The guitar is one of the most recognizable, playable musical instruments in the world. It goes to follow that recording acoustic guitar is a fundamental skill any aspiring songwriter should build, and that’s why it’s the first in our Recording Instruments series. Many a song has been written with the guitar, and many more will come.
Like yours.
And now the time has come to print it to tape, so to speak. But where do we start? Not with the record button, that’s for certain! First, let’s think about the instrument – let’s choose our weapon.
Table of Contents
Choosing an Acoustic Guitar for Recording
Acoustic guitars come in many materials, shapes, and sizes. All of these things together will determine largely how the guitar sounds. Larger bodies, like dreadnoughts, will tend toward a warmer sound, with a distinctive fullness in the low end. Other smaller body shapes, such as those often seen in Taylor guitars, trim down the bottom in favor of clarity and a brightness.
So think about your situation – is this recording going to be an intimate song featuring a single guitar and vocals? A larger body will give you the bottom you need in lieu of a rhythm section. Is your project going to be an upbeat strummer with a full band backing you? A smaller, brighter guitar will naturally make a little room for the bass and kick while also offering a clear bite to effectively cut through a denser mix.
The guitar you choose will have a big impact on the final sound of your recording, so choose wisely!
String Selection
After taking the time to select your instrument, it follows that you would also choose a set of strings. The strings you use will also make a difference in the final recording. Thinner gauge strings are great for electric guitars, but on acoustics, they often sound weak and… well… thin. Thicker gauge strings add body and warmth to your sound.
There are also a plethora of string types that will, to a degree, influence the sound your chosen guitar produces. Flat-wound strings tend toward warmer tones, while round-wound strings lean into brighter tones.
And of course, make sure your strings are new! Restring your guitar prior to recording, because what is the point of going through all that trouble to record a set of rusty, dead strings?
Tuning
A properly strung acoustic guitar should hold its tuning well, but they can fall out of tune fairly quickly. Room temperature, humidity, and a host of other environmental variables could potentially cause tuning issues. When recording acoustic guitar, it is important that you tune it every five to ten minutes, using a precision digital tuner set to cents.
Sound Zones on the Acoustic Guitar
Before we get to the fun stuff, let’s also make sure we understand the different shades of sound you get from different areas of the guitar. First and foremost, we have the obvious spot, the sound hole.
The sound hole is important because that is where all of that carefully amplified natural sound is ejected from the guitar. It is from here that the guitar gets its character and volume. But because of its loud, overblown bass response, it is generally a “no-fly zone” for microphones.
The body is the source of the guitar’s warmth. The wood resonates and the warm low end of the sound radiates off the body of the guitar. Miking this area will accentuate the warmer characteristics of the guitar, but at the cost of brightness and clarity available closer to the fret board.
Finally, the fret board area is the source of the instrument’s brightness and clarity. Because of its distance from the body and sound hole, mic positions here will yield a very bright tone with plenty of transient attack from the action. This comes at the cost of – you guessed it – bass response.
The Room
And one last thing before we get to the sound toys – let’s talk about your recording environment.
The room in which you decide to record can make or break your sound!
Each room is unique in its dimensions, treatment, and content, and each will imbue its sonic characteristic onto any acoustic recordings tracked within. Certain untreated dimensions, such as square rooms, can also negatively impact sound recordings by creating a host of acoustic problems like nodes, nulls and flutter echoes. These types of problems can generally be addressed with various types of treatment, like acoustic foam or diffusers, thus controlling the reverberative characteristics of the room.
The key here is choose a room with either a pleasant reverberation, or find one with as little reverberation as possible.
Dead rooms are rooms that are well treated and offer very little in the course of character. These types of rooms are desirable for recording acoustic guitar because it affords you the opportunity to delicately apply artificial reverb during the mixing process.
On the other hand, a properly treated live room offers a pleasant, tuned character that imbues sound recordings with a natural sense of space. It’s this property that makes live rooms so desirable for recording acoustic guitar. However, it bears repeating that a good live room be properly treated, as any room with parallel reflective surfaces and 90 degree corners will negatively impact your sound recording.
