Alright, you’ve got your acoustic guitars tracked, and now it’s time to get down and dirty with the mix. Here’s a guide to get you that professional sound from the comfort of your home studio.
Have a Plan for the Role of the Guitar in the Mix
Is this a solo acoustic guitar track? Is there a singer too? Is the guitar fitting into an overall band sound? You need to know what the guitar is doing in the track before you know how to mix it. If it’s the only instrument, you need a balanced sound that is robust in all frequency ranges. If it’s accompanying a singer, you need to be out of the voice’s way, while still supporting. If it’s in a band, perhaps you don’t need very much low end in the guitar’s sound. And overall, you may want to prioritize whether you want the guitar to have a bigger rhythmic or harmonic role, though any part will almost always have both aspects.
If the part is fingerpicked, you’ll want to have a crisp picking sound without getting scratchy. If it’s heavily strummed, you may want to embrace the picky-ness of the part and let it be more of a rhythmic track. The pick sound matters as much as the notes, so don’t overlook it in your planning.
Once you have a plan, you can mix with purpose. Here are some guidelines to help you on your mixing journey. We will break this down into Image, EQ, Compression, and then some final thoughts.
1. Image
Your acoustic guitar can have a mono or stereo image. Different mic-ing techniques (as explored in our “How to Prepare For Studio Recording” article) afford you different options.
Why would you pick one image over the other? Ultimately, it comes down to taste and preference. But generally speaking, if you have fewer instruments, the more instruments involved, the less the listener is going to be able to notice and enjoy a stereo acoustic guitar image. When there’s more going on in your track, you may be better off just going mono. But if the acoustic guitar is the only instrument involved, a stereo image might be a fun option that really brings the listener into the world of your track. That said, with a busy tracks, a wide stereo (or dual mono) image in the hands of a confident mixer can be beneficial for creating room in your mix for other instruments to find their space. Consider all the approaches discussed below and maybe even try two different ones on your track to make sure you’ve landed on the one that’s right for you.
If you’ve recorded your guitar part with two or more mics, make sure to always check for phase in your guitar image – and do it as early as possible in your mixing process. If the two tracks are out of phase, your guitar sound will have frequency cancellation and you won’t be getting the most out of your tracks. You want your tracks to be in phase with each other. Check out the linked video for a more detailed explainer. Most DAWs come with some sort of plug-in that let’s you know whether your recording is in phase or not. Logic’s Multimeter is a standout, in this regard.
Let’s discuss mono versus stereo a little further, in the context of different mic-ing techniques.
Mono:
- 1-Mic technique. This one is pretty self-evident. 1 track is going to be mono. You could take the one track, pan it left or right, and then create a very fast delay (either Stereo Delay or Slap Delay) that hits the opposite side, tricking the ear into thinking it’s hearing two different guitars panned wide. Or you could duplicate your track and pan them left and right, to achieve a wide dual mono sound. But besides that, you’re pretty much just working with a single-directional track in your mix.
- A/B Spaced Pair and X/Y Matched Pair techniques.With these approaches, you have two tracks of the guitar part, and they have different frequency characteristics. Instead of playing with different panning on each, you could pan them to the same spot, or even bus them to a single mono track. Then you’re just using the two different tracks for EQ. Think of one as the characteristic track for Lows and Mids, and the other as the representative for the Highs. Mix from there! With this approach, definitely check your phase, especially with the A/B Spaced Pair.
Stereo Image:
- A/B Spaced Pair and X/Y Matched Pair techniques. These techniques really shine when exploring the stereo sound. Pan one track a bit left, the other a bit right, and suddenly the image starts to better resemble what it’s like to be in a room with a guitar. Very fun. Again, check phase, check phase, check phase.
- Mid-Side. Duplicate the figure-8 track, pan those two figure-8 tracks each left and right out wide, and flip the polarity of only one of the tracks. The resulting image, when combined with the first mic (centered in the mix), is a full, rich stereo sound that is beloved by professional studio engineers and mixers the world over. This video also has a great in-depth demonstration of the Mid-Side mixing technique – spend some time with it if you want to go deep on this approach. And, one more time, just make sure to check that phase.
2. EQ
EQ is going to be the single most important part of mixing when it comes to acoustic guitars. There’s a world of approaches to discuss, but we are going to distill it to the surefire things you need to attend to.
One big thing you should take away from this article is that when it comes to acoustic guitar, you should always employ subtractive EQ first and most. It’s a good rule of thumb with any track, frankly, since the ear hears a reduced frequency the same as the boosting of the frequencies around it. Therefore, you can use subtractive EQ to greatly clarify your guitars without adding to the overall volume of your track! If that’s not a good deal, we don’t know what is.
