How to Mix Acoustic Guitar - "Butter Compression"

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[@TejaVu]

The 2 dislikes use brickwall limiters on their acoustic guitars

[@nedim_guitar]

Anyone else notice at the beginning of the video that little thing on the screen jumping up and down? ... I'm good at paying attention, only to the wrong things. 😄

[@MikePiligrim]

yet another one great tip, man! now my guitar is gonna sound much BUTTER than before!

[@gcoudert]

This video has been a revelation! I don't use a lot of acoustic guitar but my guitar recordings have always sounded 'rigid' from the way I applied compression. Thanks for this tip!

[@ANON0061]

This is the compression setting I've been looking for since years - thanks Joe!

[@shomystilllazy]

Best compression trick ever! Works great for vocals too!

[@V.G.A.M.]

Have been searching videos on acoustic guitar compression, but all videos show compression on rhythm guitar, couldn't find one which shows how to compress acoustic guitar solos. Have you done any videos on ac. guitar solo compression?

[@jefftravilla]

I love compression on acoustic. I love hearing it grab onto it, idk why. Maybe it’s the pumping thing. When you were demoing what you don’t like about it, I was rooting for turning the threshold down even more. Maybe it’s just cause that’s how I’ve always done it since the days of my little Alesis compressor from RadioShack, so that’s how I hear it as “correct” in my mind. Really just depends on the mix though. Usually in a dense mix, I don’t like the acoustic transients poking out. Not saying I’m right. I just like what I like.

[@storzbickel4328]

took 3 min to say that this is only for picky acoustic in a big mix. Thanks for wasting 3 min of my time.

[@cascadingrivermusic2744]

So basically because the Threshold is so low, you are not giving the signal a chance to spend any time in that pre compression stage ( set by the attack time) thus avoiding the pumping that ruins the transients of an acoustic guitar. Nice idea and also that is a nice sounding compressor

[@HomeStudioCorner]

👍

[@MelomanTheNerd]

That’s a really nice approach. The -46dB threshold is crazy ... but it works ! Almost seems to be de-harshing some of that 3-5k that’s so prevalent in all guitars. This was cool. Hmm 🤔 might have to try this on vocals as a double knee of sorts.

[@timodele1888]

Excellent tip Joe!

[@joelonsdale]

That's great - I'm going to try that tomorrow... Another great video!

[@Noone-of-your-Business]

Interesting trick - gotta try that on my next mix. I see your point about _not_ compressing acoustic guitar, but it seems to me that you are focussing this on mixes that have little else but the guitar (and vocals), and that's reasonable. However, as soon as I start adding bass, drums, and other bells and whistles, I need to compress to make the guitar cut through the mix without dominating it. It also greatly depends on how you record the guitar: back in '99, when I was thrilled to have a 450Mhz CPU and a SoundBlaster in my first PC, I could not afford any microphones other than a trusty SM-58 for vocals. And I also only had two mono channels input, and we needed to record some pieces with guitar and vocals at the same time because our guitarists did not want to play on a click track. So I was forced to use the crappy piezo pickups they had on their acoustics, and boy, did I learn to hate those. Being at the bridge itself, these pickups maximize high frequency output and have shattering attack transients. Not compressing those would have lead to the guitars becoming almost inaudible in the mix, because so much of the dynamic range was wasted on the gigantic attack phase, so there was no way around compressing them. Heavily. And because a single 450MHz CPU cannot handle inserts on 12 tracks, I had to find _so_ many workarounds to keep playback from stuttering. One of them was to apply the compression to the guitars _offline_ instead of on-the-fly, so I could not change the settings for the compressor without major rollbacks. I would have sold my grandma for the kind of equipment I am recording on today... 😉 So understandably, I have grown slightly wary of guitar dynamics - although a good microphone helps subside the paranoia these days...

[@bartimusprime4697]

It's like my ol' Daddy used to say; he'd say "Don't you worry, Son... less is more". ;+)

[@FadersAnd]

Was watching thinking - he reminds me of Kevin award then he mentioned him lol

[@sevenlessshadows5329]

It also seems to do something to the high end that I liked. Very professional sounding! I've always tried to compress acoustics, but they never sound how I want them to. This made a small but very helpful difference. I need to try this out!

[@noahaikens2862]

The video in my "Up Next" Box is Peanut Butter: How it's made Makes sense.

