RECORDING YOUR ACOUSTIC GUITAR
RECORDING YOUR ACOUSTIC NEEDN’T BE DIFFICULT; ALL YOU NEED IS A GOOD MIC AND THE RIGHT SURROUNDINGS
The acoustic guitar is a pure instrument. The sound it produces is self-contained, and relies on you as the player to influence it. This can be done with different string types, picks, but most of all,the room. There are loads of tricks for getting different acoustic guitar sounds on your recording, and in this tutorial, we’ll show you just a few of them. The good news is that you can get brilliantsounding acoustic tracks with just one microphone, some careful room selection and mic placement. Here’s how it’s done...
Acoustic guitars are dynamic instruments, capable of outputting a range of levels and frequency responses. For this reason, the most common way of capturing an acoustic guitar with a single mic is to use a condenser. But before you position the mic, have a listen to the guitar in the room. Your environment can have a great effect on the sound; empty spaces with lots of hard reflective surfaces (a bathroom, for instance) will give you a bright, lively sound, whereas a room with carpet, sofas and curtains will soak up a lot of the reflections, giving you a dryer, punchier acoustic tone. An acoustic can be played anywhere, so experiment with different rooms to see which gets you the sound you prefer.
Position the mic about 30cm in front of your acoustic, aimed at the join between the body and the neck. Positioning the mic here will keep it out of the way of your picking hand, and will avoid too much muddy low-end from the soundhole.
Stereo Set-up 1
Capturing your guitar in stereo can give you a wide-sounding part for your tune, and it’s easy to do! When you record in stereo, it’s best if you can use a pair of identical microphones, so that the signal picked up by each will be equal. For this method, we’re going to use an X/Y placement. This is where the capsules are crossed over, so that they’re an equal distance from the source to minimise phase. Once again, position them around the 14th fret. Pan them left and right, and bask in the super-wide stereo effect!
Rode NT1
The Rode NT1 has been a household name since it launched in 1997, with about 1.5 zillion of them sold to-date. Rode claims that the NT1 is the world’s quietest one-inch cardioid condenser due to the high-grade electronics keeping the self-noise level down to 4.5DBA. Definitely worth consideration.
SE Electronics se7
Small diaphragm condenser microphones are great choice when you want a clear, accurate sound in your recording. It could be cymbals, acoustic guitar strings, or anything where you’re not looking to colour the sound. The se7 is a good option if you want to buy two and record in stereo.
MXL 990
A large-diaphragm condenser mic for those on a tight budget, the MXL 990 ensures the captured sounds have colour and flavour which, for the price tag, are hard to beat. It’s easy to get great results from this affordable mic.
• You want to capture a wide frequency response (acoustic guitar, vocals, piano etc) • You are recording an instrument with a lot of dynamic range
• You want to record from a greater distance (ie, ambient room mics)
• You’re placing the mic close to a loud source (drums, cranked amps)
• You don’t need as much high frequency detail • You want to minimise spill from other sources