Hi John,

If you are talking about studio recording of the guitar, by all means make use of the built-in pickup or mic, but only as an additional signal to be blended in with the acoustic sound as captured by high-quality external microphones.

You should avoid using EQ to attempt to rectify inappropriate microphone choice and positioning. The internal mic may have been set up for pick usage, and so you should consider how best to capture the sound you want for fingered playing.

There have been countless threads on these forums concerned with microphone choice and placement for acoustic guitar recording, and the search engine is your friend here.

A further thought is that for certain styles of playing electro-acoustic guitar (jazz, for example), the artist's signature sound is not just what emerges acoustically from the instrument, but very much includes the sound from his amplifier. Hence a typical recording tracklist for jazz guitar in a studio would be one (or two) mics for the instrument's acoustic sound, one pickup track, one track from a mic on the amplifier tucked away in the amp cupboard and a couple of tracks for the stereo ambient microphone pair. These are then blended with relevant delays at mixdown to get the best approximation to the desired sound.

I very limited on inputs. I am using a keyboard to record with that only allows one connection at a time. The guitar itself has a condenser mic installed inside the body. It fairly easy to access for adjustment, do you have any recommendations?

I have one large diaphram condenser mic, would you recommend blending two seperate takes as an alternative?

jlister wrote: When recording an Alvarez ac/elec gtr with a condeser mic inside the body I get more of a muffled sound

Wouldn't you want the mic outside of the body of the guitar?
It works far better at capturing the sound of the acoustic after sound has been colored by the inside of the guitar cavity.

jlister wrote: I very limited on inputs. I am using a keyboard to record with that only allows one connection at a time. The guitar itself has a condenser mic installed inside the body. It fairly easy to access for adjustment, do you have any recommendations?

I have one large diaphram condenser mic, would you recommend blending two seperate takes as an alternative?

No. I wouldn't mix separate takes from an inside and an external mic. I would start with the external mic and experiment with positioning that to get the best sound. If you want to record separate takes and blend them, keep using the external mic for this, possibly in different positions to emphasize different facets of the instrument's sound.

You are really asking for multi-track results using a single-track input. It's possible, but not simple.

thxs

I have been using an external mic. I believe as I get more experience with using it I will become more comfortable with the sound.