The Best Microphones for Recording Acoustic Guitar
All right – let’s break out the toys!
Dynamic vs. Condenser Microphones
There are several types of microphones available with many unique strengths and characteristics. The first type, dynamic microphones, are generally not used for recording acoustic guitars in the studio. Dynamic microphones are generally used for capturing very loud sound sources at a close range. Think about electric guitar cabinets or a singer belting into an SM58. While recording with an SM57 is technically possible, you may be disappointed by the thin, brittle sound you capture. It is not the right tool for the job.
A condenser microphone is a special type of mic that uses a thin membrane suspended over a fixed plate to capture deliate sounds. It is this characteristic of the condenser mic that makes it desirable for recording acoustic guitars. They are engineered to capture high end detail in sounds – all that brightness and clarity you are looking for can be captured with a condenser microphone.
Large Diaphragm vs. Small Diaphragm Microphones
There are two types of condenser mics – large diaphragm and small diaphragm. While both are more than up to the task of recording the acoustic guitar, each have unique characteristics that will play into your final recorded sound.
Because of their larger capsules, large diaphragm condenser microphones, such as the coveted Neumann U87A, will tend toward more irregular pick up patterns that will bring out deeper, warmer tones in a sound. They are very flattering for acoustic guitars. And if positioned properly over a thoughtfully paired instrument, you could be swimming in the vibrant, warm timbres of the acoustic guitar sound.
Small diaphragm condenser microphones, such as the Neumann Km184, are usually cylindrical, “pencil-shaped” devices that tend toward a much more regular pick up pattern. Pencil condensers, as they are often called, are a great choice for capturing the pure, natural sound of an instrument without the flattering coloration.
Ribbon Microphones
Ribbon mics are the most delicate microphones you can use for recording acoustic guitar. They employ a thin piece of metal, usually aluminum, suspended between two magnetic poles. As the ribbon vibrates due to the sound being recorded, it creates the electrical signal.
The electrical signal produced is extremely weak, so they require extra amplification – but not from phantom power! In fact, in some designs, the presence of phantom power can damage the microphone. So rather than a 48v boost, ribbon mic users take extra care in selecting an appropriate preamp.
All of these factors make ribbon mics a very expensive proposition, so they are not recommended for budget recordings.
Pick Up Patterns
Every microphone has a a spacial range around it in which it is capable of picking up sound. These pick up – or polar – patterns are always important considerations, but they become especially important when it comes to stereo miking techniques, which we will discuss later in this article. Polar patterns, come in three primary varieties: Cardioid, Figure-Eight, and Omni.
A cardioid mic will pick up everything in front of it, a little from the sides, and nothing from behind. These are great stage microphones because they reject sound from the rear – sound that would include stage monitors and audience noise.
A figure-eight mic will pick up everything in front of and behind it, but will reject sound coming from the sides. These microphones have several useful applications, not the least of which is the M/S method of recording, which we will cover later.
An omnidirectional mic will pick up everything from everywhere. It can hear across every axis equally. These microphones are great if you want to capture more of your room’s ambiance in addition to your subject.
Microphone Placement
Now that we have selected our microphone, let’s think about where, in relation to the guitar, we will place it. Microphone placement is one of the most crucial aspects of recording acoustic guitar. For one thing, wise mic placement will decrease the amount of EQ processing required for the instrument to sit in the mix. It allows you to set the right foundational sound for your guitar.
But where do we start? I’ll tell you where…
The 12th Fret
Think of the 12th fret, about six inches away, perpendicular to the guitar, as “neutral” for your mic placement. This is a great zone because it offers the most neutral balance between the bass coming from the sound hole, the brightness of the strings, and the transient response of the action. From this starting point, you can adjust the balance by moving the microphone on two primary axes – along the length of the guitar, and across various distances from the guitar.
Adjusting for the Tone, Attack, and The Room
[THIS SEGMENT WOULD BENEFIT FROM A GRAPHIC DELINEATING THE LENGTH OF THE GUITAR AS X-AXIS AND THE DISTANCE FROM THE GUITAR AS THE Y-AXIS]
So you have your neutral position and the axes with which you are working. Let’s discuss how moving along these axes will influence the sound of your take. Earlier in this article, we went over the various “sound zones” of the guitar. Let’s employ our knowledge of these zones to find the sweet spot for your recording.
