Sneaky Acoustic Guitars

The more I listen to great recordings (and hopefully make great recordings myself) the more I’m beginning to see how the acoustic guitar is sneaking its way into everything. In fact, on my band’s most recent EP recording I ended up laying down acoustic guitar on all 6 songs, when none of them had a single acoustic guitar part written. Why?

Via Alan Levine Flickr

Acoustic Guitars Are Natural Enhancers

My band has primarily a melodic rock oriented sound that is guitar driven. And when I say guitar I really mean electric guitar, because in my humble opinion, electrics are simply way more fun to play. So in both the writing and recording process for our most recent album, we stuck to electrics for the entire project. No acoustics necessary.

As we wrapped up recording a few weeks ago I decided to listen through the songs a few more times to see if they needed anything extra. I discovered one song that had a cool picking part that was getting lost in all the overdrive and distortion. So I restrung my acoustic, miked it up, and replayed the same part overtop the original electric. The result? I could both hear AND feel my electric picking part and it just sounded better!
 

Brining In That Percussive Element

This process continued as I listened intently to the remaining songs. I would literally double some parts with my acoustic, no new parts, and each time the percussive element of the songs would come out in my electrics (enhanced by the acoustic) and it just made everything pop. It sounds simple, but what was OK before, was really coming to life by merely layering an additional acoustic guitar part overtop.

Acoustics Are All Over The Place

I found this phenomenon to be true all over the radio and my iTunes library. Rock, hip hop, you name it. Acoustic guitars are sneaking their way into major recordings that aren’t typically acoustic instrument driven. If you think of them as a natural EQ or enhancer then you’re getting somewhere. It seems other producers have caught on (this is nothing new mind you) and are using them to bring out the best of their tracks, and you can too!