ORIGINAL: j boy

The idea of using two identical mics on a guitar cab doesn't make a lick of sense, to me.

I like to throw up two different mics in close proximity, and I try and pair one that's "darker" or "smoother" like a ribbon with one that's got more presence and "bite" like an SM57 or an E/V RE-16. Then I can do some actual mixing eq in the DAW by sending both to an aux and varying relative balance of the sends to get the sound I want. Sometimes no need to apply an eq plugin as the balance *is* your eq. Comb filtering is not a problem I can tell you that. That fear is overblown.

Sometimes I just throw up one mic and call it good... depends on the sound I need and context in the song.

Yeah my technique as well and I suspect most people will echo this. I wasn't quite understanding what real benefit there was to using two identical mics and basically calling one low end and the other hi end. I think you could probably do the same thing by simply using one mic and cloning the track and EQ'ing them differently but maybe it's not quite the same effect. So maybe a good response to the OP is to try it and see. Then decide for yourself.

With the abilility to so easily shift a track forward or backward in time are we emphasizing the fear of phase issues too much? Also keep in mind that phase issues can be used to you advantage. Moving a mic around can actually change the EQ of a track. So you can move one mic and boost or attenuate problem frequencies. I've read at least one article from a mainstream engineer with commercial release credits that spoke of this. In fact, he said he'd rather use phase cancellation techniques over EQ on an input channel.