How To Record Acoustic Guitar With the N22

Audio Samples and Techniques Using the AEA N22

The N22 is an exceptional tool for recording acoustic guitar. With its near-field design, balanced low-end, and extended top-end, the N22 excels at capturing the true essence of your instrument while limiting room reflections. A bump in response at 3kHz delivers enough bite to make the N22 the only mic necessary to record your guitar, eliminating the need to blend additional mics for top-end balance.

The N22 delivers balanced sound 2 to 16 inches from the source with the help of internal mechanics which roll off the low-end of a signal before it hits the ribbon. This feature allows for better performance in close-up recording applications than one would achieve with more traditional ribbon mics due to their large amount of proximity effect.

Close Miking

Try positioning the N22 roughly 4 to 16 inches from the guitar, facing the 12th fret. Within that range, you can move the N22 closer to accentuate the guitar’s low-end or pull it away to lessen that effect. Angling the mic away from the guitar’s sound hole can also lessen excessive low-end.

An acoustic guitar’s comprehensive sound comes from both the sound hole and the strings, so pulling back the N22 from the instrument allows it to blend together the two sounds.

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Singer-Songwriters

When recording an artist that plays guitar and sings simultaneously, take advantage of the exceptional rejection offered by the null planes of the N22’s polar pattern in order to reject the vocal and isolate the guitar.

With one N22, position it how you would normally mic an acoustic guitar, in between the sound hole and the 12 fret of the guitar. Make sure that the null of the microphone is pointing towards the singer’s mouth. With another N22, position so that the ribbon is aimed towards the singer’s voice and the null is pointing towards the sound hole of the guitar. This will limit the bleed between both microphones giving both mics a great isolation.

Blumlein Stereo-Miking

The further from the source, the more indirect sound will be captured in the N22. The NUVO Stereo Kit allows you to easily setup a pair of N8s in Blumlein. Blumlein technique is great when you want to capture a very direct image of the source. The technique is precise and more closely resembles what your ears are hearing than many of the other stereo techniques.