This article was started by Anthony Cesternino from Velvetone Studios in 2008.

The Art of Recording the Acoustic Guitar 1 (concepts and methods)

This page will examine, explain, and debate the art and science of recording the acoustic guitar. This installment will be written with the assumption that the reader has only very basic knowledge of the equipment and language of the recording studio. While many terms and techniques may be explained for the novice, this in NOT for beginners only! Veteran and beginner alike will find this guide useful, informative, and unbiased. Debate and anecdotes from readers are encouraged!. Beginners, let's begin, Pro's lets brush up!

The Acoustic Guitar

Acoustic guitars come in infinite variations of size, make, shape, tone, and feel. The very complexity of the construction of any acoustic guitar creates both the magic and the frustration of reproducing the character of any individual instrument.

The very best in modern assembly line construction and man-made materials are used to make many of today's cost effective and mid-priced guitars. Amazingly, even with the precision and quality control of factories that roll out perfect clones of cars and airplanes by the thousand, No Two Acoustic Guitars are the Same!! This is the beauty and the curse of it all.

Combining the intrinsic variables of the each instrument with the human variations of each player makes for infinite possibilities even before the type and gauge of strings, choice of pick, fingers, or finger picks, tunings and musical styles even enter the equation. The spectacular and limitless range of this instrument makes a hard and fast set of rules for recording literally impossible. This said, every second of every day, someone is capturing a performance played upon the acoustic guitar.

Nuts and Bolts of the Beast

Following is a basic overview of common parts and their functions. Even the 30 year Pro should at least skim this section!

There are, to simplify, basically two types of acoustic guitars with many common structural elements. The "Classical" or "Nylon String" style is the oldest type of what we all consider a guitar. As short a time ago as the 1960's all 6 string guitars were referred to as "Spanish" guitars. The classical guitar, in this day and age, is typically strung with nylon or similar man made material as opposed to the older "Gut" strings (made from actual guts!)

Here we work on the assumption that the reader knows the names and locations of the common structural features that comprise the instrument.

Classical style guitars generally tend to feature wider, flatter necks and a shorter overall scale than the most common style of all, the "Steel String". Classical instruments lend themselves more to complex playing styles and it's a rare day when you see one played with a pick.

Steel string acoustics are by far the most popular division. They are made into many more shapes and sizes than classical guitars and find their way onto recordings of almost ANY musical style.

Formulate a Plot!/Politics

The first and most important step in recording ANY sound source is to LISTEN to it. This is even more crucial in the case of the acoustic guitar.

Listen to the way the player interacts with the guitar and the piece of music. Try to fix any sonic or performance troubles before even thinking about a recording. This stage in the process is the most difficult on the human level.

Helpful suggestions can, and often are, taken as criticisms and met with resistance. Some of the most common issues that arise are drastic dynamic fluctuations, timing problems, movement of the guitar, tuning/intonation woes, and unconscious sounds like tapping feet and breathing noises. All of these issues and many more that can make life hell will be addressed later, but make sure that you know what has to be fixed before you set up to record.

The flip side of this is if you are trying to record yourself playing. While you won't hurt your own feelings, you can't really hear what is actually projecting from your instrument. This is partly from ear position but mostly the inherent lack of objectivity. Recording oneself is so very common yet so very difficult that planning will take a back seat to trial and error.

Mentally picturing the desired finished product before the first mic goes up is a key to getting there. If you're recording someone else, take time to discuss and understand what they are hearing and plan accordingly.

The Plan in Action

We have our idea, now let's get the performance tone as close as possible before mic'ing.

For parts played with a pick there are dozens of ways to bring the actual sound in the room closer to the desired outcome naturally.

Picks and Strumming

A good Engineer,Producer,or player, should always have a wide selection of guitar picks on hand. Heavier picks tend to produce a tighter,louder,and more focused (less Bass and Treble, more Midrange) sound. This is especially well suited for solo's or parts where there is less strumming of chords and more single string runs. (Just a for instance, think Dick Dale's "Miserlou" a.k.a. the surf tune from Pulp Fiction.)

A brass or copper pick can sound spectacular for some things, or try a 180 and use a felt pick for a mellow murky tone.

A personal favorite is half of a matchbook torn off and folded over once. This gets a great "Johnny Cash" sound if the doubled side is hitting the strings, or a dry '50's-esque strum tone if the bent end is used to strum.

Broad open strumming can sometimes sound much fuller by simply using a lighter pick. A highly overlooked but truly important aspect of picked steel string is the pick position. Most players always strike the strings in the same area along the strings. For more bite and clarity for single note runs, try shifting pick position more towards the bridge with a fairly thick pick. For a beautiful mellow chime-like tone try picking up near the neck, or even up as far as the 12th fret with a lighter to very light pick.

Anthony Cesternino notes "A very special player I've worked with switches between fingers and pick and varies his picking/finger position all through the course of a given song."

