Can someone explain this mic setup please?

In order of importance, nice piece, nice performance, nice guitar and nice room too. Looks like a couple of stock Neumann U87's in a spaced pair out front a little. The Pres probably would have been nice as well. Good choice (AB Spaced pair) as you can hear quite a lot of the room (on phones) but the direct sound is pretty nice too. The guitar sounds quit centered (mono phantom image) Somehow that recording is keeping the guitar itself well centered but the room sounds wide. Must have been in the placement and perhaps the two Neumann's are facing in slightly towards the guitar. It works well.
 
 

There's no denying how good this sounds Sharke, that's for sure. My issue is the decay time within the room. It sort of sucks the sound of the instrument out a bit to my ears. This is not a bad thing, just a personal preference and observation.
 
I like to have a bit more of the guitar up front so I would have definitely put at least one mic where the neck meets the body and then mixed everything. Long decay times in any room annoy me. Partly because of that artifact being such a over-used effect in the 80's to where I was guilty of it, bashed for it and once I really learned the extent of my mistakes.....long decay just doesn't sit well with me.
 
I also firmly believe you can get this sound using impulses or a good verb while mixing the wet/dry so that it's even. Though I liked the tone of the guitar, the performance and the over-all vibe, it sounds different to me when I DON'T watch the video and see that church type room. It sounds like a dude using too much reverb without enough dry signal. Again...that's just ME brother. I'm not trying to bash anything, just sharing my opinion.....but Jeff nailed it. A good player with a good instrument in really just about ANY room, will yield good results. I don't even think the mic will matter other than coloration, personal preference and the engineer matching the mic(s) for the player, room and situation.
 
Throw two Samson's or Radio Shack mics on that guy and it's still going to sound incredible. :)
 
-Danny

I wonder if this is the kind of setup Naxos uses to record their CD's. I have a ton of their guitar ones which I bought 8-10 years ago, mainly because they were cheap and generally very good quality. Many seem to have a similar sound to this video. There's a couple which are a little muddy and sound like they could use some EQ, but on the whole I like the sound. I think this big room sound is quite common for classical guitar recordings though yes? It probably depends on the type of music as well - a long decay time is going to sound better with this kind of modal Renaissance music better than it would sound with a piece that's modulating all over the place.
 
I too lean toward less reverb than more, but I don't know, I think it works with this piece. These old lute tunes will have commonly been heard in churches and halls.
 
Mind his technique is perfect. Nails shaped and polished to perfection....

Naxos doesn't really have a setup.  They hire freelancers for a very small fee (~$3000), rather than the typical production companies, to do their recordings, so the quality varies.  A lot of people just refuse to work with them.  
 
I agree the reverb is a little much.  I seriously doubt it is all room since the decay is unnatural.  AB omnis are a typical guitar setup for classical, though U87's usually are not the ideal choice IMO.  It is a little tubby especially considering the size of the instrument.  Probably could use a close mic for clarity and brightness.  Still, it sounds decent.  

rumleymusic
Naxos doesn't really have a setup.  They hire freelancers for a very small fee (~$3000), rather than the typical production companies, to do their recordings, so the quality varies.  A lot of people just refuse to work with them.  
 
I agree the reverb is a little much.  I seriously doubt it is all room since the decay is unnatural.  AB omnis are a typical guitar setup for classical, though U87's usually are not the ideal choice IMO.  It is a little tubby especially considering the size of the instrument.  Probably could use a close mic for clarity and brightness.  Still, it sounds decent.  

I guess that explains why those Naxos CD's are so cheap....

Not sure I agree with extra reverb being added to that space/recording. If you look carefully you will see that room is larger than first thought. Why would you add reverb to a recording that already has nice reverb on it.

 
Not opinion, experience.  Backed by hundreds of live classical music recordings.  In a space that size, with mics placed that close, an instrument that size cannot produce enough acoustic energy to generate reverb of that volume.  Here is a little industry secret.  Just about every major classical release since the latter half of the 20th century has artificial reverb.  It is standard practice.  

Well Jimmy, Daniel could be very right too and I find that a bit strange. A lot of the time we are trying to keep the ambience down and get more detail from the instrument/s itself.  Are they doing this to make the spaces appear larger than what they originally were so to create the impression of a more important situation. Not sure.
 
I have certainly made classical recordings in rooms that did have that much natural ambience so that is why I thought it could have been real.
 
In retrospect I may have used the spaced pair plus another mic closer in to capture the detail slightly more so. (distances being measured too in case you have to compensate for timing differences) That is why I like M/S setups so much, you can control all this after the event.
 
Still overall a great recording though.

Now that I listen to it again, on a better system, I'll take back tubby comment, it is fine.  I still would like some more high frequency sparkle.  I can understand how they were mistaken for ribbons.  87's are usually a gritty, edgy mic (in a nice way, I would never say it is a bad mic), but sometimes not appropriate for this type of recording.  Either the guitar was ridiculously mellow, or the top end was tapered in post.  
 
I'll blame it on Bose earbuds.  A heavy dull sound, but extremely comfortable, and don't fall out at the gym.  
 

Well Jimmy, Daniel could be very right too and I find that a bit strange. A lot of the time we are trying to keep the ambience down and get more detail from the instrument/s itself.  Are they doing this to make the spaces appear larger than what they originally were so to create the impression of a more important situation. Not sure.

 
Well I mentioned it is standard practice, not necessarily "good" practice.  Much of the time I am forced to add more and more reverb at the request of the client, and I hear the same story from many other recordists.  It is rarely the engineer's decision to wash out a nice and punchy recording.  
 
With Naxos the engineer also does not have as much control of the session as he/she would like.  In the old Decca/EMI days if the Tonmeister gave a command, it was obeyed without question, now we have unions, agents, large egos, and Zoom recorders which make everyone an "expert," reducing the poor recordist to the level of "sound guy."
 
 

There is both high and low pass. It could be the Mics, but I doubt it.

 
A high pass is usually a given considering the lowest fundamental of the instrument and the environment.  A few fellow engineers claim adding a low pass filter set around 18-20kHz helps with mp3 or online distribution sound. Maybe they consider it a preemptive, higher quality method, to the natural destructive nature of compressed audio formats.
 
Most good quality reverbs are pretty even in terms of stereo stability, so maybe the modulations on the decay could be a result of the room.  Just guessing there.    I have done plenty of recordings in wacky, ping-y, spaces.