Guitar recording: FX or not?

YanKleber

YanKleber

Retired
I grew up listening that electric guitars should be recorded by placing a mike in front of an amp speaker. But it was ages before the nice impulse technology and the amps and cabs modelers. I am almost done with my first album where all guitars were plugged directly and then treated later in the DAW with the proper stompbox plugins. I cannot say that I am not happy. Actually it is a very easy and efficient way of do this!

Now I am about to start a new album within a completely different concept of the first one. I want something propositally dirty and imperfect and one of the ways of pick this real world atmosphere is by recording guitars in the good old way. I have a small amp Vox VT-15 that spits out a great tone. Beside the various amps simulation it has a tube pre-amp that offers a pleasant saturation. Also it has all that basic set of effects (chorus, phaser, octave, compressor, delay, reverb, etc).

Question is: what is better... to record only the straight guitar with the mike and then apply the effects into the DAW or go the real old fashion way that is to record it with its 'definitive' sound by recording the effects together?

:guitar:
 
Do what 'those in the know' do - record both the miked amp AND the DI signal. Use a DI splitter, or similar, to split your guitar signal. This gives you the option for reamping the orignal guitar signal or using a plug-in to add to or instead of the miked-amp track.
 
there is no better.

sometimes, a guitarist NEEDS the effects in real time, out of his/her rig, as it is PART of their signature tone.

other times, it does not matter to an artist who is trying to be as pure with their tone and signal as they can be, and will simply add the effects during the mix.


i will say, that for most delays and reverbs, it ALWAYS sounds better added during the mix after the fact...

but for time-based effects such as flangers and choruses, or vibe and trem, it always sounds better going into the front of the amp,
to let the amp do its magic and back and forth.
 
I like to record the definitive sound when I play.
Effects make me play differently, and this only translates when I record what I hear while playing.
That said, I will add delays and reverbs later on, too, but just for subtle stuff.
Upfront FX always gets printed, no matter what effect I use.
 
GONZO-X said:
there is no better.

sometimes, a guitarist NEEDS the effects in real time, out of his/her rig, as it is PART of their signature tone.

other times, it does not matter to an artist who is trying to be as pure with their tone and signal as they can be, and will simply add the effects during the mix.


i will say, that for most delays and reverbs, it ALWAYS sounds better added during the mix after the fact...

but for time-based effects such as flangers and choruses, or vibe and trem, it always sounds better going into the front of the amp,
to let the amp do its magic and back and forth.
Click to expand...

What this guy said ^^^^^^^^^^

For me personally, I record the sound I want to hear. That includes effects. Most of my sounds are effects free though. I'm not an effects guy.
 
Things like wah pedals need to be recorded as you are playing, because it is part of the performance. Any effect that is part of the performance needs to be recorded

Effects that are meant to give the performance a sense of space should be done after the fact.
 
Yeah...like others have said, reverbs/delays at mixdown for guitars...but any other typical guitar effect that I want as part of the guitar sound, I'll add during tracking and it becomes part of the final sound.

Like mjbphotos said...you can always CYA by splitting the guitar signal and also recording a clean/dry DI track as you inusrance policy, which a lot of guys do, and then later reamp or whatever to create you guitar sound.

Just think about your production and the overall sound you are going for, and then dial in the guitar sound. I bet it will work almost always. That's how they recorded guitars for many, many years before the DAW/sim/reamp stuff came along.
 
I would want my guitar sound to be essentially complete before it gets anywhere a mic much less the computer, even including some delays and reverbs. You can always add delay and reverb so it's good to be conservative during tracking.
 
GONZO-X said:
i will say, that for most delays and reverbs, it ALWAYS sounds better added during the mix after the fact...
Click to expand...
This is not anywhere near always true. There are a lot of good reasons to put a delay before the amp, so that the repeats sound more like part of the performance and affect and are affected by the compression and overdrive that the rest of the guitar gets. It's a pretty important part of what the Edge does, for just one pretty easy example.

This can also be true of reverbs used for certain special things. I personally don't buy the sound of spring reverb on a guitar unless it is squished in with the rest of the guitar by the power amp and colored by the speaker (yes, there's a difference, even through a "clean" amp), and there are a lot things in the more spacey realms of psychedelic and especially shoegaze/dreampop/post-rock that really kind of depends on running reverb of one sort or another into a whole bunch of distortion.

For most effects there is a pretty definite difference between running the effect into the amp where any distortion reacts to what the effect is doing or afterward. Think about a wah pedal for a minute. It's basically a low-pass filter, and lets say you set it to cut off at 500Hz. If you put this after the amp, you won't get anything on the other end above 500Hz. If, on the other hand, you run it into an overdriven amp, you will get all of the harmonics too - 1K, 1.5K, 2K... The same is true of things like flange, phase, and chorus (which are at they're most basic level not a lot more than filters), and of course delay and reverb as mentioned above.

