Got this email from a user who was interested in recording acoustic
guitar. Here's her e-mail with my reply below:

---------- Forwarded message ----------

I've discovered your site to very interesting and helpful. I'm in the
process of obtaining recording equipment and software such as XO Wave to
record acoustic guitar. your page on microphone tips was helpful as well.
I'm considering a purchase of a matched pair of mics for my recording of a
single acoustic guitar. however, if I wanted to mic duo acoustic guitars,
can a matched pair be separated for this purpose or should they always be
used for one instrument? any comments would be most appreciated.

---------------------------------------

I am glad you enjoyed the mike tips page. there is also a page on stereo
techniques, that you might want to check out:

http://www.xowave.com/doc/recording/mic-pair.shtml


Recording acoustic guitars is one of my favorite parts of music recording,
probably because there are so many different ways to get a great sound. A
matched pair is a great place to start for a single acoustic guitar,
especially if you have access to a good sounding room. This is the most
natural way to record any instrument, and if you are recording classical
music you will definitely want to consider using a matched pair.

On the other hand, many people, especially those who don't have access to
a room with good acoustics, use unmatched pairs. For example, it is not
uncommon to use a dynamic mike close to the body and a condenser mike near
the headstock. This works well in a good sounding room, too, of course,
but it is not as natural as using a matched pair.


For two guitars, the approach depends even more on the room. With a good
sounding room, like a small concert hall, my personal top pick would be a
single stereo pair a few feet in front of the guitars. If you don't have a
great room, you could close-mike each guitar (either one or two mikes
each) and add reverb later, if needed. Again, the stereo pair is more
natural.

However, there are lots of possibilities. For example, you could try
having the guitarists face each other and put a mike pair
in between them. I would use either a Blumlein pair or spaced omnis for
this.

(I don't talk about Blumlein pairs on my page, but a quick google search
will tell you what you need to know.)

So, to answer your question, you can probably get away with a single pair
of mikes for solo acoustic and duets if you have a good room. If not,
think about buying two pairs, or recording each guitar in mono. (when
recording multiple sources at the same time, be sure to keep them far
apart. A good rule of thumb is the "3-to-1" rule which states that you
must keep your mikes three times further apart from each other as they are
from the sound source).

As for your software, XO Wave would fit the bill. It is inexpensive, high
quality, easy to use, and, unlike most competitors, has easy CD Burning
built right in. That said, it is also still beta which means that some
features may be missing and there are still some bugs that need to be
worked out.

A good audio interface for the computer would be digidesign's m-box, which
has 2 built-in preamps and phantom power for the mikes, though it's a bit
pricy. Lots of other companies have less expensive options, all of which
should work with XO Wave, if the are compatible with Mac OS X. Look for
one with high-quality built-in mike preamps and XLR connectors.

Best of Luck!

bjorn