Can't Get Guitar to sound right when recording

  • Thread starter Thread starter Simplex09
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I couldn't believe how Hansen pulled off 1983 live. That side from Electric Ladyland is my favorite Hendrix album.



It reminded me of when Stevie Ray pulled off 3rd Stone from the Sun at El Macambo. Simply great!
 
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DrewPeterson7 said:
Noooooo shit, lol.

Worse still is when you're playing pretty well, but you make a small mistake in a take so you stop, delete, and start over... and then suddenly you do the exact same thing on 20 takes within the first 30 seconds because you've gotten inside your own head and can't play something that should be doable for you. does anyone else do this or am I just that special? 🤣
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You have to learn to not stop when you make a mistake. Play through the whole track even if you tank a section. It’s often easier to punch in the fix.
 
Scott Baxendale said:
You have to learn to not stop when you make a mistake. Play through the whole track even if you tank a section. It’s often easier to punch in the fix.
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I do need to be better about that, to be fair, and I've noticed that "good" takes tend to come together in bunches. "Be a goldfish" and all that. Really what I need to learn, though, is the number of times I do a take, think "that was ok, but lets try again," save it, arm a new track... and 30 minutes later go back and re-listen to the three takes I've decided to keep and realize the first was the best, all along... 🤣 Thankfully I've at least learned to just save multiple decent takes rather than delete and re-record.

Recording is very much a mind game, though. :lol: I've also found I can't track for shit if I'm physically tired, too - my control goes to hell (on, to be fair, fairly technical guitar music).
 
Haha thank you. Still, I can hear it - my groove especially is just gone if I'm exhausted. And there's certainly a mental component to that too, worrying about whether or not you can get in the pocket probably makes it harder to get into the pocket... lol
 
Thank you guys! I wanted to wait to reply because I wanted to try everything that was spoke about in this topic and try to get a goodish sound lol. Anyways I have uploaded two different riffs below let me know what you think. Two things are used New york style compression & Some Reverb using the reaper plugin

SM57
Fender Jag super distortion
AT2035
 

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I'll try to listen in the next couple days. "New York style compression" meaning parallel compression, right? blending an uncompressed and heavily compressed track? Nothing about your earlier recordings had me thinking compression was the problem on your guitars but you never know, I suppose...
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
I'll try to listen in the next couple days. "New York style compression" meaning parallel compression, right? blending an uncompressed and heavily compressed track? Nothing about your earlier recordings had me thinking compression was the problem on your guitars but you never know, I suppose...
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That's right! I just wanted to stay all the steps i took to get that audio file :)
 
Simplex09 said:
That's right! I just wanted to stay all the steps i took to get that audio file :)
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I'd be curious why you chose to use parallel compression here.

Parallel compression is most useful in situations where you have a signal with strong attacks you want to preserve, but want to bring up the sustain and "body" of the sound relative to it. By mixing a dry track with a track where you've absolutely smashed it with a compressor, and then slowly bringing it up until the sound fills out a bit, you still do preserve that initial attack and a lot of the dynamic "pop," but you add body and sustain to the signal. It's something I tend to think about with signals where I still want to hear dynamics but think they're not as full as I might want them to be - traditionally it's an approach for the "shell" instruments on a drum kit - kick, snare, toms - to bring up their sustain a little, and it's a great way to solidify the low end of a bass guitar in the mix, but I've also done it on vocals here and there with a lot of success.

I suppose I could see parallel compression on an acoustic in the right situations, and maaaaaybe a clean guitar. But I don't think I've ever heard a modern distorted rhythm electric guitar where I've thought "you know what's wrong with this sound? Too much attack and not enough body."

But, what was the problem in your mix you were hearing where you thought parallel compression could be a solution?
 
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