Getting Wide and Lush Acoustic Guitars

This is a simple technique that creates a beautiful spread on acoustic guitar. It requires a few things first:

• Acoustic guitar recorded on two tracks.
  • One track with a mic capturing the neck. I like to use a small diaphragm condenser.
  • Another track with a mic capturing the body. I usually go large diaphragm condenser.
  • (or go with some other XY/stereo mic config)
• Two aux channels with a reverb. One aux panned hard left the other panned hard right.

Usually when guitars are mic’d with two mics like this, in the mix you pan them hard left and right. Like body left, neck right.

The trick here is that for the guitar track you pan left, send a bit to the reverb aux panned right. For the track panned right, send to the left reverb aux. What happens is that the reverb will fill the opposing sides and creates a super spacious and wide sound unlike just sending both guitar tracks to one aux. You can get an even better effect if the reverbs each have a slightly different setting. That’s all dependent on the sound you’re going for though.

That’s it! I hope the explanation is not too confusing. If so please let me know so I can clarify any questions. Give it a try!