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I find this to be somewhat challenging from an engineering standpoint. That is, it can be difficult to get the voice sounding good without fucking up the guitar sound, or vice versa. Assuming I’m using two mics, I invariably get into phase issues in this situation, especially when I try to use some hi-fi condenser mics and especially if the performer likes to move around a lot. I’ve had some luck angling the mics slightly away from one another (vocal mic pointing up toward the voice and guitar mic down at the guitar) or with using a more directional vocal mic; still I’m never quite satisfied.

Anyone have any tips or tricks, especially regarding mic selection/placement. Should I be a man and stick with one mic? I want to be ready for the day Bob Dylan decides to call.

-greasygoose

If you're happy with the sound of your recording space, have you considered using a stereo pair in front of the person? angled up or down to get the right voice to guitar balance. You could of course complement them with a small mix of close mics if need be.
If you stick with your original mono voice/mono guitar setup then it'll be a trial and error thing trying to minimse phase problems, but you'll get there. Just use mics with good off-axis frequency response so any spill can be positive spill.
As far as acoustic guitar mics go and out of everything i've tried, I find the AT-4053 is really impressive.

I've been doing alot of these type of sessions lately and here's what works great for me. Your results may vary.

Close mic setup #1:
Blumlien pair up and down. One mic aimed upwards toward the vocalist, one mic aimed down toward the guitar. This certainly won't give you total isolation or individual control, but should give you a nice sound that will allow for at least a bit of volume adjustment of guitar or voice afterwards without too much phase interference. Not much, but a little.

Close mic setup #2:
Same type of positioning, but using cardioid mics. The trick here is to still keep the capsules as close as possible and at nearly right angles.

Ambience mics:
I really like using an MS pair out in the room, maybe 8-12 feet away from the performer and if they're seated, just above my standing height. This works well for me in good-sounding rooms, even if they're relatively small and non-reflective. In this type of setup I usually like an omni mid mic.

Hope this helps.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

I have been succesful with one mic in a nice room after playing with position and light compression.

I found that when using two mics relatively close in this application, fig-8s can work really well. If you position your mics right, you can achieve very good isolation by utilizing the extreme directivity in front of the mic and the extreme isolation at the side of the mic. With a fig 8 pointing at your vocalists oral cavity, you will get minimal bleed from the acoustic below. Same goes with the acoustic... a well placed fig-8 should do quite well in elimating bleed from the vocalist.

I am interested in what will work best for you.

mike