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How to Equalize an Acoustic Guitar

Acoustic guitars are part of practically every genre of modern music. While these instruments are primarily related to country, western, acoustic rock, folk and soft and hard rock, they are also found in jazz, blues and even pop. Because of the nature of the instrument, getting the equalization right is difficult. Even tinny acoustic guitars emit a good amount of bass and recording equipment picks that up. To equalize your acoustic guitar, you have to play with the settings a great deal to achieve the right balance.

Things You'll Need

  • Acoustic guitar
  • Acoustic guitar recording mic
  • Recording software
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Instructions

    • 1

      Work outside the presets on the recording software. While these presets have effects built in, along with accommodating good tones and frequencies, they are "one-size-fits-all" and nothing is true about that when recording an acoustic guitar.

    • 2

      Set your high pass filter to cut into the lows on the bass frequency. Try a variety of settings, staring at 100 hertz and working up to 400 hertz. Record a few measures and listen back to find out if the lows are bottoming out, creating a rumbling type of noise.

    • 3

      Mix the low-mids with the high pass frequency. Play around with the hertz settings in your low-mids. Try different ranges, coupled with the high pass frequency. This is where the instrument truly shines. You want the low-mids to make instrument sound as though it has depth but not does not bottom out. Concurrently, the high pass ought to give out the high range but not sound thin or tinny.

    • 4

      Sprinkle a little high frequency shelf into the equalization mix. Add enough to give the acoustic guitar flare but not so much that it overpowers the recording track. As with the other settings, this will be a matter of trial and error.

Recording Music

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