Mic Techniques For Acoustic Guitar In a Rock Mix

[Ahellam]

Most of the time when I am tracking acoustic its either for something soft or as a layer/texture to accompany an electric guitar sound.
I am going to be doing a pretty loud rock song where acoustic guitar is the main instrument.

Any advice would be appreciated in terms of mic technique/type of mic/type of compression/eq.

Thanks people!
-Aaron

[Marty J]

Are there going to be loud electric guitars going on at the same time? Maybe you could try a dynamic mic to give you more of a smaller lo-fi sound. Or if you want it to cut through the mix, playing the acoustic with a capo up a few frets can often help.

[MickeySmid]

I've used the dynamic senheizer shaver mic with success on acc guitar when there was other loud stuff going on...

Also just saw this on a picture of The Band while making The Big Pink... Robby playing acc in front of that one.

[Unclenny]

If you can go DI along with a mic that can help cut through.

[J.D. Short]

Try a SM7 or ribbon mic as a room effect and play that guitar LOUD, man!

[EstateMatt]

I had an accomplished engineer/producer spend a month in my facility.
he SLAMMED a pair of original 160s with guitar.

it sounded horrible until he mixed down. the genius of it is that usually I hate acoustic guitarists that aimlessly strum and strum and strum because when they write the song in their bedroom, they have no drummer.


the genius of this is it separates the pick/strum sound from the note, so the decay ends up being a pad for the track while the pick is a completely separate entity which acts as percussion.

I was shocked because the entire session I thought he was nuts.


this was a pair of c 451s one on the 12th fret, one over the shoulder

[Sigma]

crush with an LA-2 then if you need a little pic hit with a 4 ms attack 20 ms release at 4:1 with about 2-3 db of pump..it makes it thick and in your face

[Ahellam]

yeah goin for that kinda pete yorn in your face sound that can compete with big compressed drums.

[jwl]

I play acoustic guitar in a rock band, and also do all our recording. This is definitely a trick.

The first thing to do is to get the right guitar, and play it with the right pick (or fingers). The guitar I use (I have a jumbo and a smaller-body guitar, similar to a 000), and the way I play it have by far the biggest impact on the final result. Generally I like thin-ish picks, but sometimes I play with my fingers. Sometimes a particular part will call for a thicker pick. If you aren't sure, record a track with a thin pick, and then rerecord the same part with a thick pick. The difference will be astounding.

Most often, I record my acoustic(s) with a LD condenser and a ribbon, in various configurations. It's very important to maintain phase coherence with multimiking an acoustic that will sit in a dense mix, so I often use some form of coincident pair miking (mid/side sometimes, where I'll stand off to one side where I want the acoustic guitar to be in the final mix).

The 2 microphones give me a good tonal variety so I can sit the acoustic in the mix. Sometimes I'll EQ on the way in (brighten the ribbon, find a good cut point in the midrange on the condenser are common), and often I will compress the condenser on the way in as well.

A lot of people hi-pass the crap out of acoustics in a rock song, so that you can just hear the glistening shimmer of the strums. This doesn't work for us because the low end of the acoustic contributes hugely to the groove of the band. But because there is so much going on in rock in the low end, I use complimentary EQ with the electric guitar, the bass, and the vocals to get it to sit right (find the frequencies where specific instruments are fighting, and slightly boost one and slightly cut the other until it sits better. Often I'll go an octave up or down from those frequencies and do the reverse, cut the previously boosted track and vice-versa).

You have to get the compression right, so it sits in the mix well. Get the attack and release times so it sounds good with the groove.

Also, panning, generally I keep the acoustic on one side and the electric on the other.

Good luck... this is a trick but you can make it work with practice.