We never point the mic at anything other than the body and we do a whole hell of a lot of acoustic guitar.. much more than electric. Actually more acoustic instruments than anything else.Our typical setup is a stereo pair of Schoeps, approximately 45 degree angle maybe 12 away from the body, simple and sounds great. Schoeps make any acoustic instrument sound wonderful really. I'd have some space between the guitar and mics and no aiming at weird points of the guitar. The sound comes from the body.. but you need some air.

Well, usually more ORTF.

I believe it's more of who than what. A local jazz guitarist recorded some passages on a cheap Yamaha nylon string this past weekend, it has a hole in the back.. it sounded wonderful.A great guitarist can make crap sound beautiful. A shitty guitarist can make expensive guitars sound horrible. I find it to be more in the technique.

Thanks for the reply my fellow Londoner.... This was a very interesting and informative response... bishopdante wrote:fat-thin can give you solutions rather than problems “ the SM57 put up close will have proximity effect, a lump in the bass. The Thomann mic, especially if it's transistor will have a rather thin sound. Rather than EQing, you can blend the two. If you have the condenser set to omni, around a foot away, and the SM57 stuck behind the bridge inches away, you'll probably find that you can blend the two to get a fat-thin thing going on. Probably won't need a lot of SM57. You could also also try taping the 57's side ports, and doing some aggressive EQing on the 57 to fill in the areas where the thomann mic is weak, and cut the rest to avoid phasing up the treble.The Thomann T-Bone SC1100 is a little on the weak sound but it sounds more 'natural' than the SM57. Thanks for the other tips I'll try them out when I next record. bishopdante wrote:Regarding the mono idea, putting a mono source panned central does create phase cancellation issues for the listener, using a pair of mics helps avoid that problem. Having exactly the same signal come out of both speakers phases unless you sit right in the sweet spot. Try panning everything over to one side and having true mono. You could also try putting convolving artificial reverb on one side and dry on the other side. Doesn't turn out as weird as it sounds, but it's only really recommended in a mix.bishopdante wrote:Acoustic guitar is hard to record "photographically". Wood and string isn't really much like a piston. Often what works best to record is the sound of the room, rather than the sound of the instrument. Finding a room which has loads of reverb is a good idea. Stone everything would be ideal. Moving the condenser further away will get you less breathing noise and more roominess. 1.5:1 short release compression blended in on an aux will fatten up the tails of the notes, this can also be EQ'd a bit in the 1kHz range to add or remove a bit of honk.Interesting. I'll try to record somewhere with uncarpeted floors. As for the 1kHz that is the higher end of the spectrum right? I'm a caveman/idiot to the world of eq'ing... My way of EQing is to move the knobs til it sounds nice...bishopdante wrote:The most important bit to get the balance right for acoustic guitar (and anything else which carries a tune) is between 150 and 500Hz. Try a bandpass filter on the master outputs isolating just those frequencies and listening to only what goes on in that frequency band, move the mics around, then take the filter off.Sorry to sound like the idiot I am but I don't understand how to use a bandpass filter to isolate those frequencies. I use Logic Pro would I be ok just using the Bandpass plugin to 'select' the frequencies in question? bishopdante wrote:Regarding breathing, you could eliminate that possibly by buying a face mask and some hosepipe, wearing a rockwool 16th century ruff, or do some breathing exercises. It's a usual problem, people don't think about it much when practising but it's really important.bishopdante wrote:If you want to get the sound perfect, stereo M/S with proper pencils, audiotechnica, neumann or schoeps will get it pretty photographic. The mic preamps you use also make a huge difference for detailed acoustic instruments. Cheap thin sounding chip-amps particularly make everything rather grey.That makes a lot of sense. Cheersbishopdante wrote:You can only record what's there in the room, the playing is the best place to start. Maybe get some bronze strings.Do you mean Pure Bronze? I presume not Phospher Bronze strings which are the ones I usually use (either D'addario or Rotosound) as they are easy on the fingers. What are the advantages of of using Bronze strings?Thanks for this reply it helped a lot...

