Mixing Acoustic Gtrs/Vox: How do you mix yours?

[stopstartstall]

As a singer/songwriter, I tend to write songs that only feature an acoustic guitar and vocals, or if I'm feeling adventurous, a piano and vocals. So my question is how to get a nice full mix when you have so little to work with?

I've been doubling the guitar and panning left/right and running the vocals down the middle. Is this the usual method or does anyone do it differently? I also use a little EQ where needed (my acoustic is quite bass heavy so I tend to cut a little bit), compress and add reverb. Sometimes I de-ess the vocals a little if needed.

How would you mix a standard acoustic guitar song?

 

[NL5]

I do things somewhat different than you, depending on the song. Listen to these and see if you like the sound with them done this way -

 

[stopstartstall]

Really like the sound you've got there (like the songs as well! very cool stuff, reminds me a little of the first spill canvas record).

So the question is how did you mix them? the second one's a little more obvious than the first since it has multiple gtrs.

 

[NL5]

I'll focus on the first one. It was recorded live (all tracks at one time, no editing, no overdubbing), so I was somewhat limited on what I could do. If there is to be only one AC guitar part, I always mic in stereo. Either an X/y at the 12th 6" out, or one at the twelfth pointed 45 degrees towards the hole 6" out, and one about a foot back 45 degrees from the bridge. I usually pan the two tracks somewhere from 50-100%. In this track they are at 65 I believe. There is a -2db shelf at 140hz, and a high pass at 90hz on the guitars. A bit of med hall, and large hall reverb. The vocal (since it was done live) was recorded with a LDC in Fig 8. I set it up sideways with the AC Guitar in the rejection zone, so there is not much guitar in that track. (wasn't so lucky with the guitar tracks). The vox was run thru an 1176 with a prett fast attack and somewhat slow release on 20:1. I set it so it was just starting to get funky in the loudest parts. So, in a lot of the song I have the GR needle buried. Since the guitar mics picked up a fair amount a vox, I had to play with the levels. i laso added 4 different reverbs to the vox track.

If you can overdub, it would make things a lot easier, and make it possible to make things sound bigger and fuller.

 

[stopstartstall]

Thanks for all the detail! I tend to record parts seperately so bleed and whatnot isn't such an issue. If i do record live, I do it with one LDC mic and it's usually only for rough reference to what the song should be like (and it tends to just sound like you standing in the room listening to someone play, it's not especially professional).

I think I need to experiment more with mic placement, I have a pair of mics on the way to me at the moment which should help. I've been recording everything in mono up to now, which I guess was probably part of my problem in getting a "full" sound.

 

[NL5]

I love stereo ac guitar. Start with the two methods I described, but try others. The over the shoulder method can be amazing. Blumenhiem too. There are tons of ways to mic a guitar in stereo.

 

[Ironklad Audio]

i guess i take the same basic approach as NL5...guitar mic'ed in stereo, panned L/R, lead vocal down the middle, and any harmonies/backups panned L/R as well

throw a little reverb on the guitar, EQ if needed, and that's about it