?You'll notice I mentioned some fairly expensive gear here. I mentioned a very high end Taylor acoustic guitar (which I didn't pay for!!! ha ha), a Martin D-28 acoustic guitar (again, which I didn't pay for!!!), a Soundelux U99 (which I'm still paying for), a pair of MXL V69s, and an AT4050 (which I didn't mention in the article but was paired with the U99 quite a bit). All my acoustic guitars today were ran through a Vintech 1272 preamps which I would not consider my first choice when recording acoustic guitars because of it's big low end and thickness in the low mids which could get a little "cloudy" on acoustic guitars.

Without a doubt, the gear was not the most important factor in getting the acoustic guitar tones. The most important factor was my refusal to give up until I got the tones I was looking for. Actually, at first the Taylor was a little boomy with the Soundelux U99. What??? A mega expensive acoustic

guitar didn't sound great immediately with a $2500 microphone?? No! It didn't. I find that expensive gear takes almost as much time as cheap gear does to get just right. Actually, I tried 3 or 4 mic placements until I found the sweet spot on the Taylor. It was right on the 12th fret. Normally this is

the first place I start when recording acoustic guitar. I had trouble getting the boxiness out of the acoustic guitar, so I put up some blankets and moved around my fabric covered Rockwool until I got something I liked. I actually tossed up a AT 4050 just a few inches out from the nut of the

Taylor guitar. The AT4050 has a bump at 10K or so and seamed like the exact frequency I was looking for. After I found the sweet spot with the guitar, the U99 gave me what I needed. However, I kept the AT4050 in there just to give me mixing options. I found myself using the AT4050 more and less throughout the day depending on my mood, the part being played, etc.. Basically, I haven't made up my mind. On some parts, I'll probably use more of it. On other parts, I'll probably use less.

Later on I switched to a pair of MXL V69 tube condenser microphones in an X-Y micing configuration. This tone was really cool too. I used stereo micing on a song that I knew would need a big wide acoustic guitar sound that wouldn't be competing too much with other tracks. The tone turned out great. I actually got the placement right on the first try, which is very rare with acoustic guitars for me. I was probably about one foot away from the guitar at about the 10th fret, give or take. One microphone was basically facing the soundhole, the other microphone was basically facing the nut.

Conclusion

I'll take a great guitar, the right pick, and a killer song any day over mega expensive recording gear. That's not to say that I don't dream of having a rack full of great mic preamps. It's just that in the home recording world, we are working within certain limitations and therefore we need to pick and choose where we need to compromise. If an audio engineer has to compromise, I would fight with all my life to get the right source instrument. From there, it gets easier to give up gear.

Good luck to you. If this article helped, let me know in the home recording forum.

Brandon