Easy Acoustic Guitar Mixing 

"Easy, Turbo. Let's not make it too complicated." I am stealing that.

I can't even begin to describe how much this video helped me. I've been a songwriter and performer for over a decade and made the decision to learn the skills to decently record my songs at home for distribution. It's a skill I always wanted to learn and as I'm turning 40 in a month, it's my "skill gift" to myself to develop. I have decent microphones, (Aston Origin, AKG C214) and a beautifully sounding guitar (Gibson J15) . I was beyond frustrated EQ'ing it. Plug in presets, generic EQ settings recommended with quick searches (and even ChatGPT) amounted to nothing. I am recording these for just a vocal and acoustic guitar only song so not a full production. This means the guitar is paramount to get sounding good. Watching this video, as well as the vocal EQ video on your channel, changed the game for me. The philosophy, explanation, clarity, and presentation is hands down the best anyone will find. I'm sure my first few songs will have areas of improvement, but that comes with learning anything. This got me from "I'll never feel good about releasing this" to "Wow. I'm actually a bit surprised and impressed with how good I got this to sound with no experience". I can't thank you enough and can't recommend your channel enough. Beyond appreciative sir!

I tune my guitar a step down and your advice here is PRICELESS !! >> I Was able to clean up some mud and rumble but the dog whining outside my door cuz I locked him out; how do you EQ that thang??? --- Thanks Joe, you're the BEST

Acoustic guitar wasn't even in my radar, but I think videos like this help me know about the kinds of things to listen to even for vocals

Thank you for showing the REAL process 👍👍👍

Thanks for showing the process with mistakes, Joe! That's helpful.

Clear and concise. Really helps.

You are an absolute champion mate, now I get it.

Another great, informative video. Thanks for all you do.

Thank you Joe, very good mixing tips,, I depend on my ears90 percent of the time due to poor eye sight this has been such a help ,,

really like your philosophy haha thanks a lot

Thanks so much Joe, absolutely love your videos. So informative, useful and on point. Much appreciated! Will try this tomorrow on some tracks I recorded earlier today 👍

Great input! Many thanks for sharing this man !

Joe you are a gift from God and we are grateful! So many helpful videos!

Thanks

thanks for unraveling your process!

Thanks for your vids I learn a lot watching them.

Ok, this is amazing. Thank you sooooo much.

Thank you joe❤

TNX!!!

Big help this tutorial Joe Thanks for your time.

Awesome presentation! A fan in NH🎸🎸🎸

Great video and you really explained this well. Thank you

There are many acoustic guitar EQ videos, this being one of them, but I wish there were more nylon string guitar EQ videos.

I like your Brando impersonation, Joe. Made me happy.

I enjoyed this, I like the more organic way of learning, describing the sound rather than being technical. One thing though, if you're using a multiband then that's not going to be just EQ isn't it? It'll be compression and eq combined

Good video Joe. I will try it out..

Fabulous

Thank goodness you said no 2 tracks are the same! That's what's missing in so many "Producer" videos. I personally like more jangly guitar but that's just me...

Haha, you’re hilarious! Love your videos. 👍🏽

On its own this sounds great, my mixes tend to be on the denser side. In my case, I usually add a couple of db of limiting and parallel compression. In a denser mix acoustics need a little bit of body. The gentle limiting is almost inaudible but gives you a bit more headroom. Your eq method is spot on. Sometimes there is a resonance or two to notch out.

I recorded accoustic guitar only two times in my life. I found it super easy to record and mix.

I love it when Joe plays devil's advocate. Hilarious!

Very informative video, as always. Can I assume that this also applies to (acoustic) ukulele, or are there considerable differences?

hi joe nice tutorial, really! A video on fingerstyle guitar mixing would be very interesting, which is very very different from chords for solo or acoustic guitar in a band.

Great video. I wonder if the thumping issue could be fixed through a better take and performance rather then eq. I’ve learned a lot from your videos over the years. Thanks joe.

The thumbnail looks like the sort of EQ you would use in a live setting where all you have to work with is the DI off of the Piezo pickup, which will require a lot more work than a microphone recording.

I literally just recorded a new acoustic guitar part for a new song of ours yesterday so I can play with your eq ideas with it! Of course i wont do anything permanent yet because i also have you 5 mixing rules....no plugins yet! 😊

Great video Sir, I love the divisions of the frequency ranges. 1-5-1-3, easy to remember and an effective description of what to listen for when looking for problems in the source track. I have some work coming up on acoustic tracks for my friend's original Christian music he has written over the years and is finally getting around to record, these suggestions should come in handy.

Can you please do one with on a Classic guitar, with nylonstrings 🙏

Why there is no lock function inside pro EQ for x/y movement. That´s the only point I´m missing, but because of that I don´t use it. Sadly and should be not that difficult to add this function.

For years, I've been trying to figure out how to get that zither-like, percussive transient on strummed acoustic guitar that one hears on so many records. I've asked in every forum I've come across, but never found the answer. I've tried SPL Transient Designer. It can't just be a matter of a sharp, narrow boost to 8k, or 10k, because it's not achieving what I'm after. There are countless recordings that have this -- one that comes to mind is the Wilburys song "Handle Me With Care." I have come to believe this must be something that a top end boost on a Neve or SSL console can achieve. If anybody has any ideas, I'm all ears :)

Nice vid. i always thought, is EQ always important? Or should you do a lot with EQ? Especially if the sound comes from a top quality guitar. I think it’s a lot about music preference though. For example Radiohead’s exit music for a film, is a classic masterpiece in my book, and it has this deep guitar sound. Makes me wonder.

I really like this approach, however, I've never heard an acoustic guitar that doesn't sound better with a little light compression on it.

I have a question for you, you say just EQ, but what about iZotope Nuetron 4 that uses A.i. to make the instrument better? It uses a couple of effects to adjust the sound? Also, how come you haven't used iZotopes EQ plugins? I know Presonus ones are fine, but their also kinda limited too in what you can do. i.e. Side-tone adjustments.

I have to keep reminding myself to substract and avoid boosting 😬

does anybody have a link for the multiband dynamics plugin?

Why do you not use the Multiband Dynamics to do your correcting? I assume it is so you can be a bit more "surgical." Correct?

Video starts at 1:50

I don't need no philosophy on nothing

How can I send a copy to you Joe, for a critique of this very particular situation. The engineer and mixer/mastering engineer are two different humans. This recording is extremely tricky. I am a prime member

Simultaneous acoustic+vocals in 1 mic?

"Slow Down Turbo" 🤣🤣🤣

the G STRING😂😂 15:02

'PromoSM' 🤭

Experiment. I spent hours sweeping and cutting to train my ear

Also, I feel like you cut out the mid range to much, you created an empty feeling mid range, I wouldn't have made that mid cut spread so wide like you did, but I guess it's a matter of what you want to hear as a mixing engineer.