Placing an Acoustic Guitar in a mix

Nola

Nola

Well-known member
Hey guys. I'm working on a new mix right now, and I have two guitars panned l/r. I also have an organ and an acoustic guitar that are somewhat mandatory to the arrangement, so I have to fit them in. My first instinct was to put the acoustic C b/c I feel they sit best centered. But I don't want to have the organ C as well because then it would start to sound mono with the vocal, bass, and drums all C. So, I moved the acoustic L and the organ R but not hard panned (since the guitars are there). It sounds weird. The acoustic just doesn't sound right panned to my ear. How would you handle this situation? If I put it C, then the organ will have to go off to a side and seems to imbalance the mix. One idea was to turn up the high ride/hat on the opposite side of the organ to balance that, but I'm not sure. My other idea was to cut the organ out (right now it's throughout the song) and only have it punch in when the vocal cuts out.

Just wondering how any of you pro guys or good amateur mixers would handle this. To the pros, do you always place acoustics C? To my ear, they sound pretty awful off to the side unless they're doubled, and I can't double this one unfortunately.
 
It all depends on the song (and the other instruments). Is the acoustic the dominant instrument? If it is just a rhythm instrument, I typically balance acoustic panned partially to one side wiht an electric equally panned the other side. I do very little hard panning, though - I don't think it sounds 'natural', but that's just me.
 
I've run into similar problems before. In fact, the song I'm working on now is a slower acoustic tune that I literally wrote in 1999 and never recorded. It has drums and bass too, but having the acoustic slightly off-center to make room for the upcoming lead vocal just wasn't sounding right to me. The strummed riff also sounds nice on a clean electric, but hard panning the electric to one side and the acoustic to the other didn't sound good to me either. But I did want a bigger, more produced and commercial sound, so here's what I tried:

I played the acoustic part twice with two slightly different acoustic sounds and panned them hard left and right. Then, I tracked the clean electric version twice with two slightly different clean tones and panned them about 50% left and right, but turned them down some, they just give a nice rounded, more balanced sound to the acoustics. Not that any of this actually helps your thread question, but can give you some things to maybe think about. I'm tempted to post the song in the clinic to see what anyone thinks about all the layered rhythm tracks, even though the vocals aren't tracked yet...

If there's an organ and vocals, I would tend to pan the organ just a hair off-center, unless they're never happening at the same time, then I would keep the organ center, especially if it's part of the main melody. Is there a specific reason you can't double the acoustic? I've never figured out the "widening" tricks, I've always fared better just tracking twice and hard-panning.
 
JohnnyAmato said:
I've run into similar problems before. In fact, the song I'm working on now is a slower acoustic tune that I literally wrote in 1999 and never recorded. It has drums and bass too, but having the acoustic slightly off-center to make room for the upcoming lead vocal just wasn't sounding right to me. The strummed riff also sounds nice on a clean electric, but hard panning the electric to one side and the acoustic to the other didn't sound good to me either. But I did want a bigger, more produced and commercial sound, so here's what I tried:

I played the acoustic part twice with two slightly different acoustic sounds and panned them hard left and right. Then, I tracked the clean electric version twice with two slightly different clean tones and panned them about 50% left and right, but turned them down some, they just give a nice rounded, more balanced sound to the acoustics. Not that any of this actually helps your thread question, but can give you some things to maybe think about. I'm tempted to post the song in the clinic to see what anyone thinks about all the layered rhythm tracks, even though the vocals aren't tracked yet...

If there's an organ and vocals, I would tend to pan the organ just a hair off-center, unless they're never happening at the same time, then I would keep the organ center, especially if it's part of the main melody. Is there a specific reason you can't double the acoustic? I've never figured out the "widening" tricks, I've always fared better just tracking twice and hard-panning.
Click to expand...

Good stuff to think about, thanks Johnny. You should post it for sure. The main reason I can't double the acoustic is b/c I recorded it in an entirely different space (much better than my current apartment, which is awful for recording). It would sound very different, and it's even a different acoustic guitar that I own now.
 
Without hearing the song, this is just a wild guess...

The organ will probably be taking up the same sort of sonic space as the electric guitars. If the guitars are panned wide and you put the organ on one side, you will need to lower the guitar on that side to keep the mix balanced.

