Recording guitars effectively - Tips and tricks

[Will Smythe]

Hey everyone,

Just fancy seeing if there's any ways i could improve the efficiency of my guitar recording.
Currently i record using a single capacitor mic to record it, positioned at around 45 degrees. Before i get stuck in i try to check using headphones and position it as correctly as possible.
in the mix i never pan fully to one side to help give a more surrounding perspective.

even with a controlled amount of compression, i lose a lot of my top end of the signal.
i just can't understand how groups like avenged sevenfold can capture the clarity so well.

Should i alter my amplification EQ so that it compensates for the resultant audio signal?

should i reconsider microphone gain levels when recording lead work?

should i purchase a dynamic microphone like a SM57?

maybe use two separate mics or will i start influencing the mix with phase differences altering the timbre of the sound?

Should i use crossing EQ so I'm boosting or cutting certain parts of the signal so they fit better together leaving more room for vocals?



Also, an effects pedal i use simulates amplification and microphones and it has a variety of different methods available to transfer the sound. a direct input can still sound quite realistic (line 6) although it still obtains its realism (as a pose to battery powered sound some pedals shell out) it still doesn't sound a scratch on the industry standard.

Any help would be muchly appreciated, thanks for your time,


Will

 

[ykarkason]

Have you tried to double track your guitars,
When I say double track I don't mean just copy and paste,
But actully to play the same line tightly 2 times or more on different tracks.

 

[Will Smythe]

Have you tried to double track your guitars,
When I say double track I don't mean just copy and paste,
But actully to play the same line tightly 2 times or more on different tracks.

Well, i've experimented.
I like to get kinda carried away writing extra guitar harmonies and recording them through.
so maybe the more important of the guitar lead can have could be doubled to compensate as its a main melody. - that or have it centered with the extra guitar panned fully to the side.

When building up a composition, rhythm guitar parts are near enough always panned to the sides but never fully.

is there a way i can upload upload examples? i haven't anywhere to host the audio except "myspace".


Par-haps it is a problem with the way i master the final audio?!

 

[Dogbreath]

I dunno how Avenge Sevenfold does their guitar work but what I do is...

Crank my amp to where it's runnin nice n hot, a 57 about an inch off the grill, angled to where it's pointing a couple of inches out from the center cone. Experiment with placement cuz the further out to the edge of the speaker gets wooly and muffled and closer to the cone gets shrill and tinny. Find the happy medium.

Have my gain backed off more than I normally would when doin live. Like if I normally run it at 8, I'll back off to about 6 1/2.....ish.

I get the tone, EQ, distortion setting etc I want from the amp and guitar as I track it. I don't use compression during tracking of distorted guitars mainly cuz distortion IS a compressor (sorta )

I double track (like stated above) almost every rhythm track I do. If it's a difficult part, or something that I just ad-libbed theu, I go over it til I know it and play it twice tightly.

My tracking gain levels pretty much ride an RMS of around -18 (ish) with peaks of -12 (ish). I generally don't track anything hotter than that so I'll have headroom later.

As far as panning....just whatever fits.

Hope something helps man.

 

[grimtraveller]

Will;
Have a listen to some of Dogbreath's stuff, with particular emphasis on the guitars, if you haven't already. Then have another read of his post.

 

[Absolutepower]

I use a small Marshall solid state amp, which I'm shopping around to upgrade now. I got a way bigger sound out of it though by double tracking using both the line out directly to my computer, and also using a microphone. I used a cheap Nady LDC, for some reason I didn't use my sm57 not sure why not. In the article I've read on big studios, for example how they recorded slash, they use a few mics on the amp, plus the line out to get as big a sound as possible.
(Somebody correct me if I'm dead wrong, I'm just going by what I read, and a little of my own experience, more sound sources = bigger sound usually)
For my taste I don't like thin wimpy guitar sounds.

 

[Chibi Nappa]

(Somebody correct me if I'm dead wrong, I'm just going by what I read, and a little of my own experience, more sound sources = bigger sound usually)

Not really. Listen to Muse's "Uprising" at about the third verse where the guitar starts strumming. Drummer, one guitar track, bass. Huge. All panned dead-center too...

Many sources neither assures nor prevents big sound. It's like saying "if everybody involved wears shirts, the sound will be big".

You get big sound from how you play the instruments, the arrangement of the instruments, the quality of the instruments, the skill of the recording engineer, the quality of the mix...stuff like that.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

Not really. Listen to Muse's "Uprising" at about the third verse where the guitar starts strumming. Drummer, one guitar track, bass. Huge. All panned dead-center too...

Many sources neither assures nor prevents big sound. It's like saying "if everybody involved wears shirts, the sound will be big".

