Acoustic guitar is the instrument I get sent most often, and it arrives with the same two problems nearly every time: it is boomy in the low mids, and it has a hard, quacky honk in the middle that makes it sound like a cheap pickup even when the guitar is expensive.
Both are fixable in about three minutes.
The Boom: Around 200 Hz
The single most useful move on almost any acoustic recording is a gentle dip around 200 Hz, 2 to 3 dB, reasonably wide.
That is where the body resonance piles up — the sound of the soundhole. Solo'd, the guitar loses a little fullness. In a mix, it stops fighting your bass and your vocal, and it suddenly sounds bigger, not smaller.
Follow it with a high-pass around 80 Hz. There is nothing musical down there on an acoustic, just handling noise and room rumble eating your headroom.
"Solo'd it sounds thinner. In the mix it sounds bigger. That is the trade you want."
The Quack: 1 to 2 kHz
If you recorded via a pickup — especially an under-saddle piezo — you will have a hard, nasal quality that no amount of top end fixes.
Sweep a narrow boost between 1 and 2 kHz until you find the spot that makes you wince, then cut it 3 to 5 dB. That one move does more to make a DI acoustic sound like a real guitar than anything else. Add a little body back around 150 Hz if it feels hollow afterwards.
Compression: Less Than You Think
Acoustic guitar is mostly transient. The pick attack, the string noise, the way a strum swells — that is the instrument. Compress it hard and you flatten exactly what makes it sound alive.
Go gentle. A low ratio, only 2 to 3 dB of gain reduction, and a slow attack around 20 ms so the pick gets through before the compressor closes. If you can clearly hear it working, it is too much.
Recording It Better In The First Place
If you are mic'ing rather than going direct, point the microphone at the twelfth fret — where the neck meets the body — not at the soundhole. The soundhole is a bass port. Aim there and you get boom you will spend the whole mix trying to EQ back out.
Twelfth fret, about 20 to 30 cm back, gives you a balanced sound that needs almost no fixing.
Free: the one-page quick reference
Compression starting points for every instrument plus the frequency map, on a single page you can keep open while you mix. Free — just tell me where to send it.
Get the Free Sheet →Want the actual numbers for every instrument?
I put together a cheat sheet with the full chain for each instrument — the exact EQ moves, compression ratio, attack, release and gain reduction, plus effects and a complete mastering chain. It is the reference I use every day at Darkstorm Studios. Works with any DAW and any plugins.
See the Cheat Sheet →Two Guitars Beat One
If the acoustic is the main instrument in the song, record it twice and pan the takes hard left and right. Not a copy — an actual second performance.
The tiny differences in timing and pitch between two takes create a width and thickness that no stereo widener replicates. It also opens a hole in the middle of the stereo image where the vocal sits perfectly. This is the oldest trick in acoustic recording and it still beats every plugin.