Acoustic Guitar recording (How to get that "Tight" sound)

[DJjoeB]

Anybody have any tips on recording an acoustic guitar with a mic? Any good effects the will give me that tight clean sound and not so spacy and open? i usually stay around 6 inches in between my mic and the 12th fret.

Thanks!!

[Kent_in_CO]

A few thoughts:

1.) Be mindful of the room in which you're recording. If it has a lot of ambient reverb, your mic will pick that up and give your recording more space. On the same token, moving the mic close to your guitar should reduce ambient reverb.

2.) Use a high-pass filter to roll off the low end (say, everything below 100-150 Hz.) This should help to tighten your sound up a bit - and it's also a good best practice for helping your guitar to sit in the mix with the bass and drums (assuming your song has those bassy elements).

3.) Use mild/moderate compression to tame the spikes in dynamics - nothing extreme, since you probably want to maintain the character of the acoustic. But just enough to give it a tighter, smoother vibe.

4.) If you really, really need a sound that has no space, consider using or borrowing an acoustic with a pickup. That way you can just go DI from the guitar and not worry about any ambience.


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[sounddevisor]

In addition to Kent_in_CO's suggestions, I'll add this:

It matters what mic you use - particularly if you are in a very ambient room (one with a lot of hard surfaces that add lots of room noise to your recording.) If that's the case, using a tighter polar pattern on the mic (i.e., cardioid or even hypercardioid) and aiming the mic carefully can help reject a lot of the ambient sound from the room. An omni mic, on the other hand, will tend to pick up more of the room ambience.

One other trick, if the room is adding too much ambience - you can build a little enclosure around the guitarist. Use chairs or music stands draped with heavy blankets, curtains, etc. That can also help cut down on ambience and give you a tighter, drier sound.

[joeyfivecents]

One thing that works for me is using a mic(an sm57 or a ribbon mic) and also using the pickup. Then I blend the 2 together.