Plug it in or Mic it... that is the question

What's best: To plug your acoustic in or to mike it?

  • Total voters
    13
  • Poll closed .
Col Mustard

Col Mustard

Ambassador of Perseverance
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All right, get ten guitarists around a table and set down a couple
of pitchers of beer, and ask this question. Should we plug in our acoustics, or mic them?

But before you do... set up a few video cameras to record reactions from
several sides of the table. AND make sure everyone checks their gun before
they come in the room. No pistols at this table please. We don't want any hangin's

As elder statesman (candidate) and resident folkie, I'll answer first:

Gimme both please!

I've always been a "gimme both' kind of guy. Gibson or Fender, Scots or Irish Whiskey.
Ford or Chevvy, Lager or Pilsner, Karen or her sister Sharon... I'll take both please.

I like to plug in when I'm onstage with a live audience and whatever sound system we get
to work with. For me, using an excellent Baggs mic inside my acoustic, and plugging that into
a pedal board with a tuner, a reverb unit, a good chorus pedal and a high quality EQ...
this solves problems for me. I can very quickly send a signal to the sound man that he can
mix properly, and then I get a sound I recognize out of the monitors... I can relax and let the
sound man do his job. That speaks worlds.
Amber pedalboard 04-01-16.jpg
You'll note that I have my starting points painted on my pedals with white craft paint... so I can see it in
unknown light, and quickly set my signal to a mixable level... and tweak it later if necessary. The box on the left is my Fishman Pro EQ Platinum Plus... which has an XLR out to plug into the mixing board with a mic cable. As if I were miking my guitar, but with all this control at my feet.

But when I go into the studio to record the tone of my acoustic guitar in a controlled environment
and to include in the mix of a recorded song... there's no substitute for the tones we get from
a couple of carefully placed high quality microphones. That is a certainty. I would not consider
bringing this pedal board into the studio.

So what's a guitarist to do then, eh? Hold out for studio sound in an unknown live setting?
Or try to control the signal that goes to the board, and work with the sound man to get the
best of whatever situation you find yourself in, and quickly...

For me, the answer is easy. I struggled for years, trying to keep my guitar tone effective while
miking it onstage. I never liked the sound of our early acoustic guitar pickups... but I never felt
comfortable trying to keep my guitar's best tone in the narrow cone of a directional mike. I like to
jump around onstage, feeling that this adds to the performance dynamic.

So I always plug in when playing live: using my Baggs Lyric internal microphone or my Fishman Elipse blend... a microphone and piezo pickup combo... played through the small pedal board illustrated above.

and I always mike it when recording.
Both methods work for me
 
I don't do a lot of recording. I like to stand up and move around when playing so unless I'm at home practicing, where I still stand, it's plugged in. When I do record I don't own a mic so it's plugged in.
 
I feel that technology has progressed while this discussion raged among acoustic players.
One friend of mine has a speech that he always makes: "If you want to make a $2000 guitar
sound like a $100 guitar, just install a pickup and plug it in to what ever."

This was true once... but is it true now? I can't change his mind. Some peoples' minds are closed.
I personally feel that engineers working for numerous companies have been able to improve the
sound of an amplified acoustic guitar.

Mine certainly is effective... Onstage I can see the effect, and sometimes people come up after
a show to ask me about my guitar(s)...
Acorn Theatre 09-14-12@100.jpg
Usually I interpret that as a reaction to the reverb, or to the chorus pedal
which people don't normally associate with acoustic guitars, and which may have made question marks occur
in balloons over the heads of fairly sophisticated listeners. One would think we could trust an experienced
sound person to add reverb when appropriate, but in the venues I play, that's not always a given. So I bring
my own, damn it. And it seems to be effective.
 
Kerry Brown said:
I don't do a lot of recording. I like to stand up and move around when playing so unless I'm at home practicing, where I still stand, it's plugged in. When I do record I don't own a mic so it's plugged in.
Click to expand...
I much prefer standing to practice, even at home. When I recently got back into playong after many years hiatus, I couldnt find any if my old straps so I could only play sitting. I asked my GF for an early Christmas present so I could play/practice standing.
 
I voted for plug in onstage, and mic in the studio.

My reasoning? Much like what has already been said, mic'ing an acoustic guitar live is a difficult prospect and requires the guitarist to pretty much stay still. The mic will also pick up other, extraneous sounds from the stage...not just the guitar. During a live performance, a lot has to do with, well, the performance! Subtleties in sound between a guitar pickup and a microphone will not really matter. The audience will respond to the performance. Nearly any of today's acoustic pickups will provide good sound in a live environment.

The studio seems like a different paradigm. Capturing that with mics seems a better prospect. You'll actually capture the sound of the guitar as it is heard by others, and extraneous noises are more controllable.
 
I'm all for mic'ing anything, either acoustics or amps. Plugging WILL reduce the mojo in your tone.

But, I voted get an SG. Because I'm bad. :D

This is how I get all my things done:

6916AAF8-20D6-48E8-8A0E-27BA8D400FDF_zps7td5wfiw.jpeg
 
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Even though I am a newbie to the plug in acoustic, I say mic'd is better of you love your tone AND you know how to mic a amp. If you do not, you better learn or just plug it in.
 
As for mic'ing amps, I much prefer to do that. I've tried using the emulated out jacks, and I don't like it as much as mic'ing the speaker.
 
At smaller venues, I will go directly into the board as well. For larger places I find I need a little more sound on stage then what the monitors or sound man can provide. Since I have a few pedals and get most of my sound thru a DR 880, all I need on stage is a 200W powered monitor speaker. Works good for me.
 
To me it's not really about the size of the venue...

If the venue is small, I don't mic the amp, I let it speak as loud as it takes, off board. I do a good soundcheck with the band and the house tech and I'm good to go.

If the venue is bigger enough to require PAs and such, I mic the amp. My Shure SM57 is always inside my gig backpack, and Diego (our other guitarist) always has his Sennheiser with him, because sometimes the house tech is lazy and insists in plugging the guitars into the board, and we never accept it.

Our answer: "plug the drum kit and we'll let you plug the guitars"
 
I have some lovely A/Es that I play out, plugged into a Fender Acoustasonic 30 watt. My practice for recording is to plug in, mic the amp (Shure SM-57), mic the soundhole (another SM-57) and mic again at a predetermined distance to capture room ambience from different points(Audio Technica 2035).
 
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