Direct Guitar Recording

  • Thread starter Thread starter tonyA
  • Start date Start date

DO YOU RECORD DIRECT?

  • Never, that is lame. I mic everything - vocals, guitars, keyboard, drums

    Votes: 63 14.8%

  • Need to mic Drums, Vocals and Lead Guitar

    Votes: 81 19.0%

  • Except Vocals and Lead Guitar, I could plug everything direct

    Votes: 29 6.8%

  • Yes, with a little work I could get a good sound from it

    Votes: 254 59.5%
  • Total voters
    427
if anyone wants to try a free guitar amp plug in to play with try
simulanalog.com . an interesting free product. might float your boat - might not. try the marshall simulation and some of the others.
 
manning1 said:
if anyone wants to try a free guitar amp plug in to play with try
simulanalog.com . an interesting free product. might float your boat - might not. try the marshall simulation and some of the others.
Click to expand...

Whats the link again manning??

www.simulanalog.com

This dosent connect to anything.

Whats the real link?
 
you better be ready to spend a bunch if you want to get a good sound out of electric drums. I was at a store a little while ago and I tried out a set. It sounded so-so. Then I looked at the price. $3000!
 
I record a lot of direct also. I use the Zoom GM200. Very cheap unit that I bought for $50.00 on clearence. I love it! I record with a friend who has the $600 pod and I like my tones just as much as anything he gets. I guess it's just in the ear of the listener.
 
We recorded the whole band direct once, guitars through V Amps and the Bass through some Digitech pedal and the drums were Electronic.........
The whole thing sounded very correct and precise but a little dead and it was nowhere near our live sound.

I prefer to mic wherever possible
 
Mic'd or Not ???

good thread here....a quick experiment to see if people can correctly identify this track. Is it mic'd or direct? After 10 replies, i'll provide the answer and details. please excuse my crappy playing...i'm just learning!!! the track is called git experiment.
http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=2169&alid=-1

hope this will be fun for all.

regards, Jason
 
JasonBird said:
good thread here....a quick experiment to see if people can correctly identify this track. Is it mic'd or direct? After 10 replies, i'll provide the answer and details. please excuse my crappy playing...i'm just learning!!! the track is called git experiment.
http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=2169&alid=-1

hope this will be fun for all.

regards, Jason
Click to expand...

Sounds like it's DI'd through a pod (or similar) to me.
 
too late in the thread!

hey there,
well, i think i contibuted too late in the thread. there doesn't see to be to much interest in it anymore. any who...everybody was correct. the track was DI 'd through a Boss GT-6 into the pc. I am curious to know how can you tell? I'll record the same thing agian this time through my amp, and a shure KSM 44 microphone, and a Behringer tube pre-amp. i'll still use the gt-6 so the effect is the same. The amp is , btw, a fender Pro reverb, and a American Fat Strat . I guess maybe i'm just getting old and my hearing isn't as good as i think. Maybe once i record it and listen to it, it will ne obvoius also....we'll see. Stay tuned!
Jason
 
Jason, that was DI'd or you have a bad mic, or you intentionally made it sound that way. The ability to tell the difference between DI's and mic-ed sound is a learned thing.

For the rest in this topic, IMHO, air must be moved to make music, this will require a mic. DI'd is invariably flat and lifeless, the very thing that makes a mic-ed signal harder to control is what gives it life. A completely flat, perfect signal gives a completely flat sound, technically perfect maybe, but also soulless. Some genres of music seem to prefer that, and I think that is where the real difference lies. A smooth, even toned blues song defeats the very purpose of it.

Just my opinions, your ears may vary.
 
crosstudio said:
i double mic acoustic guitar using the internal mics on my yamaha cgx-171cca and an AT4033 about 12" - 18" away from the soundhole.
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That is a cool idea to get tones from your acoustic guitar. The late Rory Gallagher used to experiment with that recording technique even with his Stratocaster.

I use a Variax-->PODXT-->E-Mu 0404-->Cakewalk Guitar Tracks Pro 3 for all my recordings.
 
Good question. I direct record my guitars mainly because I don't like the acoustics in my room. I'm also not very successful with micing my amp. I do the same with vocals. With the correct levels and volume on my amp I get a great sound and if I use a little reverb on the vocals they sound very good too. If I had money I would get an electronic drum set because I can't get the realistic sound I want out of GarageBand's MIDI drums. Overall, I think direct recording can sound as good if not better than micing if you know what you're doing.
 
Vurt said:
This isn't hard - direct recording sucks.

it is good for the sake of convenience only. ie..if you live in an apartment or whatever, then by all means get some good direct equipment like Vince seems to have. If you go direct sometimes, but other times are able to blast amps, listen closely to littledog about reamping, and consider the Reamp www.reamp.com

Bass sounds a hell of a lot better direct than electric guitar, but even it benefits like a motherfucker when mixed with a mic'd track. Don't kid yourself that direct is as good as micing just because thats how you record all the time for whatever reason. Unless you don't have mics or are sticking them in your ass, they'll beat the hell out of most direct techniques.

btw - this isn't geared toward anyone in particular. I've just been reading more and more defenses of going direct lately, and they're bullshit.

/rant

</rant>
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Direct recording may not sound like mic'ed recording, but it is all most people have. It is best to make the best of it. There is no alternative for apartment dwellers.
 
Verify This Please

I can't believe this thread that I started moons ago is still up! I am sure it is up because it addresses a very important aspect of home recording - available acoustics.

But please verify that many, if not most of motown recordings were recorded direct or at least many of the instruments were recorded direct. Someone told me this long time ago, but I couldn't verify it. He said they were just recording on a garage that wasn't really isolated. Many of such recordings went number 1 and much more went to top 40 of the pop charts. Not a bad record for direct recording, I'd say. Just listen to the old motown music, you could almost detect that they indeed, or at least for the most part, many instruments were direct recorded. Now, compare those recordings to the many recordings of live bands during concerts that were mic'd, using that as criteria, the choice would be obvious.

I'd say, some are good for direct, some aren't. Use the one that gives the best sound.
 
remember when using d.i.'s that the direct signal from the d.i. is gonna be slightly out of phase with the mic'd cab signal because there is a little distance between the source and mic and no distance with the d.i.
try delaying the d.i. signal 0.5 ms.
 
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