Mixing Acoustic Guitar Part 1 – EQ

High-Pass Filter

Acoustic guitars put out a ton of bass frequencies. You may not realize it, but they do. To prove it, take a low-pass filter and sweep it all the way down to 100 Hz, where you’re only listening to everything below 100 Hz.

Hear a bunch of rumble? I thought you would.

There may be the occasional acoustic singer-songwriter track that calls for this low frequency information, but the majority of the time you need to get rid of it.

How much you roll off is a matter of listening. Some acoustic tracks I roll off at 150 Hz. Others I roll off as high as 400 Hz. Even if you only roll off 100 Hz and below, you’ll be doing yourself a favor.

Low-Mid Cut

The low-mids are where the magic happens. It’s where the core tone of the acoustic guitar resides.

However, chances are the guitar will still sound boomy in the mix if you don’t cut some of these low-mids out.

This is probably the part that will take the longest to figure out. Do I do a deep cut with a narrow Q? Or do I do a shallow cut with a wide Q? In other words, do I want to dramatically remove a small group of frequencies? Or do I want to slightly turn down a large range of frequencies?

Great question. Experiment. Some guitars may resonate at 200 Hz, and you’ll need to do a big ‘ol cut right there. Some may just need to be gently turned down between 150 and 350 Hz.

The low-mid cut will also need to “play nicely” with the high-pass filter. Perhaps you tried the high-pass filter at 200 Hz, but it was too thin. However, at 150 Hz it’s too boomy, and you can’t seem to find some middle ground.

Try leaving the HPF at 150 Hz and doing a cut around 175 Hz. This cut will turn down the offending frequencies without completely eliminating them.

Sometimes simply turning frequencies down is more musical than getting rid of them entirely.

High Frequency Shelf

Finally, you may want to add some sparkle to your acoustic guitar. A gentle high frequency shelf can be great for this. Boost it just a little at a time until you achieve just the right amount of “air” without allowing the track to become harsh.

That’s it for EQ for now. Got a suggestion or a question? Leave a comment. Tomorrow we’ll deal with compression. See you there!