Acoustic Guitar and Bass Clash

[brandondrury]

Well, on one song I'm producing I made a mistake and I'm not sure what to do about it. All the songs that we produced on this record started out as acoustic guitar and vocal songs and we converted them up to full band.

At the time, I didn't pay attention, but the acoustic guitar is finger picked and plays the bass notes. So we weren't thinking about it and simply add bass too, which essentially doubles up the low end quite a bit.

While I didn't notice on my studio monitors, the problem is mega obvious on my home theater rig. There is A LOT of mud. I actually think that a big chunk of it was the acoustic guitar.

One theory of mine is to simply roll off all the low end in the acoustic guitar and letting the bass take that part. Another option would be to leave the low end in the acoustic and redo the bass in some way where they won't fight (I have no clue how I would achieve this).

Anyway, I guess my question is how do you guys make fingerpicked acoustic guitar and bass work together?

Brandon

[dach]

sure, rolling off can work, but have you tried boosting (on the guitar) the harmonics of the fundamental instead and lowering the volume? - so you can have a little of both? - you know, the George Costanza Principle....

I can't hear the track, but in a full band situation, I'd usually try to make a compromise with the guitar instead of screwing up the power and intelligibility of the low end... unless it's whacked... but all is moot until we can hear what is really going on...

[brandondrury]

sure, rolling off can work, but have you tried boosting (on the guitar) the harmonics of the fundamental instead and lowering the volume?

It's about time I started using this trick. I read about it from the more advanced dudes from time to time but it's not something that comes by instinct.

I'll post the track when I get my recording rig back up and running.

Brandon