Recording Acoustic Properly

I'm trying to record acoustic guitar on two tracks but when I overdub the guitar, it comes out sounding like I'm playing through a chorus pedal or something. Anybody know what's causing this?

Sounds like a phase problem. When you try to record two tracks using the same mic, some frequencies get cancelled out. Try either moving the mic to a different position on the second take or use a different mic.

If it is phase problem you can invert the phase of one of the tracks.

However, it could also be a latency issue causing a delay. This is more complicated to sort out.

Sounds to me like you simply need to pan both channels away from eachother, keeping them in mono is what is causing the phase problems/chorus-like sound.

Yep...that worked. (moving the mic)
I had to bounce it down to one track so I couldn't pan them.
Weird.
I noticed the same thing doing harmonies on vocals too so hopefully it will work on those too.
Thanks :)

I don't get how to invert the phase of one of the tracks though. Could you explain? I'm using Cubase SX so maybe you can only do that on a hard disc recorder?

Originally posted by Digit
I don't get how to invert the phase of one of the tracks though. Could you explain?

I'm pretty sure you can do it in Cubase. Look for a little button that has a circle on it with a diagonal line through it. There should be one of these on each channel.
If you can't find it that way, go to "Help" and simply type in the word phase.

Whenever you doubt about wether the normal or phase inverted version is best, pay attention to the low end content of the combination of those two tracks. Whichever combination has the most low end content is what you probably should go for, since that's where the least cancellation is occuring.


[Edited by SPL on 09-21-2003 at 12:45 PM]