This is such a great Beyonce song, one of her best in my opinion! I was so excited to find out recently that there is an acoustic cover by John Mayer so of course I had to learn how to play it. Thankfully, Justin had the tutorialš
update I found a reasonably priced dynamic mic and it did improve things a bit. Apparently I will need to sing really loud when I use my acoustic guitar!
I know your singing is always wonderful, Sonyal, so disappointed that the balance of the recording is such that it is drowned out by the guitar, which did sound good, lovely rhythm and energy.
Looks like the recording is a single track recorded via what looks like a condensor mic.
If so I suggest you experiment with the mic placement. Iād try bringing it up to the level of your mouth. And in closer. You do have to avoid getting too close to a condensor as that can make the voice a little boomy.
Given that you do have a lovely voice, I think worth taking some time to optimise your setup. Though from personal experience, recording with a single condensor does make achieving a good balance hard, you really have to sing out loud and proud to match the guitar.
Hi Sonyal. I donāt know anything about the technical side of things but I have to agree with @DavidP regarding your sound balance.
Your guitar play had energy and rhythm but the lack of vocal volume made it sound a bit boring.
Iād go as far as to say you should redo this song and repost it so we can benefit from what we know is the great voice youāve got.
The sound from the acoustic guitar is unreal, and that was with me controlling my strumming hand to be as light as I could. Iām falling in love with my acoustic guitar! I agree that it definitely was drowning out my voice but Iām afraid that may be as good as it gets with my current setup since I had the mic as close as I could get it. The chords with that strumming pattern are so soothing that I enjoy playing them even without singing.
Quite a few people on here have similar or less technical setups. As @DavidP says it comes down to the positioning. It seem that you have the condenser mic between the fretboard and your body which will restrict the movement of your fretting hand on the fretboard and you seem to be tilting the guitar which would traject the sound upwards towards the mic which is close to the sound hole. It could be a matter of trial and error until you find a sweet spot. It can be hard to get a good balance. It might be worth trying standing to see if that improves the balance.
It seems that you really took your time analyzing this videoš. Thanks for listening.
I dig the vibe and overall performance. Well done!
Thanks so much!
Nice guitar work from you, GuitarMomma.
Thank you!
I can empathises, Sonyal. Can be so challenging with a single mic. Mic position is always difficult to really judge when viewing a video.
If your AI has two inputs and you want to put more attention on the recording process (which is not truly necessary for these recordings) then you could consider getting a dynamic vocal mic. I eventually went down that path which worked better for me than trying to find a position for the condensor that resulted in a better balanced recording.
It seems like however softly we play and try to sing out, the guitar ends up far louder in the recording relative to the voice than we ear it live in our ears.
I love it! 
And I looked into the sound of it (stem separation) and while it doesnāt look so much like it on the video, I lifted the singing volume in respect to the guitar and there was so much room sound in your vocals - it still ddnāt sound nice (singing yes, sounded good, but the magnitude of the small and reverby room sound takes away from it)
So the recording would really benefit from having the mic much closer to your mouth!
Hope youāll manage somehow with your mic stand and positionā¦
Looking forward to more posts from you
PS. I mean, David is right of course about two mics being better, but your guitar sounds good here and if you could get the mic closer to your mouth I think you would be quite close to a pretty good recording already.
Orā¦
maybe try the above?
Orā¦ while that soundhole doesnāt have the usual shape, so the usual soundhole āfeedback bustersā wonāt fit, you can easily do your own with some elastic plastic/foam material. The guitar is quieter then. I did this when I wanted to less disturb my neighbors
Hi there, I agree with you on the song, so great, and I really enjoyed your cover. Well done on being the October winner of the student performances, really good job! I look forward to hearing more, Susan.
Very nicely done Sonyal!
While I agree with the comments about voice/guitar balance above, I think your song is still a good listen with really good voice, really well played & a wonderful mix of picking & strumming! I liked it!
Thank you for sharing!!
Tod