How to Record Acoustic Guitar at Home
Start with one small diaphragm condenser 12 to 14 inches from the twelfth fret, aimed slightly toward the neck and deliberately away from the sound hole, which resonates around 90 to 110 Hz and is the cause of almost every boomy home acoustic recording. Move toward the bridge for attack and toward the headstock for air, and add a second microphone only once the single microphone position is right.
Definition: Recording an acoustic guitar means capturing a quiet, wide band source whose tone changes substantially over a few inches of microphone movement, which makes position the dominant variable and the room the second.
Acoustic guitar is the instrument that exposes a home studio, because it is quiet, wide band and played in the same room you are sitting in. There is no amplifier to point away from the walls and no way to get loud enough to overwhelm the space. Almost everything that goes wrong is one of two things: the microphone is pointed at the sound hole, or the room is arriving too soon.
The starting position, and the number to remember: 12 to 14 inches from the twelfth fret, aimed slightly toward the neck. That is not a compromise position, it is where the blend of string detail and body resonance is most even, and it is where I start every time before adjusting for the specific guitar and player.
Why is the sound hole the wrong place to point a microphone?
Because it is not a speaker, it is a resonator. The sound hole and the air volume of the body form a Helmholtz resonator, tuned somewhere around 90 to 110 Hz on a typical dreadnought, and its job is to radiate that one narrow band of low frequency energy efficiently.
Point a microphone into it and you capture a recording dominated by that resonance. It sounds boomy, thick and slightly hollow, and the usual response is a 100 Hz cut in the mix, which removes the resonance and also removes the weight that made the guitar sound like a guitar. The correct fix costs nothing: move the microphone.
| Aim point | Character | Low end | Use it for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sound hole | Boomy, thick, hollow | Far too much | Almost nothing |
| Bridge | Percussive, dark, pick attack | Moderate | Rhythm parts under a dense mix |
| Twelfth fret | Balanced, natural, full | Even | The default, and most parts |
| Fifth fret | Bright, stringy, detailed | Light | Fingerpicking that needs clarity |
| Headstock | Thin, airy, fret noise heavy | Very little | A second microphone for sparkle only |
| Over the shoulder | What the player hears, diffuse | Moderate | A room-flavoured blend microphone |
Distance is the second axis and it interacts with the first. Cardioid microphones exhibit proximity effect, a low frequency boost that grows as you approach the source, so a microphone at six inches is bassier than the same microphone at twelve regardless of where it is aimed. If a part sounds thin, move in. If it sounds thick, move out before you touch an EQ.
Which microphone should you use?
A small diaphragm condenser is the textbook answer and it is textbook for real reasons. A smaller diaphragm has less mass, so it follows fast transients more accurately, and its off-axis response stays more consistent, which matters because a guitarist moves and a guitar radiates differently in every direction.
The cheapest way into a matched pair is the Behringer C-2 matched pair at $51.90, which is a genuinely usable stereo pair for less than the price of one decent cable. The Audio-Technica AT2041SP studio pack at $179.00 is a smarter first purchase for most people, because it contains both a large diaphragm for voice and a small diaphragm for guitar, which is exactly the two microphone kit a songwriter needs. The Rode M5 matched pair at $249.99 is the step up, and the Shure SM81 at $439.00 is the one that turns up on commercial acoustic records over and over.
A large diaphragm condenser such as the AT2035 is not a wrong choice. It flatters the low mids and it is the microphone you probably already own for vocals, which makes it the practical starting point. In a room that is too live for any condenser, an SM57 close in is a legitimate and much used answer, because a dynamic hears less of everything that is not directly in front of it.
| Room | Best choice | Distance | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Untreated bedroom | Dynamic, or condenser very close | 6 to 10 in | Maximises direct sound over room sound |
| Lightly treated room | Small diaphragm condenser | 12 to 14 in | The default, and where most home records are made |
| Well treated room | Stereo pair of small diaphragms | 14 to 24 in | Width becomes usable once the room is not fighting you |
| Genuinely good sounding room | Pair plus a distant room microphone | 3 to 8 ft | The room becomes part of the instrument |
Which stereo technique should you use?
Only once the mono position is right. A stereo pair in the wrong place is two bad recordings, not one good one, and the mono check is where careless stereo falls apart.
- XY, two cardioids coincident at 90 degrees. Both capsules occupy nearly the same point, so there is no time difference between them and the result is perfectly mono compatible. The width is modest and the image is stable. This is the technique to start with.
- Mid-side, one cardioid forward and one figure of eight sideways. Fully mono compatible by construction, and the width is adjustable after the fact, which is a genuine advantage when you do not yet know how dense the arrangement will be.
- Spaced pair, two microphones a foot or more apart. The widest and most impressive on its own, and the most fragile. The arrival time difference between the two microphones causes comb filtering when summed to mono.
- The twelfth fret plus bridge pair. Not a formal stereo technique but the most useful one at home: one microphone at the twelfth fret for body, one near the bridge for attack, panned apart. Obey the 3 to 1 rule, which says the two microphones should be at least three times as far from each other as either is from the source.
Whichever you use, check mono before you commit. If the guitar loses body or the top end phases when summed, the spacing is wrong, and the fix is geometry rather than a plugin.
The habit that improved my acoustic recordings most had nothing to do with microphones. It was changing the strings the day before, not the day of. Fresh strings on the day are brittle and overly bright and they go out of tune constantly through a session, and a day of settling gets you the brightness without the instability. The second habit was recording the guitar away from any wall, at least three feet, with the nearest hard surface covered. An acoustic guitar is quiet enough that a wall two feet away is effectively a second instrument playing the same part slightly late. And the third: I listen for the chair. Wooden chairs creak, and it is inaudible in the room and unmistakable in a quiet fingerpicked passage at mix time.
