If you play in a band where you’re required to fill the roles of rhythm and lead guitarist, you know that the onstage volume level needed for each can be very different. Whether you play in an acoustic-electric band with drums, electric bass, keyboards, etc.; in an all-acoustic bluegrass band that clusters around one mic; or any other kind of group that uses a combination of mics and pickups onstage, it can be difficult to match the level of your guitar solos and fills with your rhythm guitar level. Most guitarists, especially aggressive rhythm players, tend to play chords and strums harder than single-note melodies, and it’s difficult for anyone to raise the level of their solos above the rest of the band simply by playing harder.

Fortunately there are a few ways to adjust your volume level onstage so that your solos, fills, and melodies are audible and your rhythm playing doesn’t overwhelm the band. If you play into mics, you can “work” the mic, varying your dynamics by getting closer or farther away from the mic, and if you only use a pickup to amplify your acoustic guitar, you can use a volume or boost pedal to increase the gain when you’re soloing. For many guitarists, a combination of these methods works best. In this article we’ll look at the options for “mixing” your guitar onstage in different performing situations.

Work the Mic

If you only use a standing mic to amplify your guitar through a PA, your “mixing” options are simple: increase or decrease the distance from the mic to the guitar. The advantage of working a mic is that you can get more volume variations than the two levels of gain you get from a boost pedal. Working a mic is a bit like using a mixing-board fader to control the level of your guitar, and this can allow you to increase the volume slightly for fills or adjust your overall volume depending on the requirements of the song—getting closer to the mic for a quieter fingerpicking accompaniment part or farther away for a boisterous basher.

One disadvantage of only using a mic is that you have to pay close attention to where you’re standing onstage. Wandering too far off-mic will effectively silence your guitar from the audience’s perspective, and veering into the mic accidentally can produce volume spikes and feedback. If you sing and play guitar, you’ll need to pay attention to your proximity to two mics at once.

To get the best results from working a mic, you should become intimately familiar with the mic you’re using. If you’re a touring musician who plays through a different PA every night, you may choose to travel with your own mic, but most good acoustic sound engineers have chosen their mics to match the rest of their system. You can consult the sound engineer to see if he or she wants to use it, but keep in mind that every mic sounds and reacts differently with different PA components, so bringing your own mic is no guarantee that your guitar will sound the same from gig to gig.

Whatever mic you use, the sound check is your opportunity to check out the characteristics of the mic and determine how to position yourself to get the best volume and tone. Get to the sound check on time (or early) so you can check the guitar first. This gives the engineer time to work on your sound and gives you time to see how the mic reacts. In a bluegrass band, I generally stay about seven to eight inches away from the mic for rhythm and move in as close as I can for solos. But many mics have a proximity effect, which increases the bass response when you get close to it. Make sure your guitar doesn’t get so boomy when you move in that the increased bass effectively drowns out your solo. The closer the mic is to the soundhole, the louder you’ll be, but most of the time, getting close to the soundhole increases the bass frequencies too dramatically, so it’s best to point the mic either at the fretboard around the 14th fret (the best choice for flatpickers) or down by the lower part of the bridge, as long as your hand doesn’t get in the way here. There are some mic and guitar combinations, however, that won’t get too boomy when the mic is close to the soundhole, but you should determine this during the sound check, not in the middle of the gig.

Boost Pedals

If you use a pickup to amplify your guitar, whether through a PA, an amp, or both, one of the best ways to vary your volume is with a boost pedal that allows you to switch between two preset volumes (see “Get a Boost” for some specific models). While some guitarists are comfortable using a volume pedal, which provides infinitely variable adjustment between the maximum and minimum settings, it can be distracting to be constantly worrying about what your foot is doing. And it can be difficult to accurately preset the two specific volumes you primarily need.

One thing to keep in mind, however, is that boost pedals, at least those currently available, only work with mono signals, so if you’re using a dual-source pickup system with a stereo cable, you’re out of luck. You should also be careful about radically boosting the signal of an internal mic, which is more prone to feedback than a pickup, especially if you’re running this signal into the floor monitors.

You can also try using an A/B switch into two amp or PA channels, setting one channel for your rhythm volume and the other for your solo volume. It’s cheaper than a dedicated pedal, and since the signal path stays clean, it can sound great, although if you have a few band members doing this, you can use up PA channels pretty quickly.

Mic and Pedal

You can get a lot of flexibility by combining a pickup with a standing mic—increasing your signal by working the mic, stepping on your pedal, or both. If you like to roam the stage untethered, you can use the pickup signal as your basic sound, and then step up to the mic to increase your lead volume, add a bit of “air” to your solo sound, and focus the audience’s attention on your solo. Most guitarists who use this setup run a pickup-only signal in the monitors to reduce the chance of feedback.

All of these methods have evolved as guitar techniques, gear, etc., changes. You may already have your own approach, and there may be some great new boost pedal on the market by the time you read this. If you’ve developed your own method for mixing yourself onstage, let us know online at AcousticGuitar.com or at the Acoustic Guitar Community (AcousticGuitarCommunity.com).