“Legend has it that Robert Johnson was recorded in the corner of a room facing the wall”: How to record acoustic guitars at home – and why you need a dedicated setup

A man records a dreadnought acoustic guitar with a pair of condenser mics.

Anyone who has pointed a condenser mic at an acoustic guitar in the hope of hearing an accurately captured and musically inspiring recording upon playback may have instead felt disappointment at the opposite.

I know I have. The acoustic guitar – whether flat-top or archtop, steel- or nylon-strung, flat-wound or rubber-bridged – can be a bit of a pain to capture, especially for the self-recording player. The reality is the vast majority of acoustic recordings are tracked, at best, in a modest home studio, or, at worst, a completely untreated bedroom (or toilet…).