How do you beat an untreated room?
By improving the ratio of direct sound to reflected sound, which you can do in three ways and only one of them costs money.
- Work closer. Doubling distance drops level by 6 dB under the inverse square law, while the room's reverberant field stays roughly constant. Halving your microphone distance is therefore worth about 6 dB of extra direct sound at no cost. Compensate for the added proximity effect by aiming slightly further along the neck.
- Kill the nearest reflection. The first reflection to arrive does the most damage because it comb filters the direct sound. A duvet, a mattress on its side, or a 2 inch panel on the nearest hard surface removes it. Play facing into the room rather than into a corner.
- Move away from parallel surfaces. Sitting midway between two hard parallel walls puts you in the worst possible place for flutter echo. Move off centre and angle yourself, which costs nothing and changes the recording.
How to treat a room for recording covers the permanent version, and the acoustic treatment calculator sizes it. If leakage rather than room sound is your problem, read how to soundproof a home studio first, because those are different problems with different fixes.
What levels and settings should you use?
Acoustic guitar has a wide dynamic range and a sharp transient at the pick attack, which makes it easy to under-record and easy to clip on a peak you did not hear coming.
- Set gain from the loudest strum, not from the fingerpicked verse. Aim for an average around -18 dBFS with peaks reaching -10 to -6 dBFS. The gain staging calculator turns that into the numbers on your meter.
- Leave the high pass filter off while tracking, or set it no higher than 80 Hz. Body resonance on a guitar lives around 90 to 110 Hz, and a filter at 120 Hz removes the part that makes the instrument sound big. You can always filter later, and you can never put it back.
- Do not compress on the way in unless you know exactly why. The transient is the instrument's character, and 24 bit recording gives you around 144 dB of dynamic range, so there is no technical need to squeeze anything before it is a file.
- Use a proper boom stand with a shock mount . Position matters to the inch here, which means a stand that creeps during a take is not a minor annoyance, it is a tonal change halfway through the performance.
Full method for levels is in how to set recording levels, and where in the chain each stage sits is in home studio signal flow explained.
What ruins a take that you cannot fix later?
Four things, all mechanical, all preventable, and all of them invisible in the room and obvious on playback.
- String squeak from position shifts. Lighter finger pressure when changing chords, and a slight microphone move toward the bridge, both reduce it. A little squeak is human, and a lot is distracting.
- Chair and floor noise. A creaking chair is the most common ruined take in home acoustic recording. Sit on something solid and stationary.
- Clothing. A sleeve brushing the top of the guitar is picked up directly by a microphone twelve inches away.
- Tuning drift. Retune between takes, not between songs. A guitar goes sharp as it warms and the difference is audible against a keyboard part long before it is audible on its own.
Related
- How to record electric guitar at home: the same instrument, a completely different problem
- Best condenser microphones under $300: the category that suits this instrument
- Instrument frequency range chart: where an acoustic guitar actually sits
- Best microphone stands: because position to the inch needs a stand that holds it
- How to record vocals at home: the other half of a songwriter session
Frequently asked questions
Where do you point a microphone for acoustic guitar?
At the twelfth fret, from about 12 to 14 inches away, deliberately off the sound hole. The sound hole is a Helmholtz resonator tuned near 100 Hz and pointing a microphone into it produces the boomy, muddy tone people then try to EQ out. The twelfth fret gives a balanced blend of string detail and body resonance, and moving toward the bridge adds attack while moving toward the headstock adds air.
What is the best microphone for acoustic guitar?
A small diaphragm condenser, because the instrument is fast, quiet and wide band. Small diaphragms have a better transient response and more consistent off-axis behaviour than large diaphragms, which matters when the source moves. A large diaphragm condenser such as the AT2035 works well and flatters the low mids, and a dynamic like the SM57 is the fallback in a room too live for a condenser.
Should I record acoustic guitar in stereo or mono?
Mono for a track sitting inside a dense arrangement, stereo for a solo performance or a sparse one. A single microphone gives you a focused source you can place anywhere in the mix without phase problems. A stereo pair gives width and realism that a solo recording needs, at the cost of mono compatibility, so any stereo technique should be checked in mono before you commit to it.
Why does my acoustic guitar recording sound boomy?
Almost always the sound hole, and secondly proximity effect. The sound hole radiates a strong resonance around 90 to 110 Hz and a microphone pointed into it captures far too much of it. Move the microphone toward the twelfth fret and pull back to 12 inches or more, because cardioid microphones also boost low frequencies as they get close. Fix it with position before reaching for an EQ.
Can I record acoustic guitar with the built-in pickup?
You can, and it is a useful second track rather than a good first one. A piezo undersaddle pickup captures string vibration directly, which gives excellent isolation and a hard, glassy tone with no body resonance in it. Blending a small amount of pickup signal under a microphone track can add attack and definition, but a pickup alone rarely sounds like an acoustic guitar to a listener.
How do I stop my acoustic guitar recording sounding like the room?
Work closer, damp the nearest reflective surfaces and record with the guitar away from walls. An acoustic guitar is quiet, so the ratio of direct sound to room sound is worse than for any loud source. Getting from 24 inches to 12 inches raises the direct sound by about 6 dB relative to the room, and a duvet or panel on the wall nearest the guitar removes the earliest and most damaging reflection.
Working out your own room and signal chain? The Home Studio Build Planner is the paid version of these pages: 8 printable worksheets you fill in with your own numbers, plus the full PDF, $29.