The X-Axis
The axis along the length of the guitar, the X-axis will balance the high end brightness and the low end warmth. Further toward the headstock will yield a brighter sound, with an attenuated bass range. Further toward the body, you will pick up warmer tones at the expense of brightness. And there is one additional consideration: beware the sound hole!

If you are moving toward the body and have to cross the sound hole, be sure you move the microphone so the capsule is to the side of the hole, lest you pick up a horribly unbalaced, overblown sound!
The Y-Axis
The axis perpendicular to the guitar will primarily determine two aspects of your sound: the the influence of the room, and strength of the transient response due to the action.

The closer you move to the guitar, the less room sound will be present in your recording. Closer also means louder picking and finger noises, which are sometimes desirable features in an acoustic guitar sound. The further you move from the guitar, the less action noise you will get, but the room will play a larger part in your recorded sound.
The Proximity Effect
Also note that in some situations, proximity to the guitar will also influence tone. In close-miking situations, the bass response will increase due to the proximity effect. Take this into consideration when adjusting for tone along the Y axis, and combine this effect with your mic placement along the X-axis.
Stereo Miking Techniques
There are great benefits to recording acoustic guitar in stereo. Proper stereo recording can yield a better sense of space and a larger-than-life sound, if that’s what you’re after. However, when using two microphones to record the same audio source, it’s important to note that phase interactions can cause frequency cancellation when both sources are combined in the mixing process.
In an effort to reap the benefits of stereo while mitigating problems such as phase cancellation, sound engineers have developed several techniques for printing quality stereo recordings.
Doubling
While it technically only uses a single microphone, doubling creates the illusion of a giant guitar by juxtaposing two nearly identical takes, panned hard left and right.
First, set your microphone as outlined in the previous section, and record a take. Next, record a second take of the guitarist playing as close to an identical take as possible. The two takes will never be completely identical – and that’s the idea! Micro-variations between the two performances panned left and right will give the impression that it is the same instrument, while offering enough difference to yield an apparently larger, stereo sound. To add to the micro-variations, try readjusting your mic position as well!
The X Y Technique
One of the most basic stereo recording techniques, this technique captures a stereo sound by angling each microphone away from the guitar, in opposite directions, at ninety degrees from each other. It mitigates phase cancellation problems by placing the capsules of both microphones very close together, one above the other. Use this technique to capture a stereo image akin to the type we perceive with our two ears.
To mic your guitar using the X Y technique, take two cardioid condenser mics and choose the spot in which to set them up. Take your first microphone and instead of pointing the capsule directly at the instrument, angle it away from the guitar, along the X-axis, at 45 degrees. Next, take your second microphone and set the capsule directly above the other mic’s capsule. (It’s okay if it needs to be upside down!) Point the capsule of the second mic away from the guitar, at a 45 degree angle in the opposite direction.
M/S (Mid-Side)
The M/S technique is a little bit more complicated, as it employs phasing techniques in order to work. This technique requires two microphones, each with a different pick up pattern – one cardioid, the other figure-eight.
For recording acoustic guitar using the M/S technique, set your cardioid microphone as though you were recording with a single mic. Next, take your figure-eight mic and set the capsule directly above the first mic, completely off-axis from the guitar. You want this capsule to be facing parallel to the instrument in order for this to work. Record your take.
Next, in your DAW, you will want to duplicate the figure-eight mic’s take, pan each hard left and hard right, and invert the phase of one of the tracks. It doesn’t matter which side you invert, so long as the sides have an opposing phase relationship. Leave the cardioid panned center.
Other Stereo Miking Techniques
There are several other stereo techniques available to sound engineers for recording acoustic guitar. The Blumlein Technique, the N.O.S Technique, the O.R.T.F. Technique and others are a little more advanced, but are covered in great detail in the Recording Acoustic Guitar Course, available to our members.