Most of the music I work with here that's not my own is heavy on acoustic guitar. The guitarist I work with is quite the expert on acoustic guitar pickups, and he owns literally dozens of high-end guitars, from totally acoustic to multiple pickups and pickups plus built-in microphones.
At his insistence, electric-acoustic guitars are always recorded simultaneously with at least a DI from the pickup plus an external microphone. The DI is always clean and dry, which I appreciate as the mixer. It's the one I end up using the most of.
The
external microphone, though, usually sounds better (the internal one sounds
bad) - but then I have to deal with all the extraneous noises. The last song we did was marred by the creak of a leather guitar strap during a delicate intro, which required a lot of surgical editing.
Furthermore, he records at four different studios, each with its own sonic signature. Some rooms sound great, others less so. This means fiddling with EQ and reverb (shh - he doesn't know I add reverb to his guitar!) to try and match up different tracks so they'll have a consistent (or at least cohesive) sound on the album.
So if it was up to me, I'd go DI all the way. But I am just the mixer-slash-technical adviser, not the artist. The exception would be solo or featured acoustic guitar, in which case you do want to capture the room. For that, find a great-sounding large high-ceiling room with lots of diffusive surfaces like a brick fireplace, bookshelves, exposed beams and hardwood floors - but avoid un-draped windows or mirrors. IMO, the room you record in is more important than which mic you use.
If you do go the route of DI plus mic,
where you put the microphone is really critical. And it may not be the same place you'd put it if you were using the mic alone. Try to pick up the highs, which the DI may be weak at, and avoid the mud frequencies, which the DI will cover adequately. IOW, try to get from the mic what the DI doesn't provide and vice versa.
Now, when I record my own cheap all-acoustic guitar, I have to make the most out of what I've got: a crappy room and a good but large-diaphragm condenser. The room's too dead and the LDC picks up too much mud. But I did a lot of experimentation with mic placement until I found the best spot for this guitar and this microphone (halfway up the neck, pointing at the 12th fret and elevated slightly). I record mono and nearly always double-track it, panning the two tracks apart and using complementary EQ for width. Give me a clean track and a good equalizer, and I can make any cheap guitar sound, um, adequate.
post edited by bitflipper - 2010/01/29 14:42:05