Recording acoustic guitar direct?

Oh, and I have the most recent update of SPLAT.  I see I need to update my footer...

For recording acoustic guitar, I find two things are critical:
 
1. Mic placement
2. Post-eq
 
You need to experiment with mic placement, possibly two mics if you are real picky. remember to check phase inversion if you mix the tracks.
 
I almost always cut the bass severely when mixing an acoustic guitar in with other instruments. Even for a solo track, base almost always needs to be cut somewhat.
 
I gave up using the piezo or internal "electric" pickups on my acoustic guitars, they sounded crappy compared to a mic'd track.
 
But: everyone's situation is different. So, see how you go.

I find recording direct from the acoustic guitar pickup into a Focusrite Scarlett sounds magical.

Of course, that depend on the pickup and the guitar. I would imagine with a Taylor the pickup is a quality one.

I use all of the advice mentioned above:

- I record dual ( microphone and direct), and then mix a balance that sounds right in the song within Sonar.

- microphone placement makes a big difference

- microphone itself makes a big difference (if the mic isn't good can't expect great recording)

- if you have a sub-par pickup can't expect fantastic direct recording

- it is possible to EQ etc in Sonar and improve the raw recording

All that said, I get great results (magical sounding) recording direct into a Focusrite Scarlett.

What a big help, thanks everyone! I have 2 large diaphragm condensers, and I've pointed them at the 12th fret and the bridge. I'll try aiming where the neck meets the body. I like the idea of blending the mic'd and direct signals! I'll give this all a try once the little ones go to bed a bit later. Thanks again.

I just spent about 10 hours putting acoustic guitar tracks to a 14 song album I'm working on. 
 
The 2 guitars are a Art & Lutherie Folk and a Garrison P 500CE which is also a small bodied guitar. 
Both are solid tops with nice bright tone. I don't like Dreadnoughts because they are boomy and impossible to play live into any mike. I use both a mike and DI live and in the studio.  
They also have saddle PU's and pre amps.
The A&L has a LR Baggs LB6 which has very even tone and string to string volume.  
The Garrison suffers a typical under saddle system which results in uneven sound from the strings. I had a Taylor Mini GS and that's why I got rid of it. It was out of wack string to string.  I replaced it with the Garrison  I will eventually replace the saddle PU with the Baggs LB6 a highly recommended upgrade if your suffering uneven volume. 
 
 The little folks size guitars are perfect on a mike and you can even point the mike at the sound hole without severe boomyness. 
I use small diaphragm condensers,  a CAD C9 in studio and a Shure ?40 ( number wore off) 
Small condensers are also better at controlling the boomyness and to me they seem to capture the range of the guitar better than my LDC mikes.
 
 
When I first start a song I just plug into my interface and have at it. But for the final tracks I use the mike and my Radial PZ pre tonebone DI. The DI makes a difference to the PU's impact and well worth the money if your after better tone for both live and the studio. 
I then blend the 2 tracks and pan them about 40% 
 

 
 
 

There is Bodilizer vst for piezo suppression.
 
Also try this in a relatively dry room. Point a small cardioid condenser away from the guitar hole and pointed down at the horn of the guitar if cutaway and the same place if not before you give up. I saw it done here and it worked better that any way I had tried previous. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YinM0hJlfw
 
 

Down in the Songs forum Bacco has a CE "direct" to the board: Mona Lisa
I was very impressed!
T

Following this information in this article has greatly improved my piezo acoustic pickup's sound:
 
http://www.harmonycentral.com/articles/better-sound-from-acoustic-guitar-piezo-pickups
 
Just use your ears to fine tune your EQ to the sound you want.
 
good luck

I made the Acoustic Piezo CA-X amp (February 2015 update) specifically for recording acoustic guitars with piezo pickups, but it's useful with other pickup systems as well. This screen shot shows the updated version, which will be available soon.
 

 
The same update also included ProChannel presets for acoustic guitars. Although tailored for older Gibson guitars, they provide a point of departure for other guitars as well.
 
 

Have a look at DPA 4099G - G stand for guitarversion clamps:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dpa+4099g
 
Just great for any guitar and easy to apply, just clamp into body - and remove just as easy.
 
I saw a performance on tv some years ago - and local music store helped me find out what they used.
 
I complement KKsound mini under bridge internal mikes on a Martin D16GT but also on a nylon.

RobWS
Craig touched on something I think is really worth a try.  If you record your direct out, try the ProChannel presets for acoustic guitars.  They are easy to get to if you have the channel inspector open.  Just click the Load Preset folder under the gain knob.  There are 15 Ac Guitar presets that will give you a great starting point.  Even though they have Gibson guitar model names, why not throw one on a Taylor?

Umm... That's freaking awesome! I never knew those were there. Will definitely try them all out later on.

