Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Recording Tip: Acoustic Guitar

After all the recording I've done, I still find it a major pain in the you know what to get a solid recording of an acoustic guitar. For one, acoustic guitars all have different tones and overtones. Some are bright, some are warm, some are dull, some are boomy, some are dry, some are resonant, and some are a weird combination of the fore-mentioned qualities. That said, here are some basic tips that I recommend for recording acoustic guitar. Each section also contains some bang-for-the-buck products that sound great but won't kill ya' stash.

Guitar Body:
I have personally found that a nice wooden body top (spruce, ash) will get you the best tone. I'm currently recording with a full mahogany electro-acoustic body which sounds great live, but can lack that resonance that adds that extra character when recording. Of course, this is all preference and each guitar can add the right (or wrong) texture to your mix depending on the type of track you are doing. I'm just talking about in general...

$$$ Bang-for-the-buck:
- Ibanez Artwood Series Acoustic Guitars

Strings:
I know many of you guitar players out there love your standard elixir strings. They sound great. However, for recording acoustic guitar I would recommend using bronze acoustic strings. Elixir also makes a nice bronze string set but you can pick up a nice pair of Martin bronze acoustic strings that will also do just fine. The point being, that you want to capture all the bright tones in addition to the warm tones. This will help the guitar cut through the mix. PERSONAL TRICK: Sometimes I use electric guitar strings on my acoustic. Put some coated D'Addario DX strings on there and you will be amazed at how bright your guitar will sound.

$$$ Bang-for-the-buck:
- Martin Phosphor Bronze Acoustic Guitar Strings

Microphone:
Ah ha! Here is the tricky part. So how exactly do you record with the microphone? Well IDEALLY if you have a mixer, you should use two microphones. But dont fret (I'm so clever), you can still get away with using a single microphone.

- Two Mic Setup
Place a condenser microphone around the neck area of the guitar to capture the higher tones and finger noise. Then, place a second dynamic microphone around where the neck meets the body to capture the middle and bottom tones. This will give you the most control on shaping the sound to fit your mix.

- Single Mic Setup
You don't have a mixer, you say? Ok, well that's fine. If you have to use only one microphone, I recommend using the dymanic microphone. Place the dynamic microphone in the same position but slightly higher at the bottom of the neck.

Regardless of the setup you choose, you want to have about 6 inches separating the microphone and the guitar. And ALWAYS, use a preamp!!!

$$$ Bang-for-the-buck:
- Sennheiser E825S Dynamic Microphone
- Audio Technica AT3035 Condensor Microphone
- Presonus TubePre Preamp

Mixing:
I'm not going to go into too much detail here because this topic is too broad. But generally, you want to add a little reverb, light compression, and reduce some of the lower frequencies to come out with a nice clean sound.


Happy music making.


Song of the Day: Nujabes - Aruarian Dance

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