Hi.
I have noticed alot of people use 2 mics on a 4x12 etc.I understand about using 2 seperate mics to get a good balance of the overall sound but would you pan these 2 signals L and R (sort of stereo) or straight in the middle and combine to taste?..Does it depend on how many tracks you have to use?..

it depends on how it sounds best to your ears.

darren wrote:Hi.
I have noticed alot of people use 2 mics on a 4x12 etc.I understand about using 2 seperate mics to get a good balance of the overall sound but would you pan these 2 signals L and R (sort of stereo) or straight in the middle and combine to taste?..Does it depend on how many tracks you have to use?..

congratulations, my first post on here is a response to your question!! If you aren't doing overdubs, you would generally want to spread the guitar around a little with panning in order to open up more center space for the bass guitar and kick and snare.. that is, only if you're doing "conventional panning".. some people like to pan bass left or right, guitar everywhere, etc.. if you are doing guitar overdubs, and replicating a part to add size to the guitar, you would want to group the mics for each performance on the same side in order to have the "two guitarists" effect. And yes.. it all just depends on what sound right to YOU

a couple of things to consider:

1. If you plan on panning the tracks together you'll probably want to pay attention to phase issues and make sure that the mics are exactly the same distance from the speaker.

2. If you're looking for stereo image then you'll probably want to do the opposite. The greater the distance between the mics the wider the stereo image will be...and also the greater the difference in the frequency responses of the two mics, the greater the stereo image will be.

I almost always use a close mic (dynamic, like an M88 or a ribbon a little further away) aimed at the cone panned hard L and another mic (condenser, like an AT4033 or AKG 414) about 4-7 feet away panned hard R aimed at the cone. This gives nice stereo separation and generally sounds quite good.

One question about the two mics technique, and something I've wondered about here and there for a while is: would it be better to only be using one of the 12" speakers for this application, to stop the four speakers creating phase amongst themselves?

When I record guitar amp usually my initial mic is close so I'm not too worried, and when I put up a second mic (usually as a room mic) I figure it's just capturing the sound of the amp in the room, but if you were trying to get a decent second track of guitar that was panned opposite and still present (rather than purely as ambient), I wonder if just using one speaker would make a difference. Has anybody experimented with this?

I was recently listening to the Crue's "Shout at the Devil", and I'm pretty sure that throughout the album guitar left and guitar right are the same guitar with two different mics on it. I sometimes synthesize this for punk rock stuff, with the whole 15ms delay trick, but I figure I should get around to double micing, with both tracks acting as main (and panned) tracks.

you can also close mic with two mics and put a 9 msec delay or so on the one, if you're panning them hard. that should open it up a bit.

jjcarterco wrote:One question about the two mics technique, and something I've wondered about here and there for a while is: would it be better to only be using one of the 12" speakers for this application, to stop the four speakers creating phase amongst themselves?

Eh, I dunno... do you stand in front of your amp while playing and say to yourself, "Wow, these four speakers are creating some phase issues I don't like."? If I have something set up how it sounds good to my ears I'll let it go and never really change it 'for the mics.' A mic are just another version of my ear to me. A much more durable one, at that.

I usually move the 2 mics around to get them in phase. They don't have to be the same distance from the speaker. The 2 different mics will obviously capture the sound differently and having them the same distance may actually cause phase problems.

In response to:

"do you stand in front of your amp while playing and say to yourself, "Wow, these four speakers are creating some phase issues I don't like."?"

I never do, because that's what a 4x12 is supposed to sound like (in a room, standing away from it). When I play guitar, and listen to other people play guitar through an amp, I don't put my ear 4 inches from the speaker cone and say "this is how I like to listen to guitar", but that is usually where I put the first mic when recording an amp.

I'm interested to know techniques people use to get a second direct guitar track, that is delayed slightly because of the distance between the two mics, and if using one speaker creates a more distinct sound than four. I guess I'll just have to try.