I tried running direct and applying Craig's EQ setting from the Harmony Central article linked in an earlier post. I was actually pretty pleased with the sound, though it brought out the little "fingers on the strings" artifacts a little more than I'd like (fingerpicked piece). Next step is to blend it with the (still pretty crappy) mic'd signal, but I have some other placements I need to try.

So... here's what I ended up doing.  I'm super-happy with the sound on the fingerpicked piece I've been working on, but I'm sure I'd have to seriously alter some of these settings if I were strumming with a pick.
Anyhow...
 
I simultaneously recorded two tracks of the Taylor, one direct into the Focusrite and the other mic'd with an AudioTechnica large diaphragm condenser pointed right where the neck meets the body at about a 12 inch distance.  I then copied the direct track to two other tracks and then muted the original.  To one of the direct tracks I applied the exact EQ settings from Craig's Harmony Central article referenced earlier, to the other I applied one of the J45 Prochannel presets (Natural Strumming, I think).  I didn't process the mic'd track at all.  By itself, that track isn't great.  A little too ambient still, mushy, unfocused, choose your adjective.  But when blended into the two EQd direct tracks it adds a nice bit of life and presence that's hard to define.  I mixed these three tracks down to one and panned it 80% left.  I then copied this to another track, applied Craig's AcousticPiezo amp with some slightly altered settings, panned 80% right, and nudged forward 30 ms.  To each track I then applied a little CA2A compression, tube saturation, and the A Series console emulator with the drive kicked up a bit. 
 
I know it's a bit of work, and purists would probably rightfully scream than one should just be able to get a perfect sound using one of the common stereo mic techniques.  And yes, I guess I do have six differently effected copies of the exact same original performance, all playing at once.  But I'll be darned if it doesn't sound great to my ears.  And I think it was Joe Meek that said "if it sounds right, it is right."
 
Sorry for the lengthy post, but just wanted to say thanks for all the great suggestions, and hopefully my solution can provide some ideas or inspiration for someone out there.  Take care!

With classical guitar, I record with one properly placed mic to avoid phase issues. I then create a stereo image by splitting the track into three tracks. One is lowpassed and panned mostly left, one is highpassed and panned mostly right, and the middle has the frequencies not covered by what's in the left and right channels. This sounds like the guitarist is sitting in front of you because the body boom is off to the left, the neck/string noises to the right, and the rest in the middle. It sounds very realistic and the notes ring out well because there are no cancellations. 
 
Those are just the basics. For more details, check out this article and scroll down to the section called "Virtual Mics with Parallel EQ."

Just to throw one more opinion or two into the mix...
 
How you record an acoustic guitar depends very much on the role the guitar is playing in the song.
 
Often, acoustic guitar is on a track more as a rhythm instrument than as a tonal instrument. In that case, you'll probably end up putting on a high pass filter and running it WAY up until most of what you hear from the guitar is the pick contacting the strings. In an extreme case like that, a direct in might work fine. 
 
On the other hand, if the acoustic guitar features as the main instrument (or one of two or three), you want a full-range, rich sound. There may be a way to get that using a direct mic, but I've never come anywhere close. Four techniques that I've found to work are:
 
1. for a stereo sound, use a large diaphragm condenser mic pointing somewhere near the 12th fret, and a figure 8 mic (like a ribbon) with the two poles pointing left and right. Then you can make a copy of the track with the figure 8 mic, reverse the polarity of the copy, and pan the original track and the copy hard left and right. Group the two tracks with the figure 8 mic. If you turn the figure 8 mics up and the LDC down, you get an enormous stereo field, which can be pretty dramatic. Vice versa, you get close to mono.
 
2. (mono) a small diaphragm condensor pointing right down at the side of the guitar above the upper bout. The guitarist has to to be careful about breathing and mouth noises, but this can get a very sweet sound.
 
3. (mono) A large scale condenser at about the 12th fret, about 18" from the guitar, angled toward the sound hole to taste (the more angle, the more bass), together with a small diaphragm condenser or a ribbon mic pointing at the end of the guitar (the surface with strap peg on it). I've found that the recording from the end of the guitar sounds bad on its own, but mixed in with the LDC it adds body and realism.
 
4. (mono) The old classic, which is 3. without the mic on the end of the guitar.
 
Choice of guitar makes a huge difference. I've done side by side comparisons between three Martins I have. One is a rosewood dreadnought, one is a rosewood OM, and the third is a mahogany/spruce 000. The 000, which cost a fraction of what the other two cost, is hands down the winner every time. Not even close. All that bass and resonance sounds wonderful when playing in a room, but for recording a small mahogany guitar sounds more clear and balanced.
 
One other thing... If you're going to have a highly processed sound, e.g. lots of chorus, phasing, whatever, it really doesn't much matter how you record the guitar. Try whatever gets you closest to the sound you had in your head once you get all the effects on.