Mid - Side Question

What figure 8 mic are you using?

While you are recording you are recording a single mono track from the figure 8 mic and it should be 90 degrees to the source. ie the null of the figure 8 is pointing toward the source. The other mic is facing the source directly and the M signal.

Upon decoding you copy the Side mic signal to an adjacent track. You pan the original side signal to the hard L position and the copied S signal track to the hard R position. You now insert a plug in which flips the polarity of a mono signal over the copied track or the track panned hard R. Not sure in Sonar where it is but will be available. That is how you get the two tracks out of phase. Pan them both centre and they will disappear as they should, pan back to L and R.

Now bring in M signal on third track panned centre and as you do the stereo image will reform again in all it's glory. Adjust the balance to taste of the M signal to the two S tracks. (group the S tracks making it easier to move both) More M means very mono sounding and very centre, less M more S widens the stereo sound a bit more adding in more room ambience etc. Very cool to be able to fine tune this stereo width balance after the event and during a mix.

There are plugins that do the M/S decoding all in one hit and you don't have to fiddle with any of the above. You will still have control over M - S balance as well.

Try setting up the MS mic setup up around the 12th fret and close to it too. Upon decoding you will hear a nice close stereo image from C to L looking right down the fret board to the sound hole and also from C to R you will hear an image from the 12th fret up towards the headstock. And if you don't like it too much you an reduce the S signal and just get a killer direct 12 th fret recording as you would normally do. Raising the S signal however during decoding will enhance the extremes a little more while pulling the centre sound down a bit leaving room for other things in the centre if you need it.

Remember too if you do an XY coincident recording right at the 12th fret you will also get a nice stereo effect there. But you can convert this to M S and then tweak the M S balances and convert back to stereo. 

OK - got it! Here is what I learned - that BEFORE copying the first figure 8 track to another, switch the polarity at that time (just click the phase button. Then copy and do the panning in a track that does not have the phase reversed. The key to this (on X1) anyway was to switch the phase first, then copy and do the rest. Anytime I copied, then switched phase on either, the separation never occurred. Sounds good now.