I think it's a lot easier, though, and regardless of whether it's possible that large, expansive, 3-d sound you get from doubled (or quad-tracked) rhythm guitars is kind of part of the hard rock or metal 'sound." You certaintly don't have to, but if it's the sound you're after then it's probably the best starting point.

Anyway, listening to that track, while it works for the song, it's not really your quintessential 'big' guitar sound, and the compound bends that punctuate the riff definitely sound doubled to my ears.

Not a hell of a lot to add over Dogbreath's post... You CAN record direct, and some guys do get great results doing so, but a mic on a cab is the traditional approach and, so far, still the one that will ultimately yield the best results for most sounds and genres (though modeling is getting better). A SM57 is a great starting point - it's relatively affordable, and it's been used on more classic guitar recordings than anything else on the market, I suspect.

Also, for the time being I'd just work with a single mic. 2+ mics can yield great sounds, but the phase issues make the learning curve a little steeper and if you can't get at least a "good" tone with a single mic, you're probably not going to get a decent one with two, either. I'm kind of from the "get the fundamentals down first" school, and once you get the hang of positioning one SM57, then it's easier to move on to a second month and look at it as supplementing the first mic rather that starting from the ground up.

From there, spend some time practicing mic positioning. Are you familiar with proximity effect? There's a big increase in bass from 2" off the sound source or so that increases as you get closer, so part of learing how to close mic an amp is learning what works for you with respect to the amount of low end in your tone you're after. I'm oversimplifying horribly, but long story short I usually have the mic less than an inch from the grille of my cap, although rarely touching. Experiment.

And yeah, for that A7X sound, you're going to want to layer guitars. At least two, possibly four tracks. You also may wish to try complimentary tones - some variation of 'brighter, less saturated" with "more mid-heavy, more saturated" seems to work pretty well, in my experience. And remember to leave room for the bass.

 

[Farview]

The guys in Avenged Sevenfold use Bogner's and Mesa rectifiers. (depending on what song/album you are listening to). Both of those amps compress before the distortion turns fuzzy. They have gritty and grainy sounding distortion. That is what gives them the clarity.

If you have an amp thats distortion turns fuzzy, you need to back off the gain until it sounds crunchy.

I don't know what they used to mic the amps in the studio but my guesses would be an SM57, MD421 or a Royer ribbon mic. (or any combination of those mics) Those seem to be the favorite choices of engineers who do that type of music.

Typically, the amps are not set up to be as bright as what you hear on the CD. A bunch of high shelf is used to get it to sound like that in the mix. If you have good EQ's you can add 9db of high shelf at 8k without your eyebrows falling off. That's what they do.

If you add all that high end at the amp, the speakers will break up differently and it will sound pinched and piercing instead of open. This is the #1 mistake guitar players make. The amp should sound even, not bright and not muddy. Then it can be shaped to fit the mix with EQ.

 

[indymusician]

Phase. A note

I use a small Marshall solid state amp, which I'm shopping around to upgrade now. I got a way bigger sound out of it though by double tracking using both the line out directly to my computer, and also using a microphone. I used a cheap Nady LDC, for some reason I didn't use my sm57 not sure why not. In the article I've read on big studios, for example how they recorded slash, they use a few mics on the amp, plus the line out to get as big a sound as possible.
(Somebody correct me if I'm dead wrong, I'm just going by what I read, and a little of my own experience, more sound sources = bigger sound usually)
For my taste I don't like thin wimpy guitar sounds.

Keep in mind that putting multiple sources on one performance can actually do more harm than good sometimes. Sound waves reaching sources at different times can cause phase cancellation in certain frequencies and actually give you a more hollow sound than the original signal. This can be minor to downright awful. There are some really good articles and tutorials that can help explain this phenomenon as well as formulas for calculating distances to the source to minimize the issues. This can also be used to your advantage in some cases. I worked with a singer that just could not work with headphones. Using the phase cancellation properties, I set up 2 monitors exactly the same distance from the mic at 90 degrees (basically firing right into his ears from the side) The result is nearly 100% cancellation at the source.

Hope this helps keep you from a frustrating experience.

A footnote:

Using plugins on a track can cause small delays which affect phase and can cause the same issues. Make sure to compensate for delays added by these plugins by adding a short delay plugin with the same latency that was introduced on your other tracks.

Hope this is informative.

 

[Terra]

I just built a makeshift soundproof enclosure for my amp (mesa boogie express 5:50) I have the mic (large diaphragm condenser) placed toward the mid-edge of the speaker. I take that mic and run it through a cheap ART tube pre-amp and then into my interface. I've been getting a pretty good tone out of it. I only really record clean stuff, and I have it at room volume with the mic gain pretty hot, not clipping.

Hope my insight helps, Just experiment and have fun.
T