BRIEF GUIDE TO RECORDING ACOUSTIC GUITARS
This blog article shows you how to make a recording of your acoustic guitar. We’ll start with a few basics and then move on to the most suitable microphones and how they can be positioned to give the best results.
There are basically two different ways of recording a guitar, by using a pickup or a microphone. A pickup does have some advantages, such as consistent sound, less likelihood of feedback and less tendency to pick up ambient noise. But those prepared to make the effort of recording their guitar using one or more microphones will be rewarded by a full, natural sound that delivers a much more realistic quality. Using the microphone method is therefore well worth it.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
There are a number of things to think about before you start recording using a microphone:
- The acoustics in the room where you plan to make the recording must be favourable and agreeable. This means there should be no annoying droning in the bass range caused by resonances in the room (known as standing waves), no flutter echoes between parallel walls, and not too much reverberation. Not everyone has a room with perfect acoustics, of course, but the better the room, the fewer problems you’ll have during recordings.
- Ensure there is as little ambient noise as possible, such as street traffic, air-conditioning or the cooling fan on your PC or notebook. Even when the ambient noise on your recording is only extremely faint at first, it can become more annoying during subsequent mixing involving dynamics processing with compressors and limiters. This should definitely be avoided.
- The guitar itself, of course should be well made and perfectly tuned. New strings are recommended for a brilliant, fresh sound. People who think brand-new strings sound too metallic, might wish to change them a few days beforehand.
Mono vs. Stereo
Mono:
Advantages of Mono
+ None of the runtime or phase problems encountered during multi-channel recordings
+ The sound is less three-dimensional
Disadvantages of mono:
– The sound is less three-dimensional
Stereo:
Advantages of stereo
+ Broad, three-dimensional sound
+ Leaves space in the arrangement for a singing voice in the mono centre
Disadvantages of stereo
– More equipment is necessary (additional microphone, microphone stands, cables, etc.)
– When listened to in mono, recording with several microphones can lead to phase cancellations and a “hollow” sound.
Placement of a mono microphone
We will first explain how to place a single microphone in the optimum position before moving on to stereo microphone set-ups.
A good starting point is to position the microphone near the fretboard and aim it at the 12th fret. For more bass and picking noise, position the microphone nearer to the sound hole, and nearer to the neck for more fretboard noise and a slightly fainter sound. You’ll need to experiment with this. Don’t position the microphone directly next to the sound hole because that will result in a droning, bassy sound.
Start out with a distance of 20 cm between guitar and microphone. Microphones with a directional pattern have a proximity effect that strongly boosts low frequencies when they are positioned too close to the instrument. This effect is usually undesirable and should be avoided. Increasing the distance between microphone and guitar normally results in a more natural and balanced sound. The ambience grows at the same time, however, which can mean that the recording sound less direct.
We recommend listening to the microphone signal using headphones and experimenting with the placement until you have the desired sound..
The placement recommendations here are a good place to start, but we also advise you to try other positions out for yourself. There’s no single perfect solution for every guitar, every guitarist and every style of music. With a little practice and experience, you will achieve the results you’re looking for.
Placement of a stereo microphone
Classical stereo microphone placement techniques are the A/B technique (time-of-arrival stereophony) and the X/Y technique (intensity stereophony). Both these techniques are excellent for recording acoustic guitars.
A/B-Placement:
In addition to the mono microphone described above, you can also place a second microphone behind the bridge and aim it at the soundboard. Here too, experiment to determine the very best position. To avoid phase issues, ensure that sound arrives at both microphones at precisely the same time. The two microphones are panned hard left and hard right. Harder panning results in a “broader” guitar sound.
X/Y-Placement:
There are no issues with phases and mono compatibility when X/Y placement is used. The X/Y technique involves a pair of cardioid microphones placed with their heads facing as close together as possible at an angle of around 90 degrees. Place the microphones approximately where the fretboard meets the body of the guitar so that one microphone points at the fretboard and the other at the body.
The right choice of microphone
There’s a wide range of microphones well suited to recording acoustic guitar. The most ideally suited are small-diaphragm microphones, which reproduce guitar sound really precisely. We recommend the MC 930 or the TG I53 model. Dynamic microphones too can deliver excellent results and a superb sound. The M 201 is a great choice in this category, boasting detailed resolution and the capability to capture your sound in its entirety thanks to outstanding technical features. Last but not least, to obtain a particularly warm sound we recommend the use of a ribbon microphone such as our M 160.
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