Thanks for the replies so far, they've been a interesting and informative read so far ¦ I've posted some of my music by the way, if anyone wants to take the time to listen to it and assess my recording/playing (be gentle ¦ be gentle ¦), on this page where the first two tracks are a Guild GAD F212 recorded in mono with a T-Bone SC1100, the next two a Yamaha FS720S recorded with a Shure SM57 and a T-Bone SC1000 and the last the Guild with the same mics again. @endofaneraPoint the micas down ¦ Good advice! For panning I've found a 6 string to be more sympathetic towards panning than a 12 string, which panning more than +/-15 (off the top of my head) seems to create a lot of stereo-ish (I don't know the right terms ¦) issues ¦ I'll keep in mind the suggestions for mic placings when I next get around to recording ¦ @japmnInteresting that you suggest to mic a little further back than I thought, thanks for that. I wasn't entry sure about distances and a good tip about nylon strings too.I raised a minor chuckle about being scared of MONO, I'll bear that in mind too, have recorded in Mono before but I'm in fear that the mixed down result will be a unfavourable product for the listener who isn't me ¦.@zom-zomI'd love a pair of Schoeps ¦ But in that absence I'll point the microphones at the body at the instrument and give some air ¦ @elisha wiesnerThanks for mentioning Bacon & Day, it made me find these http://www.arkneweraguitars.com/13.html guys who make repro of the Senorita ¦ Yes I am in agreement that a decent guitar makes a difference for recording. My 6 string acoustic is somewhat underwhelming (been trying to upgrade it but that's been a nightmare/different story) and isn't that great to record. In contrast my 12 string is a more expensive and therefore possibly better instrument which produces a 'nicer' sound and is therefore a little easier to record/mix ¦@zom-zomA great guitarist can make anything sound great; one of my favourite guitarists of the moment is BIll Orcutt who plays a bust up Harmony with 4 strings, not the greatest guitar by any stretch of the imagination but crikey in his hands does it make a great sound ¦ (to my ears anyway)@japmnI'm not even a fan of using the SM57 for electric guitar ¦ I don't really understand the references to the frequencies (the Hz numbers ¦) but I guess the message of the post 'DON'T USE A SM57 FOR ACOUSTIC GUITAR!' ¦ I no longer really play electric guitar so I may sell my dynamics at sometime and I'll keep the Oktava's in mind ¦.As for a Preamp, I was using either my Behringer Mic-100 (I know, I know ¦) or the input of my soundcard (which is a M-Audio Profire 610) not great factors I know but it's all I have ¦

This is all great advice, thank you everybody for chipping in.

...also, elisha, I have found that you can get a pretty close sound to those early fahey recordings using a little olympus dictaphone, believe it or not, pointed at at the sound hole. The recording quality is so degraded that it gives it that sort of old, far away vinyl feel quite succesfully, and with some warmth and clarity.

dash-x wrote:@japmnI'm not even a fan of using the SM57 for electric guitar ¦ I don't really understand the references to the frequencies (the Hz numbers ¦) but I guess the message of the post 'DON'T USE A SM57 FOR ACOUSTIC GUITAR!' ¦ I no longer really play electric guitar so I may sell my dynamics at sometime and I'll keep the Oktava's in mind ¦.As for a Preamp, I was using either my Behringer Mic-100 (I know, I know ¦) or the input of my soundcard (which is a M-Audio Profire 610) not great factors I know but it's all I have ¦I wouldn't ever say Don't do something. I understand working with limited gear and am a proponent of making the best recordings with limited resources you can. I was just pointing out that a 57 has innate characteristics that account for a lot of the problems you are running into. If you don't understand the reference to Frequencies you should really do some ear training. An easy way to learn frequencies is to turn up a mic pre with no mic plugged in until you hear a good amount of noise (or just line in some noise) and using a parametric, boost the signal and sweep through the frequencies. Just pay attention to the frequencies and ranges (I usually think of 20Hz to 20K in 3 or 5 ranges, Low, Mid, Hi or Low, Lo-Mids, Mids, Hi-Mids, Highs) and you'll get to know them pretty quickly. A 31 band graphic is good for this too. Just notch up each freq. at a time and become familiar with how it sounds. That's how I learned it. By listening.

One thing not yet mentioned is the room. If you are micing away from the guitar to capture more of it's air and avoid the guitar boxy sound, you will be capturing more of the room sound. Carpet is probably the worst acoustic material for a recording room due to the fucked up frequencies it reflects - especially in a small boxy room. Unless you can change to a good room with nice reflections, go the other direction make that room as dead possible. Add ambiance later if you need it.Never underestimate the effect of the room tone and how it interacts with mic locations. It makes far more difference than the microphone choices.Edit: bishopdante did mention the room - he's correct.

What is more important for acoustic recording: room acoustics, mic placement, or mic type? If mic type, please note, I'm talking about banjo rather than guitar if that makes a difference. I just didn't feel like making a new thread.