Acoustic Recording

[ScatScati]

Does anyone have any tips to make recording an acoustic guitar sound more "full" and to make it sound better? Like mic placement and stuff?

[TheChef]

When you mic an acoustic guitar, place one condenser about 6 inches away, and the other about 4 feet away, both completely flat (no EQ). Combine them after the recording is done. This will give you the isolated acoustic guitar, and the room ambience as well.

This can help as well...

When the mic is:

8 inches away from soundhole, the sound is bassy (good starting point)

3 inches away, it is very bassy, boomy, muddy and full

4-8 inches from bridge, it eliminates pick and string sound and is woody, warm and mellow, but doesn't have a lot of detail

This is a matter of personal preference of what kind of sound you like.

[Sage]

Make sure you have new strings, and they've been properly stretch -- also make sure that you're strings are going to achieve the sound you want (light is usually really bright and trebley, heavy strings will bring up the whoompy bassy sound.)

[Katau]

I like to keep my mics away from the hole. Otherwise you'll get a very boomy track that is difficult to correct. I place 2 condenser mics about 1 foot away. 1 mic pointed at the 12th fret, the other at the bridge (usually pointed slightly away from the hole). Each mic is then panned hard left and hard right. This will provide some stereo effect.

There are other configurations, such as XY. This is good for capturing a mono track.

One problem with both of the configurations is that once you start playing notes above the 12th fret, your hand absorbs some of the signal, and you'll hear momentary muffling. Still working on correcting that. :)

One great trick, if you like to hear your pick against the strings: Record a second track with the same mic configuration, but replace your accoustic with an electric (unplugged). This track can now be blended in with your accoustric track and will provide an exceptional source of pick noise.

[Slipstream]

Those are some good replies. Not much I could add, but I have a pic of the XY configuration I thought I'd share.

http://www.alvarious.com/graphics/xy.jpg http://www.alvarious.com/graphics/XYMicTech.jpg