Need some help recording electric guitar w/ amp & mic

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sidewiththeseed

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Hi all, wondering if I can get some advice on how best to record electric guitar with the gear I've got at my disposal. I've recorded kinda squiggly, minimal lead/background lines on various electrics, but always just to accompany acoustic guitar as the main part. But now I'm looking to record a song where a somewhat loud, gnarly sounding electric is the star of the show. Kinda in the Neil Young/Ghost Is Born-era Wilco neighborhood. Fairly heavy, syncopated riffing with a good amount of drive and some delay. Here's the general signal path I have in mind:

Gretsch Electromatic 5427TG Hollowbody
Pedal Board (MXR Timmy-->MXT Duke of Tone Boost-->JHS Flight Delay-->the reverb side of the Keeley Caverns V2)
Fender '68 Custom Vibro Champ
Shure SM-57
UA Volt 276
Garageband

I'm super, super happy with the sound I'm getting in the room, so I just want to make sure I'm doing everything right to get it to translate to "tape" without it sounding thin or losing character. I've never really messed with any sort of plugins, and I don't have any outboard gear. I'd love to hear if you guys have any sort of go-to plugins or settings you'd recommend for a situation like this.

I do also have a Strymon Iridium, but... I'm really hoping to keep this one as old-school as possible.

All advice very much welcome!
 
Just a left field idea? All that pedal stuff 'might' work against you getting the sound you want. I know you say "super happy with the sound in the room" but it seems to me that electric guitar peculiarly does not 'print' the room sound well?

You might be better to DI the guitar (and run "The "Rig" for giggles and ****s) then re-amp THROUGH the rig allowing you to mess with mic positions, more or less 'muck' and so on.

But that is just my 2 pen'oth I am sure some MUCH more experienced guys will be along shortly.

Oh and, what are you monitoring on? Electric guitar demands some fairly potent speakers to sound right.

Dave.
 
My two cents. One, using two mics works very well. One for close mic'ing (you really have to play with it) and the other to capture the room (for character). But here is the trick. You really need to here it in the mix. Thin is in, when you have other instruments, so it depends where you want the guitar to cut.

DI or dual recording is an option, but it is the same rule, you really need to determine the sound based on how you want it to sound in the mix. It could sound like sh*t alone and sound great in the mix, or vice versa. You really have to experiment, there are no templates.

Start with the closest mic and play with position and distance. Further away, it gets thinner. Move left, you get one sound, from left to right it continues to change. If you get something there, then isolate the room mic and start listening for the sweet spot. But, as I stated, it will be a combination of those items and the song. It is hard to give a suggestion other than, trial and error.
 
Thanks for the quick responses, guys. Already lots of food for thought.

As for hearing how it sounds in the mix, I guess I'm a few steps away from that -- I have a drummer friend who I've been doing some remote recording with, and it's been lots of fun. What I think I'll do to start is just record an electric scratch track to a metronome, along with a bass line, send to him to add drums to, then re-record the guitar from there.

As for adding a room mic, the only other mic I currently have at my disposal is a Rode NT1, which is my go-to for acoustic guitar. Would that be a decent enough option to start with?
 
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"a Rode NT1, which is my go-to for acoustic guitar. Would that be a decent enough option to start with?"

The only rule about recording electric guitar is that there are no rules! I would not suggest you put a capacitor mic close to a guitar amp speaker, pick up all the hum, fizz and crap, but out in the room it could get you close to the sound you hear.

In THEORY a crossed pair of directional SDCs a couple of mrts from the amp should pickup a good sound but nobody seems to do it that way. (but a pair of Behrry C2s are a night's beer money and mucho-handy on acoustics!)

As has been said, trial and error. One sort-of-rule seems to be "less is more" in terms of loudness and dirt?

Dave.







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sidewiththeseed said:
Thanks for the quick responses, guys. Already lots of food for thought.

As for hearing how it sounds in the mix, I guess I'm a few steps away from that -- I have a drummer friend who I've been doing some remote recording with, and it's been lots of fun. What I think I'll do to start is just record an electric scratch track to a metronome, along with a bass line, send to him to add drums to, then re-record the guitar from there.

As for adding a room mic, the only other mic I currently have at my disposal is a Rode NT1, which is my go-to for acoustic guitar. Would that be a decent enough option to start with?
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Your NT1 would be a great mic. I think starting out, your mic's don't have to be great. Once you start knowing what you are chasing, then mic's can play a more important role. At our level, not too much.

