Acoustic guitar recording tips thread!

[ratherdashing]

Post your acoustic guitar recording tips here. Anything you think is helpful is fine: mics, mic placement, pickups, preamps, EQ, effects, mixing ... it's all good.

For my stuff, I have found that my Apex 435 (medium-diaphragm condenser) with a high pass at around 60-80Hz gets a really good acoustic sound. The key is mic placement. Where you place the mic on an acoustic can have a profound effect on the tone you get. For a crisp, full tone, I place the mic about a foot back at a slight angle to the sound hole. Depending on the tone I want though, I will move the mic around.

What do you do?

 

[wahwah]

Re: Acoustic guitar recording tips thread!

As a starting point, using the best condenser mic you can get your hands on, about 10-12 inches back, aimed directly at the 12th fret. If I'm recording myself, I use headphones and then slowly move the guitar around its horizontal axis listening for sweetspots. By micing over the 12th fret, you can avoid a lot of the plosives from the soundhole, although it is still usually necessary to use a high pass filter to roll off the bottom end. Unless the track is going to be based on the acoustic, I tend to eq out virtually everything under 100Hz so that acoustic rumble is not competing with the bass in the track. I also look for the "boxy" midrange frequencies, generally in the 1 - 1.5kHz range, and apply a narrow bandwidth cut, depending on the natural tone of the guitar. For rhythmic acoustic parts, I like to double track them and wide pan them, occasionally playing counter rhythms between the two which can add some interesting movement and interplay to the rhythm bed.


Cheers..................wahwah

 

[muttonchopsrule]

Re: Acoustic guitar recording tips thread!

i like to use stereo miking on acoustic guitars, especially if it's a solo guitar kind of deal or if it is not a very dense mix. even though an acoustic guitar is generally not thought of as a stereo source, you can get a really full sound from it.

in this case, take the best two condenser mic's you have. on acoustic guitar, i like to use an ORTF technique. ORTF calls for having two cardioid microphones placed so that their capssules are approximately 7 or so inches apart, and they're creating a something in the ballpark of a 110 degree angle between the two of them. (these are not absolutes, but rather guidelines). try doing this so that one mic is pointing more toward the guitar's bridge, and the other pointing at the upper register of the fretboard. you can experiment with the angle and the distance away from the guitar. then pan the two tracks hard left and right.

you can get the guitar to sound really huge by double tracking it, and panning them so that take 1 is panned so that one mic is hard left and the other is dead center, and take 2 with one mic dead center, and the other hard right, again, you can experiment with this as well.

be sure to play it back in mono so that you can be sure that there are no phase problems between the two mics (if it is set up correctly then there shouldn't be).

the mic setup should look something like this:

 

[ImmortalSix]

Re: Acoustic guitar recording tips thread!

one mic at a 30 degree angle at 8-12" aimed just behind the bridge and one aimed directly at the 12th fret, I've found Neumann KM140's to be the best mic for this

 

[Markk]

Re: Acoustic guitar recording tips thread!

i like to use stereo miking on acoustic guitars, especially if it's a solo guitar kind of deal or if it is not a very dense mix. even though an acoustic guitar is generally not thought of as a stereo source, you can get a really full sound from it.

in this case, take the best two condenser mic's you have. on acoustic guitar, i like to use an ORTF technique. ORTF calls for having two cardioid microphones placed so that their capssules are approximately 7 or so inches apart, and they're creating a something in the ballpark of a 110 degree angle between the two of them. (these are not absolutes, but rather guidelines). try doing this so that one mic is pointing more toward the guitar's bridge, and the other pointing at the upper register of the fretboard. you can experiment with the angle and the distance away from the guitar. then pan the two tracks hard left and right.

you can get the guitar to sound really huge by double tracking it, and panning them so that take 1 is panned so that one mic is hard left and the other is dead center, and take 2 with one mic dead center, and the other hard right, again, you can experiment with this as well.

be sure to play it back in mono so that you can be sure that there are no phase problems between the two mics (if it is set up correctly then there shouldn't be).

the mic setup should look something like this:

I've tried variations of this before on classical guitars. Sometimes you can get some pretty nice sounds.