Phase issues

[nathanevelive]

Wide stereo micing acoustic guitar can never be fully in phase

[Dad3353]

Nor can an acoustic drum kit in a 'live' room. Does it matter..? 

[randythoades]

Strangely I have had issues about this too (such is the joy in my life) whilst trying to mic up acoustic close and far as well as use the pickup to do a multi track in one take. Couldn't get it to work properly.

Admittedly not trying to get a stereo feel, just recording multiple tracks with which to mix. Couldn't get something about the phase right. In the end i took the view of @Dad3353 and thought, why bother? I just played twice and recorded separate tracks for each mic which worked much better.

[nathanevelive]

Dad3353 I  guess it might matter to somebody learning how to record audio and hopefully this discussion maybe helpful to said person. So I wide stereo mic all the time with nice results and I am a professional guitarist and I guess that I threw this out there because I believe that there's so many misleading videos out there on youtube that say you got to get wide stereo micing in phase. But It is simply not true and not possible and it never will be with an acoustic guitar because of the instrument having an irregular shape and therefore irregular sound projection to microphone A and B.

I can neither get a wide stereo pair to be completely out of phase for the same reason.

I just this would help anybody aspiring to record who leans heavily on informational videos.

[Dad3353]

Any room will having all sorts of reflections, many of which will be picked up by any 'live' mics around, to a greater or lesser extent, and with a rather random phase relationship to the sound source. This is part of recording with mics, and only becomes an issue in particular circumstances. A classic example would be recording a drum session using stereo overheads. These are usually positioned to be exactly equidistant from the snare head, so that they receive the same phase each. It's only a matter of chance, though that this be perfect in anything but a 'dead' room, as reflections, from many sources, will be picked up. It's not important, though, usually, as the final result, when listened back, is satisfactory, especially when in the final mix, rather than taken in isolation. Having a perfect phase match is an academic ideal, but in 'real life', is seldom reached, and even less often important enough to lose sleep over. There are specific exceptions (some orchestral recordings in a concert hall, using multi-mics, for instance...), but for an acoustic guitar, it's not that often that one wants a true 'stereo' image; rather a bi-mic image (sound-hole plus body, or neck...), where phase issues become moot. Moving one of the mics even a little further away render phase issues unimportant, in my experience. The final listening is what counts most, and careful mic placing (and good ears...) make this possible, in all but laboratory experiments. Just my tuppence-worth. 

[nathanevelive]

Dad3353 I agree!

In addition I found that I started caring less about phase issues once I had begun using expensive microphones. Because everything I recorded just suddenly started to sound good so much so that I don't measure mic distance from guitar anymore nor do I use my ears it just sounds good wherever I put the mics!

 

I do wonder just how many people are out there blaming phase issues for bad recordings when there is so much that influences the capturing of audio?

Edited February 1, 2024 by nathanevelive
Mistake

[nathanevelive]

I want to point out that of course I can use a correlation meter and move the mics to a point where it can capture a negative phase correlation and not sound good at all but you really have to work hard to mess it up!