In Summary

One of the most commonly recorded instruments is acoustic guitar, it’s not hard to get a good acoustic sound but there are so many ways to approach it beyond pointing a mic at the 12th fret. Here we share five ways to capture acoustic sounds for the better - see and hear them for yourself.

Going Deeper

Despite the undeniable sheen that mixing magic can add, most (if not all) great sounds begin in the room before hitting the mic. The acoustic guitar’s versatility sees it show up on sessions across genres, lending its pastoral warmth to anything from classical, hip hop, country, jazz, folk, afrobeat, rock… The list goes on. Being able to record it well is an essential skill for virtually any engineer. Luckily, with a few pre-flight checks getting it right is more than achievable for anyone with a mic in their hand…

In The Beginning…

First and foremost, the room that will feature in the recording will influence the approach to recording, and therefore the sound. Shorter, bright sounding spaces can impart some vitality to the guitar, and mic placement can decide how much to balance in behind the instrument. Rooms that are not ideal can be tuned out to an extent by working closer; the trade-off here is a less natural sound that focusses on one part of the instrument.

The guitar itself and its playing is the biggest part of getting a great sound. It’s certainly true that great playing can help a bad instrument; the opposite is rarely true. Of course the hope is for both to be good; it’s hard to break any recording with both in place.

As well as a nice-sounding instrument that is in tune, the best players will understand how things such as pick choice will make differences that are easy to hear. The percussive ‘shake’ of a thin-picked heavily-strummed part sounds very different to a light touch with a thick plectrum. Finger-pickers have no less a broad palette of textures available.

Five Sounds

In each example the mic is about 12 inches (30cm) from the guitar. In general the closer you get to the guitar the more ‘microscopic’ the mic becomes. As you move in you hear more of the area directly in front of the mic & less of the rest of the guitar.

The mics are a matched pair of United Studio Technologies Twin87s, used primarily because they could be used for all the examples thanks to their switchable patterns including figure of 8 for the M/S recording.

Signal path was mics into a pair of CAPI VP28 (Litz mod) going to Metric Halo converters. No EQ or compression was applied during tracking or in Pro Tools. Before export & conversion into MP3, Avid’s Pro Limiter Loudness Analyzer was used to get each sample to the same loudness. Recordings were done at 24/96k. Audio examples are nice and short, with some picking followed by a couple of strums on a nice sounding Taylor guitar.

1 - Classic Mono - Neck/Body Joint

Many engineers will use this position by default with good reason; balancing the fuller sound of the body with the brilliance of the string and neck sounds, it holds few surprises. A wide range of colours are achievable by moving the mic laterally to adjust the balance. Adjusting ambience with distance is also easy with the frets providing a visual reference to avoid wandering off to one side while tweaking.

2 - Alternative Mono - Lower Bout, Treble Side

Broadcast recording techniques put an emphasis on repeatable speed versus creative experimentation. This technique is drier and louder than some, that neatly sidesteps neck weediness or bloated soundhole whoomph.

Steve DeMott heard about this technique from a BBC engineer. A single mic aimed at the lower bout, placed just behind the bridge line on the treble side.

3 - Widescreen Stereo - Neck And Bridge

This is Steve’s goto for stereo acoustic guitar when the guitar needs to take up a lot of space and be the spotlight instrument, for example with a singer/songwriter.

Some would say that acoustic guitar needs some coaxing to sound wide, and doing that is to move away from the instrument’s natural sound. Although this setup could be referred to as AB stereo, the intent of a neck and bridge setup is more to capture two different parts of the instrument rather than a time difference based stereo recording of the whole thing.

As such this technique embraces art over physics with a sound that is all about being much wider than true stereo itself. Providing two different flavours which can be blended or separated by adjusting the spacing, our Widescreen Guitar can be used towards the mix’s edges to make room for the topline, much like a ‘classic’ AB pair.

4 - Practical Stereo - M/S From Below

Although width can be adjusted in any stereo signal, MS technique commits the essence of stereo with the advantage of always having one mic pointed directly at the centre. Where other techniques can miss a single sweet spot, an MS array can be precisely placed for sound just like a single mic. Width adjustments are as simple as placing the Side channel’s fader for the desired panorama with added ambience.

Although MS is entirely mono compatible, the subjective balance can change in this format. This is because the sides cancel in mono.

5 - Sideways Stereo - Vertical X/Y

Although stereo is often used to bring realism, it’s perhaps used in equal measure to simply provide some extra zing for listeners’ two ears. Many engineers will be aware of the classic XY stereo technique; this two cardioid array has uses beyond pleasing the purists out there. Turned on its side, the instrument’s register becomes the point of difference. Who says pianos should have all the fun?

Steve uses this stereo technique for when it doesn’t feel like the guitar should take up a lot of space. This could be a great option when you want stereo, but you don’t want it to sound too big. Moving the X/Y array to the vertical, rather than the typical horizontal orientation, can add to the sense of it being ‘tucked in’ to the centre even more.

One Technique For Them All?

Engineers have a wide range of approaches they can use to capture what is happening in front of the mics. Above are just five to try; these can form the basis of other techniques, although in many cases they can work straight away with little or no adjustment. Although recording in stereo can add realism, mono techniques’ smaller mix footprint can keep things to the point… Literally.

Quite aside from mic choice and the technique used, fundamentally that choice needs to be in the right position, as determined by listening. While some engineers will be working in a familiar space with familiar gear, many of the variables happen upstream of the mics.

Having a vocabulary of techniques and experience of using them will let engineers predict how something is going to sound in a number of situations. Nonetheless, although the one-size-fits-all approach will get the job done, many will have been surprised by how good a new approach can sound, or indeed how badly that supposed failsafe position can, well, fail.

This means despite first appearances, most if not all guitars will need to be judged on merit, and if there is a single technique it must be to rule out none of them!

Thanks to Grant Ossendryver for coming in and playing guitar for these examples. Do you have a preferred method for recording acoustic guitar? If it is one of these five, and especially if it isn’t, share it in the comments and explain why you like it.

A Word About This Article

As the Experts team considered how we could better help the community we thought that some of you are time poor and don’t have the time to read a long article or a watch a long video. In 2023 we are going to be trying out articles that have the fast takeaway right at the start and then an opportunity to go deeper if you wish. Let us know if you like this idea in the comments.