Record Guitar Like A PRO (& revealing my BIG secret!)

I'm showing you how I record & mix guitars and make 'em sound MASSIVE and larger than life. All the tricks & tips you need to do it yourself! From the mics to the plugins and effects I use.

FOLLOW ME:

Beginner Guitar Course:

SUPPORT ME:

▶GUITAR◀
Furch Red Gc-SR Master's Choice

Hi, my name is Paul Davids! I am a guitar player, teacher, producer, and overall music enthusiast from the Netherlands! I try to inspire people from all over the world with my videos, here on YouTube.

Thank you for watching!
Paul

Below is the gear I use to make these videos. They redirect to Amazon and provide me with a small kickback should you purchase any of these things.

▶GEAR LIST◀

▶MICS◀

▶SOUND◀

▶CAMERAS◀

[hardworkhardplay]

This could have been an expensive “MasterClass” and I’m glad it’s instead FirstClass n Free. Most excellent

[perihelion]

This is simply the best video on micing and recording acoustic guitar that I have ever seen.


I have tried for years to inform folks that the sound hole on a guitar is not for sound. It's actually an air hole, to prevent sound wave reflections and resulting harmonics from destroying the tone.


Also, the center and apex of sound production on an acoustic guitar is the bridge. Energy radiates out from the bridge through the sound board [top] of the guitar. Not very much energy is reflected by the back, and very little by the neck. Micing near the bridge is a great location, and micing near where the fret board meets the body is another very good location, as it will pick up the higher overtones.


You can see how much louder the input from the bridge mic was in the corresponding wave forms.


The mixing and mastering part of this video is sheer brilliance. The use of selected compression and reverb is awesome, and the EQ balance is equally amazing, as well as the additional tracks to fill out the sound, and make it huge and beautiful.


This short video was like a free lesson on studio set up and recording. Truly well done!

[aaronjohnson]

This is absolutely fascinating. One of my favorite things about YouTube - one of my favorite things in life - is watching knowledgable people talk about what they're passionate about.

[yungdnny]

I’ve been searching for a tutorial like this for almost a year I think. I really respect the fact that you emphasize that people don’t need to have your exact same gear and tools or spend a ton of money to get good results. Thank you!

[JesusOfPaign]

The idea of sending the left side’s reverb to the right, and vice versa, isn’t something i’ve heard other people do, but it was something that i thought to try on one recording a while back. I thought it sounded cool, and now i’m glad to see that someone who knows way more than me suggests doing it too

[jacobbentley]

That reverb panning trick is insane... time to buy another mic and mess with recording acoustic stuff

[comicsam]

You're like the Bob Ross of guitar

[RCSmiths]

Recording acoustic is definitely not an easy or simple task I believe! Really appreciate the advice and look into your gear man, helps out a ton!

[moosey]

Paul, that's a real masterclass.
Best tutorial on acoustic guitar recording I've seen - and heard.
Those final touches are amazing. Up until then I was thinking, OK, sounds alright. Then.. Oh man!
Thanks so much!

[rayclark]

The before and after, neck 4:05 then bridge 4:14 and the final combination 15:07
This is the best 16 minutes of Youtube for guitar recording.

[martindekker]

I bought myself 2 cheap T-Bone mics and tried this recording tutorial. I was surprised about the awesome result I got. Thank you very much Paul and keep up the great video’s you provide. Love it and so inspiring. Lot’s of New guitar energie for me, thx.

[omniwurm]

The effort that went into the video is commendable! Thank you so much ❤️

[anthonypoole]

This is, without doubt, the best guitar recording video I've seen. I have tried for years to learn how to simply record guitar and watched countless hours of YouTube videos of producers explaining things in too much detail so I get overly lost and confused. This breaks it down perfectly. Thank you!

[MrNotewordy]

This mic placement technique is now the only way I'll record my acoustic. The moment I hard-panned each channel I was sold. It sounded like I was in the room standing in front of someone playing the guitar instead of hearing a recording of someone playing the guitar. Thank you, Paul, for this amazing tutorial.

[billmarshall]

As an ex-sound engineer I can add my approval to your mic positioning and EQ. Back in my analog days the reverb trick was a bit harder but we did try something similar when equipment allowed and it definitely worked, but maybe not as well as you're doing here. Nice ot be taken back to those days - keep up the good work!

[zekewillard]

I would've paid to watch this. Thank you, you're a good man.

[Noone-of-your-Business]

I use a matched pair of small diaphragm condenser mics on a stereo bar in XY configuration, at a 90° angle. This way, I get two (almost) identical sounding tracks which simply give me the stereo space I want. Admittedly, this does not offer the different timbres you get with different mics in different positions, but it completely removes any risk of phase issues without having to worry about the distances between the mics and the instrument. So yeah, I just learnt something new. 😃 Instead of the hard-panning trick, I usually record the same track twice (or use the two best takes of any recording loop) to pan these almost (but not quite) hard left and right to add more depth to the guitar. This also works great for electric guitar.

[XxJoNnYo]

Hi Paul, I don’t usually leave comments for videos I watched. But I really wanted to say this video completely changed my acoustic guitar recording’s standard so a massive thank you from Hong Kong for willing to share your knowledge with us! Liked & subscribed, keep up with the good work and God bless you man!

[oliverrea]

I thought I knew a decent amount about recording and mixing. Turns out, I’m barely even getting started. The difference he made with EQ alone is amazing. Thank you very much for sharing this video, it’s an absolute privilege that we can get this for free on YouTube. People have charged money for less useful things

[dewinchy]

Even though I've heard of the phase problem, I haven't seen it visualized that easily and effectively like you did it. So that's one thing I'll be thinking of next time.