Some EQ tips, in order of priority…
1. Use a Low Cut (aka High Pass) filter at around 70hz. We won’t be needing any of the muddy bassy-ness down there. Use your ears and you might want to push even higher to 80hz if it doesn’t take too much away from the character of the guitar sound.
2. Identify and scoop out any offensive frequencies: anything boomy, honky, abrasive. Maybe it’s a low bumping sound, maybe it’s a cutting, picking sound. Listen to the track and follow your ears. Then, take a bandpass filter with a very narrow Q and reduce that frequency dramatically. Subtract by 5, 10, or maybe even 15dB if it doesn’t make the guitar sound cartoonishly out of character. Go hunting and use your ears to clear things up.
3. Scoop out some Low Mids. In the 100-400 range, listen carefully and play around with EQ to see if your guitar sound would benefit from some subtraction in this range. Very often that undesirable boomy, boxy sound of an acoustic guitar comes from this window. With the bandpass filters here, a slightly wider, gentler Q is better.
4. Boost at 10k. Use a high shelf, adding about 2-3dB (or more!) to give some sparkle and air to the sound.
5. Consider scooping out any other frequencies that feature other instruments/voices. The singer should be the dominant instrument for it’s characteristic frequency range. The snare drum may want a little pocket. The pick of the bass may want a little notch. Be judicious, but see if it helps the mix to make room for the other instruments in your acoustic guitar track. You may find that taking such steps will allow you to bring the overall level of the guitar up without overwhelming the other instruments, if thats something you want. One note, though: if you’re doing a lot of scooping frequencies out, don’t judge the guitar sound when solo’d. Judge by how it sits in your mix. The guitar part may sound a bit odd by itself at this point, but if you have a track that has a lot of instruments on it, then it doesn’t totally matter how each instrument sounds solo’d. What matters is how everything fits together in the overall mix.
See? Not much additive EQ required. For more on subtractive EQ of acoustic guitar, this video features a fantastic, detailed exploration.
3. Compression
The amount of compression you will want is going to depend on the style of the guitar playing and the track. If you want a more even sound, particularly in the picks/strums, compression is your friend. If the performance has a lot of dynamic variation, intentional or otherwise, compression is your friend. However, as with compression on any instrument, too much of it will sound unnatural and displeasing to the ear. So use yours when compressing!
Generally speaking: use light compression. A ratio of 2:1 or 3:1, and only 1-2dB or reduction at the loudest points in the track. Apply it directly to track.
Another option to explore is parallel compression. This is great for achieving a robust, compressed guitar sound while still retaining some of the dynamics of the performance, but requires some mixing dexterity and careful listening. Here’s what you do: send your guitar track signal to an auxiliary track. Apply compression to that auxiliary track, but set it very aggressively, flattening and even distorting the sound. This auxiliary track now has a very stable volume level. If you fade in a tiny bit of it underneath your original guitar track at full volume (i.e. in parallel to it), you will find that your overall guitar sound has become much fuller.
Parallel compression can be used in addition to any light compression you applied directly to your track, but be judicious and listen carefully. For more on the parallel compression technique, check out this well-made video.
Final Thoughts
There are lots of other effects you could add to your guitar sound, which have less to do with a “good” sound and more have to do with taste and style. Phase and Chorus effects have been used frequently on acoustic guitar, across decades and styles, to great acclaim.
Another noteworthy effect is reverb. With reverb, play around with applying it directly to the track, or as an auxiliary track with sends from the guitar track. Generally the auxiliary track approach is going to give you more flexibility in the mix, though it means slightly more work and processing power.Speaking very generally, you’ll want a reverb sound that is not too washed out and long. You’ll just want to bring a bit of ambience and “room sound” back into the guitar recording. Consider a Medium Room, Large Room, or Plate reverb sound.
For further mixing thoughts, Warren Huart put together a great guitar mixing walkthrough video that you should check out. Besides that, you just need to try techniques out for yourself and see what works best within your setup and taste!
If you’ve got a mic and a guitar, there’s nothing in your way from getting a tremendous, professional sounding guitar track.
Moreover, if you’re driven to make your music stand out commercially, SupremeTracks is here for you. Our seasoned mixing engineers have assisted over 1,000 independent artists like you in crafting top-tier tracks, propelling them to success in the music industry.
Reach out and share your project details, and let’s explore how we can collaborate. We’ll offer a complimentary proposal to help you achieve a chart-topping sound for your track!
Happy recording, y’all.
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