Almost every acoustic guitar recording has too much 200-400Hz. That’s the hollow body resonance, and cutting it is one of the most iconic EQ cuts in mixing. After that, the biggest call in my EQ for acoustic guitar is how much low end to keep, and that depends on the arrangement more than the guitar. Every guitar, mic and room is different, so nothing here is a preset. These are the places I look first. Start here, then let your ears decide.
The cheat sheet
| Move | Where | How |
|---|---|---|
| High-pass | 80-120Hz to start 80Hz solo acoustic 150Hz in a full mix | Gentle slope. Push it up until the body starts to thin, then back off. |
| Warmth / body | 80-180Hz | Keep it if the acoustic is the lowest instrument. If there’s a bass, let it go. |
| Boomy / boxy | 200-400Hz | Cut 3-5dB, wide Q. One of the most iconic EQ cuts in mixing. |
| Honky / nasal | 600-900Hz | Sweep a narrow Q to find the one resonance, then cut 2-3dB. |
| Harsh pick | 2-4kHz | Compress the pick attack before you reach for EQ. |
| Presence / clarity | 2-5kHz | Wide boost, 2-3dB. If the vocal is fighting it, one of them has to give. |
| Sparkle / air | 6-12kHz | High shelf, 2-3dB. Old strings have no top end to boost. |
Two rules sit over all of it. Cut first, boost second: roughly three cuts for every one boost. And make the low-end decision with the whole mix playing, not in solo.
Want to see where an acoustic sits against the bass, the vocal and the electric guitars? It’s on the EQ frequency chart, with 23 other instruments.
Solo or band: how much body to keep
The warmth and body of an acoustic sits around 80-180Hz. On a solo acoustic or a singer-songwriter mix, that low-end fullness is lovely. In a band, you probably want to high-pass most of it away to make room for the bass and kick.
So it’s an arrangement decision, not a guitar decision. If the acoustic is the lowest instrument, keep it. If there’s a bass, let it go.
Where to high-pass an acoustic guitar
Every microphone picks up low-frequency rumble, so I put a high-pass filter on almost every track. On an acoustic, start at 80-120Hz. In a full mix you can go higher: try 150Hz. On a solo acoustic, pull it back to around 80Hz so the body stays.
How I set it: start with a gentle slope (6 or 12dB per octave), sweep the frequency slowly upwards while listening, and stop when the body of the guitar starts to thin out. Then pull it back down just below that point. Steep slopes can make an acoustic instrument sound unnatural and processed.
Then check it with the band playing. A filter that sounds too thin in solo can be exactly right in the mix.
Common acoustic guitar EQ problems
What each one sounds like, where it lives, and what to do about it.
Boomy, boxy or muddy (200-400Hz)
The hollow body resonance. The body of the guitar amplifies these frequencies like a resonance chamber, which is great in the room but terrible in a mic. Acoustic guitars hog low-mid energy like nobody’s business, and almost every recording has too much here.
High-pass first, then cut 3-5dB around 200-400Hz with a wide Q.
If it was recorded pointing at the sound hole, this will be especially bad. The sound hole is really a resonant hole: it lets resonance escape the body, and a mic pointed straight at it picks up excess low mids around 200Hz. The sound comes off the whole soundboard, not just the hole.
Next time, fix it at the source. Aim the mic where the neck meets the body, around the 12th fret, about 30-40cm away. Angle it up the neck for a brighter sound with more string detail, or down towards the body for more warmth. It works like a natural EQ.
Honky or nasal (600-900Hz)
A nasal, congested quality, like the guitar is playing through a tube. It’s usually a single resonance from the guitar body or the room, so surgical precision works better than a broad cut. Sweep a narrow Q through 600-900Hz to find the offending frequency, then cut it 2-3dB.
Harsh pick attack (2-4kHz)
Usually the pick attack, somewhere around 2-4kHz. On a strummed part those transients stack up.
Try compressing the pick attack before you reach for EQ. If it still needs EQ, use a gentle wide cut, and check what else is stacking up in that range. Masking, not one track, is often the culprit.
On the compression side, an opto compressor is my levelling tool for acoustic guitar: slow and smooth. Attack time decides what happens to the pick. A fast attack catches notes early. A slower one, 15-30ms, lets the pick or strum transient through, which makes the acoustic more present and articulate. The Compressor Calculator has starting settings for acoustic guitar.
Fingerpicked and strummed on one track
When a part switches between fingerpicking and a pick, the tone changes a lot. Fingerpicking is warmer and more resonant. Strumming with a pick is brighter and more aggressive. One EQ setting compromises both.
Split them. Duplicate the track, mute the strummed sections on one copy and the fingerpicked sections on the other, then EQ each on its own: cut some low-mid resonance from the fingerpicked parts and tame the high-mid brightness on the strums.
Lost in the mix
Boost the sparkle around 8-12kHz. A 2-3dB high shelf makes an acoustic sound open and alive. If there’s nothing up there to boost, check the strings: old strings have no top end, and new strings help massively.
For more definition, a wide 2-3dB boost at 2-5kHz brings out the string detail and pick attack. Be mindful of the vocal here, because that’s its presence range too. If the vocal is fighting the acoustic, one of them needs to give.
If it’s competing with electric guitars, they need to get out of each other’s way. Pan them apart before you touch the EQ: two guitars panned hard left and right mask each other far less than two in the centre, and panning doesn’t change the tone. Then separate them with complementary EQ curves (the differences are in the table below).
Thin
Usually self-inflicted: you’ve probably high-passed too aggressively. Pull the filter back to around 80Hz on a solo acoustic, or try a gentle low shelf boost at 100-180Hz.
But hear it in the mix first. If it’s in a band and needs to stay thin to fit, that might actually be correct. If it’s featuring, it needs that body back.
If it was recorded thin, next time angle the mic more towards the body for warmth.
Acoustic vs electric guitar
The notes live in the same range. The sweet spots and the problems don’t.
| Acoustic | Electric | |
|---|---|---|
| Notes live | 80-600Hz | 80-600Hz |
| Harmonics reach | about 12kHz | about 8kHz |
| Body | 80-180Hz | 100-250Hz |
| Low mids | 200-400Hz boomy / boxy | 200-400Hz muddy / thick |
| Mids | 600-900Hz honky / nasal: cut it | 800Hz-1.5kHz honk / character: the guitar’s personality |
| Presence | 2-5kHz clarity | 3-6kHz bite |
| Harsh | 2-4kHz pick attack | 2-4kHz fizz, usually from amp sims |
One difference worth knowing: on an acoustic, 600-900Hz is usually a resonance to cut. On an electric, 800Hz-1.5kHz is where the guitar speaks and where each tone has its identity. When both are in the mix, pan them apart, then cut one where you boost the other. The electric side is in my electric guitar EQ cheat sheet.