How can I get rhythm acoustic gtrs to sound great and glue in the Mix?

[zak7]

I am mixing a song based on acoustic rhythm gts, uptempo, with some percussion and nice drums( no electric guitars!) ....I want the strumming and the sound of the rhythm gtrs to be glued in the mix and to sound clear and recognizable with energy...any EQ tricks.? compression Effx? or anything that can be use to make them sound great?

[Sigma]

Originally Posted by zak7

I am mixing a song based on acoustic rhythm gts, uptempo, with some percussion and nice drums( no electric guitars!) ....I want the strumming and the sound of the rhythm gtrs to be glued in the mix and to sound clear and recognizable with energy...any EQ tricks.? compression Effx? or anything that can be use to make them sound great?

LA2a compress and squash then put in a compresor with a 5 ms attack and like 10-20 ms release and put a little teat back in the pick

[vernier]

Vintage tube analog gear does it automatically.

[chetatkinsdiet]

Starting with a guitar that's more on the Gibson side of the fence helps me. I think the Martin side of things works best when only vox and gtr. That's just me though....

m

[bgrotto]

Assuming the guitar has been recorded/played well...

I like to get aggressive with either an 1176 or a Distressor...fast attacks to nail the strumming into place, with a release just quick enough to get the compressor pumping and creating a little excitement and generate some harmonic distortion. Sometimes you might wanna experiment with low and low-mid cuts before the compressor, to get the compressor to react more to the midrange and top of the guitar track. I find myself frequently boosting around 2.5 just a tiny bit to emphasize some harmonic detail, and boost a shelf around 8k or so to emphasize the pick scrape and add some air. If the guitar feels too dry, try a short plate, maybe with a predelay rhythmically timed to the song's tempo.

[jwl]

These are good suggestions. I find the biggest thing with acoustic guitars, though, is to record it right in the first place. Specifically, right guitar, right pick, right player, right room, right mic, right placement.

Try different guitars, small bodied, jumbos, dreadnaughts, whatever you have to get the effect you are looking for. Changing picks (or using fingers/nails) will make a big difference in sound. Also, playing technique (ie, strum over the sound hole, near the bridge, near the neck) to get the effect you are looking for.

The room is HUGELY important. Hopefully you have a treated room, maybe some bass traps, acoustic panels or gobos you can put around the player and the mics to control room reflections either by eliminating them or by making them work for you.

Then, try different mics, and different placements until you get what you are looking for.

Once all this is done, mixing suddenly gets easier. Funny how that works.

But then, you asked about mixing some already-recorded stuff, so this probably is too little too late.

For what you are talking about, get the compressor right, the attack and release settings will be very important for you.

Sometimes, if I can't get the compression the way I want it, I've used a multiband compressor on the acoustics to get it to sit right in the mix, to sound driving without dominating, and to control both the boominess and the shimmer.

[drakewire]

Leave it to slutz to talk about gear before technique...

You need two good mic's, 1 goes over 12 thfret one at about 2 feet away from the center... record double tracked for one guitar with panning pretty far left and pretty far right, gentle eq, very gentle compression and that will create a nice stereo image for the acoustic.

Now, the most important issue here is room and placement of the mic's, if you record in a big open space the sound will immediately be thin in most cases, where if you record in an ISO booth it becomes really thick.

The LA-2A is a great choice for Acoustic, but SSL can do just as nice, as can API, I also love believe it or not GLory Comps on Acoustic. Mixing it is a catchy situation because it will depend a lot on how much high end is being used in the track. I would wait to blend it all in until you got a solid vocal, then eq..

Hope this helps...
D.Drake

[Jake 2.0]

I like a fast attack and slow release to get it to glue nicely then eq to fit the mix and have proper seperation while blending in real nicely, try an 1176. Try some parallel compression too!

[travisbrown]

Might try adding a high-strung guitar, then you can back off some of the punchier frequencies of the regularly strummed guitar that I find sometimes stand out too much in a mix. Fills out without sounding like "missing" guitar.

By high-strung, I mean strung with the octave half of a 12-string set. Paul Simon often plays a high-strung guitar. Sounds totally different than 12-string, if you are worried about that.

Fix it with the playing before trying to "gear" it out.