I was having trouble getting a recording of my acoustic guitar that fit well in a song that I’ve been working on. Everything I had tried was either too boomy or too thin. The song is really dense with a lot of sonic information in it already, yet I wanted the guitar sound to be full as it is a primary instrument of the arrangement. I did a quick search and found this video on YouTube.

The gist of this method is to place the mic in front of the sound hole but angled towards the 12th fret. That way you capture both the fullness of the body (without the boomy-ness of facing the sound hole directly) and the brightness coming from the fretboard.

While this was good I decided to add a second track, this time using a technique that I used when playing and singing at the same time. This approach involves placing the mic at about the height of and facing your right shoulder, above the guitar but below your mouth. It’s a nice warm and full sound, not too harsh or heavy.

Between the two tracks I was able to get a blend that worked well with the mix.