Setup for recording

[tinymachines]

How do you suggest I setup for recording acoustic instruments?
My gear:
Ableton Live 8.0.5
M Box 2 Pro (firewire connection)
Rode NT1-A Condenser Microphone.

I just recently decided to delve into the field of making my recordings sound more professional. I just found out about Mid/Side, and Equalizing tracks.

What I was doing was plugging my microphone into one input. In Ableton, to get the sound into both speakers I just set the External In to just 1 or 2, whichever one the microphone was plugged into at the time.

In going back to test Mid/Side techniques on old tracks, I noticed that my current method of recording leaves me only with one side, unless I set the width completely to 200% or 0%. Obviously it's hard to carve out a space for all your instruments if all your acoustic instruments demand to be in one of two spots, or phased to one side. Even with GlissEQ, I couldn't solve this problem.

My question is, should I record with Ext In set to 1/2, even though one side is quiet. Will this solve some of my problems?
Also, I don't have the money for a second mic right now, but when I can afford it, should I just get a second microphone? If yes, what microphones compliment mine well?

[Geissler]

Your panning problem is solved by selecting the correct input for each track. 'correct' being the input your mic is plugged into. If you set it at 1/2, that stereo track will listen to both inputs, 1 on the left and the other on the right. Anyway, not really sure why this is such a huge problem for you because if you're using a utility plugin to set 0% stereo width, that track becomes mono and behaves just the same as setting the correct input...

Hold off buying a second mic until you know what sources you'll be recording!

[tinymachines]

Well, I have been selecting only the source of the audio. What I have thought the problem is, is that ableton has been viewing the audio track as mono.

When I ONLY use the utility and set the width to 200%, it silences the track. The width acts as a volume bar, where it gets louder the closer to 0% I get.

So, I changed the track to 1/2 out, with only one channel giving sound. Then I went into GlissEQ, and routed it to their mid/side setting. That allowed me to accurately control the mid/side, but (I'm assuming) since I don't have two seperate channels both producing sound, anything in between 200 and 0 percent width is panned to the side that has sound going through it.

I spent roughly 4 hours on this problem the other day, and worked out most of my problems. This is the one that's stuck with me. I just couldn't figure it out. I tried duplicating the track and inverting the channel output. Nothing I tried worked.

Thanks for the help by the way.


In the week I've been on this forum, I've learned more about equalizing, mixing and mastering than in all my years recording prior.

[fishmonkey]

Well, I have been selecting only the source of the audio. What I have thought the problem is, is that ableton has been viewing the audio track as mono.

When I ONLY use the utility and set the width to 200%, it silences the track. The width acts as a volume bar, where it gets louder the closer to 0% I get.

since you only have one mono mic both your left and right channels are the same signal, whereas a stereo signal has at least some information that differs between the channels. what you have is effectively dual-mono.

when you set the Utility effect to 200%, the output is the difference between the left+right channels. there is no difference between them, which is why you end up with silence. 0% width is mono.

it makes little sense to try and apply mid-side techniques to a purely mono signal, because you don't have any side to work with, you only have the mid (your mono source).

[leedsquietman]

+1

M/S can work out OK if your mic has an 'omni' mode as well as cardiod / hypercardiod mode.

The NT-1A has a cardiod polar pattern, which is not the same as omni. It's a great mic for recording acoustic guitar and vocals though.

I have 2 Rode M3s, so either record with both (I usually set one up at the 12th fret or thereabouts and another towards the bottom end but missing the sound hole (which sounds really bad, boxy and resonant) and pan them left and right for stereo), or when I only had 1 M3, I just double tracked the guitar and panned it left and right. The M3 works great for this because it's just a cardiod 'point and shoot' mic, so it doesn't pick up sound around the mic (especially good for micing the bottom end of an acoustic to get the rich fullness without the colouration from the sound hole.) However, using 2 mono mics with cardiod produces the 'dual mono' type situation which does not lend well to m/s type processing but is common and can sound great, some people use Neumann KM184's in a pair for this too.

I wouldn't get into using stereo widening too much, it doesn't really sound right and can be a problem with phasing issues. Much better to record a second guitar part IMHO.

If you're buying a second mic to stereoize the guitar, a second NT1-A would be a good choice. Failing this, there are all kind of choices, the Rode M3 is mostly what I use and that is very good at capturing acoustic guitar and cheap (not as good on vocals as an NT-1A though typically, which is a large diapraghm as opposed to the almost pencil type M3 - not bad though). If you wanted to get into M/S recording, you need differences in the stereo image as already said and it woks best with stereo sources. You can buy stereo mics such as the Rode NT4 but they tend to be expensive, but are set up for x/y or m/s type recordings.

[tinymachines]

Thanks for the help. What I wasn't understanding before is that what creates the stereo width effect is the difference between the two sides. That wasn't explained in the mid/side tutorials I did. Thanks again. That makes me reconceptualize the idea completely.