Generally an acoustic guitar is recorded as accurately as possible to capture the natural sound that we are all familiar with. However in this issue I am going to take a look at some rather unconventional recording techniques for acoustic guitar. Whether you want to create some of your own weird and wonderful samples to use in more electronic based tracks, or if you are just looking for a way to make your acoustic guitar recordings stand out from the crowd there is a lot to be said for looking at some different recording techniques.
Usually one would mike up an acoustic guitar with a microphone placed in front of the bridge and one placed in front of the 12th fret (of course there are many other common ways besides this to mic up an acoustic guitar). The blend of these two mics will give you a very natural sound. So what can we do to get a more unconventional sound? Well the possibilities are actually endless. Here are some interesting techniques that I have come across.
One of the more common methods is to try and capture what the guitarist hears. This can be achieved by placing a mic or a stereo pair of mics over the players shoulder at about head height. This is a good way of giving your musician a sound that he is familiar with as it is essentially capturing what he hears when he plays.
Another useful technique is to place a microphone behind or underneath the body of the guitar. This can be useful for capturing some overtones as well as reinforcing some of the lower frequency content of the sound.
If your room has a particularly great sound I would set up a couple of room mics to capture the ambience of the room, however you can also create some very interesting sounds by placing mics in unconventional places in the room like in a corner or pointing towards a reflective surface. Generally this would be regarded as “breaking the rules” but you can get some very interesting sounding results.
There is almost an infinite amount of ways you could mic up a guitar for a less natural sound. Some important thinks to remember is that the higher up the neck of the guitar you place the mic, the “thinner” the sound will become. Essentially you are capturing more of the high frequencies. You will also pick up much more finger work. If you place a mic near the bridge you will pick up more mid to low frequencies and if you place a mic in front of the sound hole you will get a very “boomy” sound. Another important thing to remember is that the further you move the mic away from the sound source the more the ambience of the room will affect the sound.
Of course your choice of microphone is going to make a big difference too. Generally speaking a larger diaphragm micro-phone will be better at picking up lower frequencies and a smaller diaphragm will be better at capturing high frequencies. (I must state that this is generally true. For a more accurate understanding of a microphones response you will need to check the frequency response chart of the microphone you intend using).
So get out there and experiment with microphones and placement to find just the right sound you are looking for. These are some great ways of building up your own personal sample library. It is always useful to have some of your own-recorded samples for use in composing electronic and sample based compositions.
We will continue next issue with some more unconventional recording techniques, until then keep experimenting!
Written by : Jonathan Pike
Connect with Muse