I'd been playing with the mid - side mic technique and I really love it! I've read that the results are mono compatible because the phase reversed side channel cancels the other side channel out when collapsed to mono. I understand that this phase coherance is one of the good reasons to use this technique; but is there any way to record with this kind of setup and preserve the ambience of one of the side channels when going to mono? I'm thinking that maybe a delay between side channels might make it so one is preserved... I'm trying to avoid both the combing effect and the total cancelation of the beautiful ambience this technique can achieve.

I'm new to recording, so sorry if I'm totally missing the point of some of this!!! I mostly do guitar and voice together and the m / s technique is a revelation!!!

i can't think of a way to put it to mono without losing the side channel.

The Side mic won't completely null out when you collapse to mono. Try collapsing to mono with both and then with just the Mid mic and I'll bet you can here the difference. You'll get some dimensionality without directionality.

Bear

Yes, I've experinced the same thing with the mono switch.

If you're using your DAW as the decoder...
you could choose which side of the figure-8 you want predominantly to stay in the mono world, just make sure the preferred side of the figure-8 is the positive and the other negative.