tommysahlin
New member
Hey all,
This was the "effect" I used more than any other in my studio:
- I had a cheesy little 10-watt guitar combo (50 bucks) which I put in a closet and permanently dedicated a SM-57 mike in there, miking the amp as normal. In my case it was a Fender Sidekick combo but it doesn't really matter what kind, although great if it has master volume, and the "tinnier" and "boxier" it sounds the better - don't use a really good amp.
- I then ran a cable from one of the console's effect sends to the guitar amp's input.
- The microphone cable was sent (through an available console channel) to the effects return.
I could now easily blend any track from tape, at any time, using the effect send, with the sound of the track running through the guitar amp.
Blending in a little bit "underneath" really fattens up the sound, giving it punch and earth - great for snare drums or whole drum kits, percussion, vocals, acoustic guitar, bass, keyboards, whatever. Sometimes I ran whole mixes through the thing, adding just a teeny bit of it underneath the "clean" mix.
If you wanna get extreme, mute the original signal and just use the one coming back from the amp. Or distort the amp. Experiment! To me the whole point was that by rigging this permanently, it was really easy to try out at any time, since there was no effort involved in rigging stuff up etc, just had to turn the channel's effect send knob, and there it was...
Sometimes it was really cool to run the whole drumkit through the amp - and in the beginning of the song, only use the return signal from the amp. Then gradually blend in more and more of the "real" drums, or just "turn them on" at the start of the first chorus or something. The layering effect can be really pleasing...
I originally just tried this technique as an experiment - but I never took the amp or the mike out of the closet again - used them all the time...
If I did this for several tracks in the same tune, I'd tape the effect return, which allowed me to fiddle with it further - eq, compression, effects, reverb, delay, whatever. Sometimes had to gate the channel to pull down some of the "sssshhh" from the amp.
Well worth the effort!
hope that helps /Tommy
This was the "effect" I used more than any other in my studio:
- I had a cheesy little 10-watt guitar combo (50 bucks) which I put in a closet and permanently dedicated a SM-57 mike in there, miking the amp as normal. In my case it was a Fender Sidekick combo but it doesn't really matter what kind, although great if it has master volume, and the "tinnier" and "boxier" it sounds the better - don't use a really good amp.
- I then ran a cable from one of the console's effect sends to the guitar amp's input.
- The microphone cable was sent (through an available console channel) to the effects return.
I could now easily blend any track from tape, at any time, using the effect send, with the sound of the track running through the guitar amp.
Blending in a little bit "underneath" really fattens up the sound, giving it punch and earth - great for snare drums or whole drum kits, percussion, vocals, acoustic guitar, bass, keyboards, whatever. Sometimes I ran whole mixes through the thing, adding just a teeny bit of it underneath the "clean" mix.
If you wanna get extreme, mute the original signal and just use the one coming back from the amp. Or distort the amp. Experiment! To me the whole point was that by rigging this permanently, it was really easy to try out at any time, since there was no effort involved in rigging stuff up etc, just had to turn the channel's effect send knob, and there it was...
Sometimes it was really cool to run the whole drumkit through the amp - and in the beginning of the song, only use the return signal from the amp. Then gradually blend in more and more of the "real" drums, or just "turn them on" at the start of the first chorus or something. The layering effect can be really pleasing...
I originally just tried this technique as an experiment - but I never took the amp or the mike out of the closet again - used them all the time...
If I did this for several tracks in the same tune, I'd tape the effect return, which allowed me to fiddle with it further - eq, compression, effects, reverb, delay, whatever. Sometimes had to gate the channel to pull down some of the "sssshhh" from the amp.
Well worth the effort!
hope that helps /Tommy
