Using Back of Acoustic Guitar as Bongos

thegummy

Watching my way through an "educational" (well it's more fly-on-the-wall entertainment for me, it's not a tutorial) series of a couple of songs being recorded, dubbed, mixed etc. and when they're doing percussion overdubs they use the back of an acoustic guitar to tap a bongo style pattern on and record that.

Not something I've ever heard of before but the studio was well equipped and the producer had also brought a shitload of very expensive gear in with him too so I'm sure they're very happy with the result they get and not just to save money on bongos.

Anyone ever heard of this?

Cirrus

Yeah, not unusual for some players to use the body of a guitar as a percussion effect. When I do looping songs for open mics I'll quite often start with a percussion loop built up by drumming on the acoustic body - hit with the heel of hand near the bridge for a bass-drum type thump, fingers with some nails on the shoulder for a brighter snap for a "snare" sound etc.

Depending on the pickup, hitting the guitar can be quite a lot louder than strumming it so I use a preamp with a limiter.

thegummy

I've seen it loads as part of a live looping act (and they crusty style of playing where they hit it) and it's not surprising to see it used in that situation when the guitar is being played anyway and it's just a live loop thing.

The surprise was having a top drummer do it in a high end studio on a record where the guitar wasn't being used otherwise.

They spend thousands each on converters, preamps etc., have all the high end gear - it suggests to me that find it to be as good as real bongos or else they'd definitely use those.

Cirrus

Why does it seem incredible compared to the cost of the studio? If the guy wanted his record to have a penny whistle in it, they'd record that with the same setup...  Obviously the artist or producer wanted the sound of a guitar being hit!

Sometimes in busy tracks it can be hard to fit bongos in, because a lot of their tone lives in that busy low-mids area. Emphasise it and there's not room for other stuff, cut it and you're just left with boom and tone-less snap.