Acoustic guitar. It can be your favorite instrument to record, or it can be your arch nemesis. Some days you think you’ve got it figured out, then you listen to that guitar part you just recorded, and it sounds boomy, muddy, harsh, tinny, lifeless — pick one.
The word frustrating comes to mind. I know. I’ve been there. What’s the deal?
Well, for one thing, the acoustic guitar is an acoustic instrument. Aside from the human voice, a lot of us simply don’t record a lot of acoustic instruments. We use virtual instruments and samplers. If we need a piano sound, we use a piano plug-in. If we need an orchestra sound, we use an orchestra patch in our favorite sampler.
I listen to a lot of recordings, and one mistake that I find very often in a beginner’s recording is that they don’t record acoustic guitars with microphones.
Now, this is certainly my opinion, but I feel that acoustic guitar was meant to be recorded with a microphone. The direct sound of an acoustic guitar just never sounds good to me.
I am an acoustic guitar player, so I’m certainly biased, and there are certainly situations where it makes sense to go direct for an effect. However, when I record acoustic guitars, I always, always, ALWAYS use a microphone.
Here’s my follow-up video to yesterday’s round of ear training. If you haven’t checked out the audio clips there, you might want to do that before watching the video below.
Acoustic guitar. It can be your favorite instrument to record, or it can be your arch nemesis. Some days you think you’ve got it figured out, then you listen to that guitar part you just recorded, and it sounds boomy, muddy, harsh, tinny, lifeless — pick one.
