Acoustic Guitar

I began to learn how to play acoustic guitar when I was 13 years old. Having grown up playing piano from a very young age, I already had a basic understanding of music theory, so it wasn’t long before I was mimicking my favorite Green Day songs with an old acoustic Epiphone my dad had laying around.

This instrument became the foundation for many original songs I would go on to write throughout my teenage years, though I was admittedly pretty bad at it at first.

The acoustic guitar makes a great songwriting instrument for several reasons.

First, it’s acoustic. It can be played without the need for electricity, which means it can be played immediately (so long as it’s strung and tuned).

Second, it’s relatively small and portable, which means it can be played just about anywhere.

And lastly, it’s relatively quiet, which means it can be played at just about any time of the day without bothering nearby neighbors (though I managed to do so anyway, due to my tendency towards folk punk).

I’ve often written songs on acoustic guitar and later translated them to electric guitar or other instrumentation, but the acoustic guitar can also play an important role in a mix.

Acoustic guitar can be played in a variety of styles, but in my opinion, it works best as a rhythm instrument, or an instrument that, along with the drums and bass, creates and/or accentuates the beat of a song. In folk music, the acoustic guitar might be the main instrument or even the only instrument. In this case, it can be picked or strummed.

In pop or rock, the acoustic guitar is great for adding texture to an otherwise bare mix, particularly when strummed. It tends to live in the upper-mid part of the frequency spectrum and makes a pretty backdrop for any vocalist.

Acoustic guitar can even be used strategically in hip-hop or ambient music, if approached with care.

There are a few ways to approach the recording of an acoustic guitar.

The first and most obvious way to record an acoustic guitar is with microphones. I like to use condenser microphones, due to their ability to capture the high end of the frequency spectrum better than most dynamic microphones.

The most important part of the acoustic guitar to capture is the soundhole, but I like to use a second microphone, aimed at the neck, to capture all of the intricate noises created by the fretting hand.

My acoustic guitar is “acoustic-electric,” meaning it’s fitted with an internal microphone and a preamplifier, allowing me to record “DI” (direct input) by connecting an instrument cable from the output jack on the guitar to the input of my recording interface. This gives the recording a warmer, cleaner sound, but leaves out room noise and some of the intricacies of fretting. I prefer to record acoustic guitar with a combination of these two approaches: microphones on the soundhole and fretboard, and DI to round things out. Then I have 3 acoustic guitar tracks in my DAW that I can balance and control independently.

Of course, you can also plug your acoustic-electric guitar into an amplifier and point a microphone at the speaker(s), but I’ve found this method to be inferior to the others.