I just take the close mic and the room mic and blend the two together to taste. Sometimes I pan them, sometimes I don't. But I think once you get the feel for it, you will determine what you want.

Remember, it is as much an art as it is a science.
 
Thanks, all! I had 15 minutes of free time during my WFH day today, so I made a super, super quick 45 second recording of the Champ mic'd up with the NT1, just because it was already set up and I didn't feel like switching mics. It mostly sounded terrible, but I think I've got some ideas for how to make it sound better.

Definitely going to try the 57 as a close mic, with the NT1 on the room. Maybe this is a stupid question, but should I be trying to adjust the gain to match their levels right off the bat? Like, when I listen back to each, they should be roughly the same volume, but with different tonal character, correct?
 
Match the levels going in but don't be too fussy about it, you can always balance them in the DAW post tracking.
I would suggest you record as two discrete mono tracks (most DAWs default to stereo) that way you will have independent control of volume, EQ etc.
You still haven't said how you are monitoring the recordings and post some clips as soon as you can. Attached 320k MP3s work best for me. NOT that I am any judge for several reasons (mutton being one!) but I am always interested.

Dave.
 
I would get the level I wanted in the amp for the sound, as that makes a difference. Then adjust the input to keep it from clipping in the interface. I feel it is better to have the input too low as too high. Adding gain in the DAW cost (sound wise) nothing, so you don't really add noise. Once you have the amp sounding like you want it, then find you mic positions (and it will sound different based on location).

I totally agree with ECC, two mono tracks.
 
ecc83 said:
Match the levels going in but don't be too fussy about it, you can always balance them in the DAW post tracking.
I would suggest you record as two discrete mono tracks (most DAWs default to stereo) that way you will have independent control of volume, EQ etc.
You still haven't said how you are monitoring the recordings and post some clips as soon as you can. Attached 320k MP3s work best for me. NOT that I am any judge for several reasons (mutton being one!) but I am always interested.

Dave.
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Oops, forgot. Regarding monitoring: DT-770s and Yamaha HS-5. And will post MP3s by the end of the week when I'm able to give it another go.
 
I think I must be the only person who never uses a room mic. Perhaps because my available spaces don't sound good - but I have never improved a guitar sound with adding a mic in the space, other than the one the guitar cab is miked up with. I'm rarely stuck with a problem recording. I quite like the two Sennheiser mics people use for cabs as an alternative to a 57 - but I'm happy with practically everything.
 
One of my biggest "ah-HA!" moments with recording electric guitars was that the "room sound" is actually kind of... not that important. Instead, what you want to concern yourself with is what the guitar sounds like from right in front of the speaker, only a couple inches away. Why? Because this is what the mic is going to "hear."

Dial in your sound (at low volume, or with ear protection!) listening from right in front of the speaker - it's prbably going to involve a darker amp EQ and maybe a little less gain than you think.

Then, for rhythm guitars, double track what you're recording, and listen to how it sounds panned L and R, since in MOST causes this is what you're going to hear on an album (leads are usually a single track up the center, rhythms usually a stereo pair).

I don't use room mics, but for certain sounds they can be cool. I usually use a pair of mics, though a SM57 positioned close to the grill and usually just off the dust cap, adjusted to sound as good as I can get it, and then a MD421 also close-mic'd but positioned with the phase inverted to sound as thin and trashy as humanly possible, so when I then flip phase back to normal, it sounds lush and full and with relatively minimal phase cancellation (and, with what cancellation there is, it's mostly stuff I don't want anyway). This sounds great, but you can also get very very good results out of a single SM57.
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
One of my biggest "ah-HA!" moments with recording electric guitars was that the "room sound" is actually kind of... not that important. Instead, what you want to concern yourself with is what the guitar sounds like from right in front of the speaker, only a couple inches away. Why? Because this is what the mic is going to "hear."

Dial in your sound (at low volume, or with ear protection!) listening from right in front of the speaker - it's prbably going to involve a darker amp EQ and maybe a little less gain than you think.

Then, for rhythm guitars, double track what you're recording, and listen to how it sounds panned L and R, since in MOST causes this is what you're going to hear on an album (leads are usually a single track up the center, rhythms usually a stereo pair).

