Basic Recording of an Acoustic Guitar
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Basic Recording of an Acoustic Guitar - By: Michael Elsner Recording a great sounding acoustic guitar isn’t as difficult as you may think. In this article, I’m going to take you through a very basic acoustic guitar recording session.
The song that I’ve been hired to play on today already contains a drum loop, bass track, piano and rough vocals. I’m going to lay down some acoustic guitars and give you a step by step account of what I did to record my parts here at my house.
First I set up a microphone. A good condenser mic is essential when recording acoustic guitars. To really bring out the character of the guitar, a condenser mic will generally work much better than a dynamic mic. The one thing to keep in mind is that a condenser mic needs power, so don’t forget to turn on the ‘phantom power’ that comes from the preamp that you’re connecting it to. For this recording, I’m using an MXL V-69 Tube Microphone connected to a Presonus Eureka Mic Pre. I typically place the mic approximately 3 or 4 inches away from where the neck meets the body of my acoustic, with a slight angle to the sound hole. After moving the mic around that area a little to find the ‘sweet spot,’ I adjusted the preamp level on the Eureka, and also set the compression. It’s important to never compress too much during this stage, as once you record the part, you cannot uncompress the sound. A nice ratio of 2:1 or 3:1 is where I’ll usually start, and I’ll adjust the threshold, attack and release times to create a smooth compression. This may take some time and practice to develop your ear, but it’s well worth the time invested to learn how to compress the sound without ‘hearing’ the compression.
Finally I made the necessary EQ adjustments on the Eureka before going into my Pro Tools system. Some people will tell you to never EQ to tape, but I strongly disagree. It’s been my experience working with professional engineers that the vast majority of them do EQ to tape since they can hear what frequencies are building up, and they’ll get rid of those on the front end.
Once I have an acoustic sound that I’m happy with, I’m ready to record. I generally record every take, creating a playlist for each take. This allows me to go back and grab any ‘magic’ that may have happened on a previous take. Since it’s usually just me recording, I use a new piece of gear called a POK, by X-Tempo Designs, to control my DAW with my feet. The POK is great for this in that it is simply a wireless controller for any DAW (Pro Tools, Logic, Digital Performer, etc) and allows me to keep my hands on the guitar while I control all the transport and recording functions with my feet. It also allows me to sit in an isolated room, away from my Pro Tools system and the noise that the computer generates. At this point I just record as many takes as I feel is necessary.
After I’ve recorded all the acoustic parts, I’ll usually go through each playlist and pick out the parts that I want to keep – finally comping various takes together to create the ‘perfect’ take. There’s not much to it. I’d say that the hardest thing in getting a great acoustic sound is getting the proper mic placement and then setting the compression properly. "Take your time and feel free to experiment with different microphone placements and compression settings. Sometimes the most unusual settings can create the most inspiring sounds and performances. Have fun!!"
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