[@callumfrew285]

that guitar part is beautiful

[@shovon.mixnmore]

exactly what i was looking for in your previous video. thanks a lot. you are awesome :)

[@christpinujo4082]

Thank you ☺️

[@DeerCreekAudio]

Slap that PreSonus fat channel stuff on your acoustics....after your parametric maybe... fat channel.. Fab stuff. Great vid, Joe.

[@HomeStudioCorner]

Yeah it’s great but these are better plugins for demonstrating concepts.

[@DeerCreekAudio]

egg-zack-lee ;-)

[@soundforger2419]

Thanks for that suggestion, Joe! I don't like compressing acoustic guitars either - so I bite the desk here for the last two hours 'cause even 2:1 with a 1.5 Ratio sounded bad, squished. With this tip I got the hang of it 5 minutes down the way! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

[@brucegaminglee5685]

Still here man.

[@marcelmiagi4579]

Joe, what are your thoughts on using multi band compressors on an acoustic? Maybe just using a specific freq band and not the whole spectrum? I’m wondering about 300-400 Hz, specifically. Thank your the great content and help! One of the best channels on KZbin, period.

[@KhasrouhRecords]

i do parallel compression on acoustic guitar

[@HomeStudioCorner]

Most of the time I don't like the sound of compression on acoustic guitar.

[@frodev728]

“on accident”?!? nooooooooooooo.... 🙃

[@keithrowe1007]

Thanks Joe. As usual, useful information presented in a concise way. I think I’m going to try to compare this in a mix to parallel compression. That might be interesting. I think they are entirely different animals. Cheers

[@DeerCreekAudio]

Joe...off topic question. I'm running S1pro and have the faderport 8. I have enough outboard preamps and actually don't need many for my studio uses. Do you think I'm set OK or what do you think about adding a 24 (or 32) live series III mixer? LIke I said, the preamps wouldn't really be the need...just all the faders for DAW control. ...or just be happy with the faderport? Maybe they'll come up with a faderport 24 or expansion banks of JUST faders. Since you have a Series III live... but I know you had a [temporary?] snafu with the DAW control. Thoughts??

[@stephenfell4338]

Great if you had had 4 acoustic tracks mixed on a bus panned 2 left 2 right (1 being an octive up)would you apply this just to the bus only, or do it on each track ? Happy new recording year 🎈

[@DjBydLo]

This is an amazing trick Joe, thank you

[@RaymondPoston]

I will try this method, but "to my ears," it sounded better without compression. I will do it in a mix with other instruments to test this method. Thanks.

[@Fabio5Corde]

"Butter" very appropriate! Thanks

[@KiloMegaGigaTerra94]

I can't believe I never thought of this! Awesome advice!

[@robfriedrich2822]

I know compression on acoustic guitar, it's like turning the guitar into something that walks on water instead that it will drown in the rest of the music.

[@tozguitar]

Thanks for the vid Joe. I'm recording tracks with just acoustic and vocals. If i don';t compress the acoustic track individually but the master mix should be compressed?

[@nedim_guitar]

It's usually a little compression on the mixbus to sort of glue things together. Just use your ears and see what happens. Maybe you don't need any compression there either.

[@tontondm1419]

Iloveyou 😭🙏🏾 you save my life

[@taejunkim]

Thank you, very good source to study

[@Andrew-vr9hr]

4:32 that sounds great it makes me want to play guitar immediately

[@SamA-ll2dt]

This series has been so good! The same thing with a couple of other instruments would be fantastic :)

[@-IYN-]

Really nice trick. Thanks!

[@SPGH1991]

Amazing. Thank you!

[@JMakustik]

Mr ,, please subtitel indonesia

[@audiosputnik9878]

Nice trick thank you!

[@MusisiIndomalAgus]

Please preset

[@AidenBradley95]

Acoustic and compression is one of the hardest battles in mixing.

[@allyhellkiller5535]

Piano seems harder for me.

[@whereismymind667]

Nice one ! Thanks Joe !!!

[@SjaakShirly6559]

Joe, I was wondering...do you use reverb on a acoustic guitar too, besides eq?

[@HomeStudioCorner]

Almost never.

[@SjaakShirly6559]

Joe Gilder • Home Studio Corner Okay Thanks! Learned a lot from you,

[@JulianFernandez]

gonna try this one out! Thanks!

[@matthewleger5605]

i appreciate this one

[@jerrymckenzie6205]

Good stuff

[@rickbiessman6084]

Guy makes video about compression, starting with spoken segment that sounds overcompressed to me... Ooooops. :D