A DIY Acoustic Guitar Recording Primer (Part II)

Cliff Goldmacher is a songwriter, producer, engineer and the owner of recording studios in both NashvilleNew York City.  Cliff is also a regular contributor to EQ Magazine and Pro Sound News.  He can be reached at cliff@cliffgoldmacher.com.

Read Part I of this article.

For the second half of this article, I’m going to get a bit more technical.  After covering your set up, the room and mic choice/placement in the first half, it’s time to get into the more technical issues of the actual tracking and subsequent use of EQ and effects.

Click Track Bleed

OK, now that your room is ready and your mic is placed, you’re going to want to take additional precautions to avoid the bleed of the click track sound from your headphones and into the mic.  This is one of the most common mistakes people make when recording acoustic guitar to a live mic. My recommendation is to avoid high frequency tones like shaker or woodblock and consider a low tone like a sampled kick drum.  Low frequencies don’t have the same piercing effect through headphones that most click sounds do.  Also, once you’ve played the song through the first time, you can actually automate the volume of the click sound to lower in soft passages and drop out at the end of the song if there’s a ritard or a long sustain on the last note.  There’s nothing that kills the mood of a song like the sound of a click track peeking through over the final chord.

Front End EQ/Compression

If you’re using a preamp and/or compressor between your condenser mic and DAW, there are a couple of things to bear in mind.  If the mic pre has a high pass filter, setting the frequency to between 60hz and 80hz will go a long way towards minimizing control room noise.   Also, while heavy front-end compression on acoustics can give the guitar a very present, powerful sound, I tend to avoid it in this scenario because it amplifies to a great degree the noise of the room we’ve worked so hard to minimize.  I will, however, use a very light front end compression at a 3:1 ratio just to take the edge (two or three dB tops) of off the loudest parts of the track which then allows me to make the overall recording level hotter.

Back End EQ/Compression

Once you’ve recorded your acoustic, there are a few EQ and compression tricks I tend to use to help get the best sound possible.  My EQ approach changes depending on whether the recording I’m making is a simple guitar/vocal or one where I’m planning to overdub additional instruments.  For a guitar/vocal, I’ll be more sparing in my EQ.  I tend to use 125hz as a place to pull a few dB if the recorded acoustic sound is slightly muddy or diffuse and 5000hz as the place to boost if I need a bit more brightness (see fig. 1).  When it comes to integrating an acoustic into a fuller mix, especially one with drums and bass, I have a more dramatic approach that involves setting a high pass filter to effectively remove all frequencies below 120hz.  This allows the proper sonic space for bass and kick drum while leaving the meat of the acoustic sound untouched. The approach to adding brightness is the same as above and can be added by boosting a few dB at 5000hz (see fig. 2).  I tend not to compress the acoustic in the mix on guitar/vocals but when it comes to a band mix, it can really help the guitar to maintain its presence.  I will generally compress at a 2.5:1 ratio with a fast attack/slower release approach (see fig. 3).  Finally, given how easy it is to store settings, you might want to create acoustic guitar EQ and compression settings in your favorite plug-ins to speed up the process.

Wrapping Up   

I happen to be a big fan of control room recording.  It brings a great combination of casual and intimate to your session.  So although it takes a bit more preparation and a little more care in the process, you can get great-sounding control room acoustic guitar parts without having to rely on anyone but yourself.  Good luck!

Comments

[Margaret]

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Margaret

http://guitarlearntoplay.net

[Kawika Heftel]

Thanks for this tutorial! You mentioned you put the microphone pointed towards the junction between the guitar body and the neck, and you never mentioned stereo. Does this mean you're recording in mono? What would be your ideal stereo setup for acoustic guitar?

[James Casey]

If anyone's looking for the 'figures' mentioned in the article, two can be found on this page:

http://www.eqmag.com/article/recording-acoustic-guitars/may-08/35977

[George Piazza]

Not all DAW click tracks are automated; in Cubase, for example, one would have to record a track of the click sound to actually automate it,
I quite agree that high frequency click bleed is a nice acoustic solo guitar track's worst enemy. If you have to use a click and you have a choice of what kind of sound the click will be, think about what sound will blend with the guitar track you are cutting and yet still be audible to the performer. A low-mid frequency plucky sound might work, since if it does bleed at all, it will sound like part of the guitar, depending on the style of playing.Or if the playing is smoother and more ethereal, perhaps a staccato 'ah' voice might work (a 'la Laurie Anderson).
When I am recording an acoustic guitarist, I ride the click track so that it has minimum chance of bleed and yet is still audible.

If you do accidentally end up with click bleed, and you have a spectral editor like ReNovator, ReTouch, Ozone RX or Wavelab 6, you can go in and remove the most offending portions of the click, especially at the all important fade-out or 'ring-out' of the song; but it can be a lot of work!