Acoustic Guitar Micing, Pt. 3

There’s many different ways of micing an acoustic guitar, and we’re going through several different ones in this series. Today we’re talking about the X/Y setup. Here’s a wide and a tight shot of what this looks like:

Pros/Cons of the X/Y Setup

-relatively simple to set up; you can buy little brackets to make positioning the mics easier.

-using this setup can result in a slightly tighter yet deeper sounding stereo field. Nice for that 3D feeling, especially when recorded in a high quality acoustic like a concert hall.

-requires more fine tuned alignment of the capsules on each mic, so can take more time to set up, and be a bit more finicky.

The most important con of the X/Y recording setup

This next con is important for any of you bedroom recording types! The X/Y setup doesn’t have any benefits over using just one mic, if you’re micing close to the source.

Distance is necessary to achieve the stereo effect, using this setup. That means you’ll need to place the mics at least a few feet back from the source, or it’ll sound like you put up just one mic instead of two.

This style of recording might work great in a quiet concert hall, but when used in your living room this could result in a very noisy sounding recording.

Next time: the mono mic setup! One of my favorites for a home writing studio.

You can reference the full series on acoustic guitar micing, for additional techniques that are useful for capturing this instrument.