic guitar thinking it may be useful to others.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVMwkM2F0ho

 

[beyer160]

Great video!

The only thing I would have liked to have seen was where the mics were pointed in relation to the guitar, but you did a great job of demonstrating the difference between those three sounds.

My $.02 on stereo miking is that it's determined by the place the track is going to have in the mix. If it's a sparse arrangement stereo miking sounds cool, if it's got to cut through a dense mix, you'll want something more focused and direct.

 

[teletimetx]

Thanks for the video. All the configurations sounded fine, but there were a few differences. As mentioned by @beyer160 , it would have been nice to see where the mics were exactly, with relation to the guitar. My limited experience is that that precise positioning can make some big differences with different guitars.

For my ears (and for the guitar you recorded with), I agreed with your choice as well; the ORTF seemed slighly less "present" and thinner in a way, but not by much. Might not be a bad thing for a rhythm track that you want to have sitting farther back in the mix?

the differences between the x,y and the a-b set up were more subtle. Maybe I heard more transients in the a-b. They both sounded very good, though.

 

[bonzo898]

Great feedback, y’all highlighted an omission from my setup discussion:

There was no uniform distance or angle of the guitar to the mic for all 3. I simply balanced the left and right input levels as best I could and experimented with the guitar distance and angle with my headphones to achieve the best sound for each.

Generally I was about 1-2 feet from the mics and pointed roughly at the 12th fret and the bridge.

For addition context, this piece of music is eventually going to be recorded with a vocal and some sparse strings, so the guitar is a central piece vs a smaller component which is why I opted for stereo.

 

[klasaine]

Good video. I liked them all.
I mostly only record steel string to sit inside of a track so my preference is X/Y but that is a utilitarian choice.

 

[KCKC]

I like them all. That the recording was great and loved your playing!

I can't seem t get the clarity you have! Nice job!

KC