There really isn't any right answer when it comes to the order of effects or the pre/post amp thing, it's all about the sound that you're trying to get. It's a good idea to experiment. For me, though, most "post-amp" effects sound hokey, like 80s glam rock.

Course, the OP was more about whether to print the effects or go back and add them later, and in this day of reamping and amp sims, adding later doesn't always mean adding the effects post-amp. It can be nice to have the option to make little tweaks to effects and amp settings at a later stage in the mix, especially when you're kind of starting from a blank slate and not completely sure where you're going to end up, but there is definitely something to be said for committing to a sound and going with it. I do a lot of DI recording, but I've been trying to push myself to get the effects and amp settings working and then rendering those as soon as possible just to avoid that whole "option overload" thing and actually get something done.
 
ashcat_lt said:
This is not anywhere near always true. There are a lot of good reasons to put a delay before the amp, so that the repeats sound more like part of the performance and affect and are affected by the compression and overdrive that the rest of the guitar gets. It's a pretty important part of what the Edge does, for just one pretty easy example.

This can also be true of reverbs used for certain special things. I personally don't buy the sound of spring reverb on a guitar unless it is squished in with the rest of the guitar by the power amp and colored by the speaker (yes, there's a difference, even through a "clean" amp), and there are a lot things in the more spacey realms of psychedelic and especially shoegaze/dreampop/post-rock that really kind of depends on running reverb of one sort or another into a whole bunch of distortion.

For most effects there is a pretty definite difference between running the effect into the amp where any distortion reacts to what the effect is doing or afterward. Think about a wah pedal for a minute. It's basically a low-pass filter, and lets say you set it to cut off at 500Hz. If you put this after the amp, you won't get anything on the other end above 500Hz. If, on the other hand, you run it into an overdriven amp, you will get all of the harmonics too - 1K, 1.5K, 2K... The same is true of things like flange, phase, and chorus (which are at they're most basic level not a lot more than filters), and of course delay and reverb as mentioned above.

There really isn't any right answer when it comes to the order of effects or the pre/post amp thing, it's all about the sound that you're trying to get. It's a good idea to experiment. For me, though, most "post-amp" effects sound hokey, like 80s glam rock.

Course, the OP was more about whether to print the effects or go back and add them later, and in this day of reamping and amp sims, adding later doesn't always mean adding the effects post-amp. It can be nice to have the option to make little tweaks to effects and amp settings at a later stage in the mix, especially when you're kind of starting from a blank slate and not completely sure where you're going to end up, but there is definitely something to be said for committing to a sound and going with it. I do a lot of DI recording, but I've been trying to push myself to get the effects and amp settings working and then rendering those as soon as possible just to avoid that whole "option overload" thing and actually get something done.
Click to expand...

Yup, all that.

Lots of styles need their effects to happen at the amp. Surf and rockabilly for example. You gonna record surf guitar and add reverb later? Lame. Commit to something. Option overload has really hurt us.
 
miroslav said:
Yeah, the Edge....if you take away his delay...he can't play. :D
Click to expand...
I can't watch that right now because I'm at work, and I'm not actually familiar with that song, but he does often use rhythmic delays to add to what he's playing and sort of make it sound like he's playing more intricate parts than he really is. That would not work quite as well if the repeated signal wasn't mixed in with what is actually coming from the guitar and then squished into it at the amp. It's almost like the difference between you playing two strings or you playing one and your other guitarist playing the second.
 
It's actually a comedian doing a spoof on U2/Edge...it's funny, check it out later. :D

I do get that for some situations, like U2/Edge....using delays WITH the guitar playing is key. It would probably not work if the soundman was adding it at the mixer.

Maybe the easiest way to decide about where/when to add FX/processing is to consider if the FX/processing is absolutley an integral part of the guitar sound and playing....or if it's something that is mainly being used to place your guitar sound into a certain mix space.
 
miroslav said:
Maybe the easiest way to decide about where/when to add FX/processing is to consider if the FX/processing is absolutley an integral part of the guitar sound and playing....or if it's something that is mainly being used to place your guitar sound into a certain mix space.
Click to expand...
Yep, that. Usually for me this would be any compression or EQ needed for the mix and the "room" verb which is usually shared with most of the rest of the mix.

There are times when I will run an "amped" signal through more effecty effects, but most of the time I end up running that through another amp (sim ;) ) to get it to sound more natural, and less 80s.
 
YanKleber said:
Question is: what is better... to record only the straight guitar with the mike and then apply the effects into the DAW or go the real old fashion way that is to record it with its 'definitive' sound by recording the effects together?
Click to expand...
I can't say which is better because both work but personally, I like to record the guitar with the effects if there's going to be effects. I do experiment with re~amping once in a while or adding effects after the fact or layering but most of the time I like to commit to the guitar sound that I'm actually recording.
 
lol at bill bailey, I love part troll. Personally I like recording with effects on, including time based effects like delay and reverb, even in mono and with one mic I prefer it to adding reverb later, I have experimented with re-amping though which can be useful but I definitely prefer playing live and committing to that sound.
 
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