This is easy for those of us in the DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) to emulate by using different picks and positions for different sections and punching in.

Power up?? Please!

Always assuming we have the right guitar, strings, pick, and spot in the room, being played to perfection by our Git Man, Now it's time to screw it up!!

In this day and age many acoustic tracks are cut by an axeman wearing headphones. We've spent all that time getting the sound right and now the cans go on and the players perception of the guitar is COMPLETELY different. To Arms!! A common sore spot with 'phones is the desire/demand that the part being cut is BLASTED beyond all reason into their ears. This tends to promote dynamic, timing, and feel troubles.

The first line of defense is to remove one side of the cans from the cat so they can hear the natural sound as well as the track or click etc. they are playing too.

Try taking the live guitar all the way out of the phones and dropping the headphone volume down (still with one ear open) to "De-Sterilize" the take.

While that's great for feel parts, a lot of music these days is absolutely stone cold LOCKED to a click track or loop. In that scene, most players need the click/loop hot in the cans, and leaving one earphone off can leak a lot of snare or click into the guitar mic(s) It takes a disciplined player to truly lock-on to a digitally steady tempo.

Hopefully that discipline extends to the hands that are strumming/picking the part out. Fluctuating dynamics (going from quiet to violent) are hard to avoid when the only reaction you receive from the instrument you're playing is piped into headphones.

Dynamic Processors

"Dynamics Processers"(Compressors,Limiters,Expanders) are made to smooth this out, but as a rule, things that don't NEED compression, sound far better compressed than sources that actually need it. For example, distorted electric guitar is compressed to flat before it hits the mic. Toss a comp or limiter on that and it sounds effin huge!

In general, compressing an acoustic guitar starts to sound unnatural and just plain crappy very quickly if the track is featured. Background buried takes or thinned out rhythmic parts sound fine compressed, but a featured acoustic guitar part loses so much if compressed. Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" intro acoustic has a VERY natural "I'm in The Room!" sound. There's a feature part that, if compressed, would lose all of the intimacy and feel.

On the other hand, Guns N' Roses "I Used to Love Her" opens with a squashed and overprocessed acoustic that sounds fine when the band comes in, but fake and cheesy by itself.

Pick a Mic(s)

Quick mic refresher!

Dynamic Microphones

Dynamic mics are in essence little tiny speakers. You can run sound into them and actually hear it before you blow it up, or as in a common kick drum/bass cab trick, a 10" woofer actually gets used as a mic!

Dynamics are most famous on drums and vocals. Common examples are Shure's SM57 and SM58. If you don't know what those are by #, I guarantee you would know them by sight. These mic's are spoken of as "punchy" or "Ballsy". Many great and good acoustic guitar tracks have been cut with these types.

The downside to these on acoustic is the limited frequency range (how low and high they can reproduce), bumpy frequency response, (some areas are bumped up and others much quieter) and lack of detail compared to other types.

Condenser Microphones

Condenser mic's come in even more variations than dynamics. These require external electric power and use electronics rather that a moving coil to capture sound. For simplicity, we'll discuss them in two separate groups.

Large Diaphragm Condenser

LDC's usually have a pickup element at least 1" in diameter. These are the big fancy mic's you seen the people on VH1 singing into on their videos. These tend to be smoother and capture more detail over a much larger frequency range than your dynamic. Less punch more "3D" with sweeter treble and deeper bass. In a mono setup, these are used 2nd only to their kin the SDC. Most stereo setups use one or more of these LDC's. Popular/legendary models include the Neumann models U47, U87, U67, the AKG 414 and many more. Recent price points have dropped so low that an LDC of fairish quality can be had new for less than $100

Small Diaphragm Condenser

Small Diaphragm Condenser mic's operate the same as their big brothers, but the much smaller element lends itself perfectly to capturing every detail and nuance of any acoustic instrument. They're at home on piano, over drum kits, on a harp... anywhere detailed sound waves need capturing. These are the "Go-To" mic's for the acoustic guitar. Of course every instrument,player,song,room,etc. will dictate what mic or mic's you use, but a pair of quality SDC's are a must own for anyone who records music. If you only record yourself or do it for kicks, you don't need a matched pair, but with price points getting lower and lower grab at least one QUALITY SDC.

Other Mic Types

The Ribbon mic is a wonderful and glorious mic of old that is staging a huge comeback. As this is a sort of primer, we won't get into them, as the true quality one's are $$$, the affordable one's aren't great, but mostly because you could spend a mint on one and then actually blow it up with a touch of a button. (Almost every piece of gear out now has Phantom Power to power condenser mic's, but phantom is like a Self-Destruct for most old Ribbon mics.) The only other type of mic I know of employs a Piezoelectric Crystal element (piezo mic's). These are hard to find and of low quality. I would only use one for a kind of funky lo-fi special effect. Piezo elements are generally used in direct contact with a soundboard, string, or other acoustically interesting surface.

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