Forum

hi gang, thought you might enjoy this little recording test I did this morning. Someone on a forum posted a link to an article in Guitar Player about creating a stereo recording using only one mic. The article's a couple of years old, but I thought I'd try it and compare it to some other techniques I've used to record.

Here's the Guitar Player article for background

http://www.guitarplayer.com/miscellaneo ... tars/21691

and here's my test recordings:



I don't know how many people here are into recording, but it's something I've focused on a lot. Trying to get a good sound is a never-ending process!

Here's the "trick" I use.....record your guitar with a single microphone into your DAW. Duplicate the track. Pan one track hard left, the other track hard right. Now simply, "nudge" one of the tracks to the right by 25 milliseconds. Voila stereo.

You can start to hear the stereo effect at around 10 msecs but between 20 and 30 msecs the effect is more pronounced and quite full. Beyond 30 msecs you start to get a more delayed effect.

Give it a try!

Pretty cool stuff Doug. Thanks for the experiment.

Scott

The "delay one side" works! You will get a weird sound (phase cancellation) if you listen in mono, but since hardly anyone does that anymore, it probably doesn't matter. A related technique I've heard used on some recordings is to apply a pitch shift to one or both tracks. Just a cent or two, which produce a similar widening effect to the delay. When blended to mono, it also produces some odd phasing effects. This Guitar Player article was just interesting because it spelled out some very specific settings, so I thought it'd be interesting to try it out. I still prefer real stereo mixing! But you never know till you try things, and if someone only has one mic, it's worth trying any of these things.

Doug

I liked you demo. experiment.

Thanks for sharing.

Dermot

Thanks for that demo Doug. We need all the help we can get on improving our recordings. I have been using the technique Daryl mentioned. Works welll!
I have also mixed my camera mic and audio mic together and that gives up something two, effectively two mics.
Chris