Avoiding unwanted added noise recording acoustic guitar

Recording acoustic guitar is as hard as it gets.

You need:

1) A guitar that likes to be recorded... which is often times not your favorite guitar for playing.

2) Great playing technique with an ear for performing cleanly... and sitting still in the playing position.

3) Some good gear

4) A room that doesn't just sound bad

5) Mic placement chosen carefully... hopefully by actually getting yor ears down and listening for sweet spots.


There's a lot easier things to record.

Keep at it and work it like a craft... each day is a new day to start over again.


best regards,
mike

Hi Dave,

Have you tried changing strings or guitar if you can?

As Mike mentions above, Mic placement is key here too - if you can get someone else to play the guitar while you arrange the mics with headphones on (cranked up loud!) you should be able to find a sweet spot.

Also, I've often found myself effecting the life out of guitar tracks with everything I can lay my hands on until its become a squidgy mess of compression and eq - sometimes its good to go back to a raw track and see how it sits in the mix.

Hope this helps.

I do keep asking myself though, how many hours is it reasonable to spend on recording a two minute part of a song?

As Jamie says as long as it takes, but bear in mind the good knowledge you gain is never wasted, at least if you ever come to record another guitar.

Here's my M.O. for recording acoustic guitar:
 
Get in a "dry" room.  Your bedroom closet works well.  Surround your recording space with foam, soft blankets, hanging clothes, etc.
 
Use a small diaphram condenser, 12 inches off the fretboard where the body meets the neck, and pointed towards the sound hole.
 
When recording, sit still, don't move the guitar in relation to the mic.
 
New strings and a thin flexible pick.
 
That seems to get me a pretty good sound.
 
Hope this helps.

You don't say if the unwanted sound is coming from the guitar directly or from room reflections, so I'll assume it's the latter or a combination of both.

You might consider constructing some baffles using rigid fiberglass / rockwool in a wood frame. You can assemble a couple of them in an hour. Don't set them close to the guitar, though, unless you want a really dull, dry sound. Set them 2-4 feet away. The idea is to dampen reflections from the walls. A throw rug on the floor under the performer can help, too.

Also experiment with different microphone angles. If the nastiness is due to reflections from the floor (likely if the guitarist is seated), you might do better setting the mic low and angling it upward, or putting it up high pointing down over the player's shoulder.

DaveA


Hi all,
 
Trying to record acoustic guitar without some additional painful frequencies whistling along. I've tried EQing at what I think is the source and then the octaves thereafter, still leaves very noticable presence. So....any ideas on how to stop them in the first instance - I've considered stuffing a sock in the sound hole or some other form of dampening (the main offending freq seems to be at around 1150Hz) but if you have any experience and success in dealing with similar issues I'd be very glad to hear from you!
 
Thanks in advance
 
Dave

I'm wondering if the offender is your mic.  Have you tried different mics or with a DI'd pickup or even different guitars just to isolate the problem or rule out equipment?