Where you put the acoustic depends on what it is doing in the mix. A lot of times, an acoustic will really be a percussion instrument, like a shaker. (This is the roll it plays in a lot of classic Heart songs) If that is the case, you can Balance it with the hi hat or something.

If it is playing something important to the melody of the song, you will need to find a way to thicken it up, so that it will stand up to the rest of the instruments in the mix.

I tend to think of the balance of the mix in terms of weight. Both sides need to weigh the same, so the combination of instruments on one side will need to fill the same sonic space all these way up the spectrum as the other side.

If an instrument has a lot of lower mids on one side, there needs to be something with those lower mids on the other, etc...
 
If the acoustic is just strumming out chords, I'll put it off to a side in place of the 2nd rh. guit. I usually place the organ closer to the middle because I will use it for counter-melodies and such. In that role, it sounds out of place out to the side.

If the acoustic is more germane to the song, like when finger-picking, I'll bring it closer to center. If you need it to sit in the mix and blend well with everything else, try mid-side recording.

I'm all about symmetry and I like how Farview explains it; ie 'weight'.
 
Try this:

Keep your guitars hard panned left and right.

Put the acoustic guitar slightly to one side, and the organ slightly to the other.

Turn their levels down to nothing, then bring each up slowly until they are just adding their sound and not dominating.
 
gecko zzed said:
Try this:

Keep your guitars hard panned left and right.

Put the acoustic guitar slightly to one side, and the organ slightly to the other.

Turn their levels down to nothing, then bring each up slowly until they are just adding their sound and not dominating.
Click to expand...

Thanks Gecko, I did that, and combined it with farview mentioned and balanced it with the hat. It sounds okay if not a little busy. I think the acoustic to one side just sounds odd to me b/c I think of the singer playing an acoustic, so to have it off to the side removes it from his body. Plus an acoustic is so heavy that it demands notice and pulls the ear to that side.

I might have to par down the arrangement. Or I will just center the acoustic and maybe balance the hat with the organ. That is a possible solution. It will sound more mono but probably better.
 
Nola said:
Plus an acoustic is so heavy that it demands notice
Click to expand...

Acoustic guitars tend to be very dense instruments, in that they easily commandeer the acoustic space. Mixing them so they you can hear them but hat they don't hijack the mix is tricky
 
gecko zzed said:
Acoustic guitars tend to be very dense instruments, in that they easily commandeer the acoustic space. Mixing them so they you can hear them but hat they don't hijack the mix is tricky
Click to expand...

Precisely, my friend, especially in a fairly dense mix. It's been driving me a bit crazy with several mixes. I've EQd them very high, like 420hz HP to help fit them in as part of the rhythm section. Makes them thin, but it's the only way I can seem to get it to work. That's when they're C. Moving them off C sounds so odd.
 
Nola said:
Thanks Gecko, I did that, and combined it with farview mentioned and balanced it with the hat. It sounds okay if not a little busy. I think the acoustic to one side just sounds odd to me b/c I think of the singer playing an acoustic, so to have it off to the side removes it from his body. Plus an acoustic is so heavy that it demands notice and pulls the ear to that side.
Click to expand...
Why does the singer have to play the guitar. Obviously there are other people there, just add one more imaginary musician to the band, and stand him a little off to the side.
 
Even smaller organs with just 3, or, 4 ranks can be pretty massive, depending on the effect wanted at the recording outset
 
You could also try using the Haas effect - this free plugin allows you to play with it easily: FREE HAAS DELAY PLUGIN | vescoFx.com

It basically doubles the guitar and hard pans it left and right with a slight delay, which plays a trick on the human ear. It still sounds centered, but also creates more space.
 
Everyone, probably, has a reverb - a quick tool to out of phaseyness and filtertronics. Your DAW may have a buried RES filter, and, possible, a straight-out ADSR
 
There's been a lot of great music recorded in mono, that in itself is not a bad thing. maybe keep the two electrics off to the sides, vox acoustic and organ C and ride the volume up and down depending on when you want what to be the focus at a given time. If it's a continuous vox through the song then that won't work but we have no insight to the song's structure, just the sound scape at this time. If the organ is in a call and response and the acoustic a continuous strum, lower the level of the acoustic but keep it centered. If everything is all going constantly at the same level then I can see how it could get busy aka cluttered.
 
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