Homebrewed Music

I record solo acoustic guitar almost exclusively, but a couple of months ago one of my buddies wanted to lay down a few tracks with vocal and `ukulele. And he wanted to sing and play at the same time. I remembered reading about an arrangement of figure 8 or bidirectional mics that gave maximum separation in a situation like this, so I pulled out the Rode NT2a and NT2000 and set them up. We were amazed by the separation between vocal and uke, even though the mics were only a foot apart.

Figure 8 mics have a pickup pattern that looks like this:

but it’s important to remember that this diagram is a 2D representation of the 3D pattern in space. Basically the pattern looks like two balloons on the front and back grills of the mic, with a null, or area of minimum sensitivity in between.

So for the vocal mic we aim the “balloon” of sensitivity at the singer’s mouth and the plane of minimum sensitivity at the singer’s guitar or uke or mandolin. And we arrange the instrument mic with its diaphragm pointed at the instrument but the plane of the null at the singer’s mouth. It’s more complicated to describe than it is to do.

Here’s a video that demonstrates this technique:


Vocal - Guitar Separation using Figure 8 Mics from Fran Guidry on Vimeo.

Certainly other mic patterns could be used, but no other pattern has a deep a null, and no other is as easy to aim. If you need to record a self-accompanied vocalist, a pair of figure 8 mics, either large diaphragm switchable condensers, or bidirectional ribbons, would be a good investment.