The neck of the guitar, meaning the higher end of the fretboard up to the head and tuning peg, and the bridge of a guitar, meaning the bottom end of the guitar, below the sound hole in the case of an acoustic guitar, have two distinctly different tones. On the acoustic guitar, the neck end of the guitar features more brightness and the percussive sounds of the strings themselves while the bridge end features more body and bass.
This is actually the inverse of how electric guitar pickups work where the bridge pickup is brighter and the neck is warmer, but that’s a different principle.
When recording acoustic guitar, we can use two microphones to simultaneously capture each of these extreme ends of the guitar to create a custom blend and give ourselves a lot of options in the mix, so let’s talk how to do the neck and bridge recording technique, also known as the 12 fret and bridge technique, on an acoustic guitar with two microphones.
Neck and Bridge Recording
As I covered in my guide on the best mic for recording acoustic guitar, condenser microphones are typically the best suited for better capturing the relatively subtle and complicated nuances of the dynamic range of acoustic guitar, particularly when the performance is more focused on finger picking rather than strumming.
This applies to whether you’re using one or two microphones to record your acoustic guitar.
Refer to that above linked to guide for recommendations on the best mic(s) for recording your acoustic, but let’s talk placement for those two microphones with the neck and bridge recording technique:
As you can see, there are two prime locations to place each mic at, one favoring the neck for more brightness and character and one favoring the bridge for more body and warmth.
Let’s talk about each one in greater depth.
Neck Position
Despite this being known as the neck position, the ideal spot for this first microphone is the 12th fret (which is generally considered to be the best place to mic an acoustic guitar in general, particularly if you just have one microphone).
This gives you a nice blend of the brightness and percussive sound of the strings with a little body. If you want to tilt that microphone to be angled to favor the top end of the fretboard closer to the actual neck, you can do that to get more brightness.
Unless you’re using a pair of the same microphones which makes this point moot, you’ll generally want to position your flatter frequency response microphone (which typically works out to be your more expensive microphone) at this position.
This allows you to consequently use your thinner microphone to favor the bridge position to pick up more of the warmth, creating a better and more similar blend between what the two microphones capture.
Bridge Position
The bridge position on the other hand is at the actual bridge of the guitar, meaning where you insert the strings and the ball/loop end of the strings catch.
Position your cheaper microphone here to capture more of the bass, warmth, and low mids of the guitar to compensate for what’s typically a weaker frequency response in the lower frequencies on the mic itself.
Make sure you’re not positioning the microphone near or angling it toward the sound hole as this will just make that mic pick up an overly boomy and borderline useless tone.
Distance From Guitar
There’s generally considered to be a kind of perfect ratio when it comes to the distance of the microphones relative to the guitar and each other.
This 1:3 ratio essentially states that however many inches the mics are from the guitar, multiply that by three and that’s how far the two mics should be from one another.
In my experience, there’s a sweet spot where, if you’ve got both microphones set up where I recommended with relation to the neck and bridge, roughly 6″ away from the guitar works well as this is a good distance for a relatively dry sound and so that the microphones are 18″ apart.
This may vary slightly from guitar to guitar and additionally assumes a full size acoustic.
As with any kind of miking of a source, it seriously helps to have someone else playing while you adjust the microphones and listen to the playback live to find the sweet spot.
Make sure whoever is playing is sitting down to get a nice consistent performance relative to the mics as this discourages movement while playing. As always, you should always try different spots in the room to find that best spot acoustically which minimizes both unwanted reflections and frequency dead spots, not to mention any location which minimizes room noises like computer fans, AC, etc.
And as with any time you record the same source with two or more microphones, it’s also important to be aware of any phase issues. That said, you can fix these easily enough in the mix after the fact with my guide on getting in phase audio.
As far as mixing goes after you’ve got your recordings, you can pan these out wide to give the acoustic some nice and natural stereo spread with one side of the stereo field representing more of the body, warmth, and fundamental sounds of the notes with the other side representing more of the brightness and character of the acoustic, not to mention the punch of the strings themselves.
Regardless of how you choose to pan it, the neck and bridge recording technique adds a lot of fullness to your acoustic.
I put together an entire overview on how to mix acoustic guitar, so refer to that for getting your recorded acoustic sounding just right in the mix every time.
For more orientations when it comes to miking your acoustic, check out my overview on the various acoustic guitar recording techniques whether you’re using one or two microphones along with my guide on how to record acoustic guitar for tips on how to get the perfect tone recorded in your mix as you hear it in the room.
