Originally Posted By: Tobias
After experimenting recording my acoustic guitar with the Behringer C-2s in many configurations I ended up sending them back for a refund. I don't think they are terrible but after comparing them to my Shure SM86, Shure Beta 58, Sennheiser e838, AKG D880 Emotion, Sony ECM MS-907, Behringer B-2 Pro and a few others in my collection they just don't compare in sound quality. They were more sensitive than the dedicated vocal mics and certainly could pick up the sound well. But, have a slightly harsh tone, just slight, and sounded somewhat lifeless, no warmth. But, not really all that bad. It's just that I get a much better sound from any of the others listed above. In fact, for recording acoustic guitar in my room the e838 and Sony ECM MS-907 were probably the best but for separate reasons.
Last week I bought an AKG P170 and immediately could hear a good quality, warm, full range sound. It's easy to move around to find a good spot and easy to post EQ to fit a mix or EQ for solo/singer/songwriter. It doesn't have a low cut switch but that's okay.
To my surprise the Sony ECM MS-907 (stereo/mid-side) mic sounds very good. I've had that mic for some 20 years and had never recorded acoustic guitar with it. I almost did and probably could have stuck with using that alone for my personal recordings. But, it's not easy to focus in on a mono recording when that's all I want. It also has a fairly low SPL handling, which doesn't bother me, and a permanent sharp low cut/high pass at around 100 htz. That said, it is a very clear, detailed and warm sounding. I put it close up to the 20th fret/edge of sound hole and turned it sideways so the left side picked up the high strings and the right side pick up the low strings. Panned them left and right and had a really cool stereo sound. So, I'll likely be putting that one into service more often. Plus, for doing scratch tracks like picking up a singer with an acoustic guitar just to grab a basic song it works quite well.



Working with acoustic guitars is an art form to start.... and using 2 mics is an even harder form of art. You end up with cancellation of frequencies and yep.... additions too depending on the mic placement and the frequency of the note being played at a given point in time.

I experimented using 2 mics on my acoustic and determined that for me, without spending an inordinate amount of time experimenting, using a single mic placed where it picks up the neck and strings as well as the body resonance well, is the best bet. And... I'm still trying to get a good sounding acoustic track that meets my desire for quality. So far, I'm ok with the results.... just not overly excited yet.

Just curious if you tried using just one mic of that B-C2 pair. And if you did, how did that sound? Or.... was the overall quality of the c2 just not up to snuff?


The problem with using 2 mics is demonstrated in the chart below. Guitar open tuning is 82 to 330 hz. Time periods and wavelength are all in the distance we normally place the mics from the guitar and that's compounded by the fact that sound is not coming from one specific point on the instrument.... such as you have with a horn. Guitars are tough, pianos are even more entertaining. The higher the frequency the more tricky it is to avoid comb filtering and get a good sound on the track.



http://www.soundoctor.com/freq.htmms

note: this chart didn't copy well so I posted the link instead.

Last edited by Guitarhacker; 11/02/18 03:51 AM.
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