I don't use room mics, but for certain sounds they can be cool. I usually use a pair of mics, though a SM57 positioned close to the grill and usually just off the dust cap, adjusted to sound as good as I can get it, and then a MD421 also close-mic'd but positioned with the phase inverted to sound as thin and trashy as humanly possible, so when I then flip phase back to normal, it sounds lush and full and with relatively minimal phase cancellation (and, with what cancellation there is, it's mostly stuff I don't want anyway). This sounds great, but you can also get very very good results out of a single SM57.
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I've paired the 57 and 421 for years - but have not tried your phase trick. I'll check it out. :thumbs up:
 
PorterhouseMusic said:
I've paired the 57 and 421 for years - but have not tried your phase trick. I'll check it out. :thumbs up:
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Honestly I'd be curious for your approach, and how you think mine compares. I started doing this because this was the "safest" way to use both mics, and not worry about how varying the relative blend of one to the other could impact the tone of your guitar, or if instead you panned them apart rather than together, worry about mono summing a stereo mix and oddities that could inject.

In theory, I'm leaving some upside on the table by nthrowing them out of phase and making things as bad-sounding as possible, rather than leaving them in phase and making them as GOOD sounding as possible... but I think my ear is better at listening to something and thinking "hmm, that sounds like shit, and that's a little worse than this," rather than "hmm, that sounds great, and is this alternative slightly more, or less, great?"
 
Basically you take your near mic and room mic and move them till you hear what you hear in the room -
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
Honestly I'd be curious for your approach, and how you think mine compares. I started doing this because this was the "safest" way to use both mics, and not worry about how varying the relative blend of one to the other could impact the tone of your guitar, or if instead you panned them apart rather than together, worry about mono summing a stereo mix and oddities that could inject.

In theory, I'm leaving some upside on the table by nthrowing them out of phase and making things as bad-sounding as possible, rather than leaving them in phase and making them as GOOD sounding as possible... but I think my ear is better at listening to something and thinking "hmm, that sounds like shit, and that's a little worse than this," rather than "hmm, that sounds great, and is this alternative slightly more, or less, great?"
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For my own personal recordings - I've been using strictly modelers (primarily the Strymon Iridium) for 3-4 years by now. But I do still put the 57 and 421 on my 59 BMRI when other people record here at my place - which is not often - but occasionally. The material always varies - as do the guitars, players, and desired tone type. But I usually try to talk them into using my BMRI - it's just such a solid blank canvas amp. Does beautiful dead cleans - and takes pedals well.

So my use of those mics on that amp is almost always very straight forward. I have found what I think is the best of the four speakers, I almost always put the two mics as close together as I can get them while also making sure that their respective position between dust cap and speaker edge is uniform. I adjust the distance for zero cancelation (I've got this down after doing it so much). Then from there it's always a matter of EQing each mic track and either finding a blend that sounds nice with the material - or often I just abandon one altogether if one of the two just sounds right to everyone. I think - one time - did use both and panned them to some degree. But what got me started using both is "having options". That was always the point.

I've written before - that I've had a lot of fun and get enjoyment out of trying different mics and techniques on guitar cabinets. It can be tedious and often bears no fruit whatsoever. But when you try something different and strike gold - I love that. I can't wait to retire and spend more time with that sort of thing. About 5-10 years to go. :)
 
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PorterhouseMusic said:
For my own personal recordings - I've been using strictly modelers (primarily the Strymon Iridium) for 3-4 years by now. But I do still put the 57 and 421 on my 59 BMRI when other people record here at my place - which is not often - but occasionally. The material always varies - as do the guitars, players, and desired tone type. But I usually try to talk them into using my BMRI - it's just such a solid blank canvas amp. Does beautiful dead cleans - and takes pedals well.

So my use of those mics on that amp is almost always very straight forward. I have found what I think is the best of the four speakers, I almost always put the two mics as close together as I can get them while also making sure that their respective position between dust cap and speaker edge is uniform. I adjust the distance for zero cancelation (I've got this down after doing it so much). Then from there it's always a matter of EQing each mic track and either finding a blend that sounds nice with the material - or often I just abandon one altogether if one of the two just sounds right to everyone. I think - one time - did use both and panned them to some degree. But what got me started using both is "having options". That was always the point.
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Ah, so I bet in practice your and my approaches actually yield VERY similar results. We just come at it from - forgive me! - approaches that are 180 degrees from each other. :)

I've tried a few other options - a pair of SM57s actually works very well as well, and I've heard amazing recordings with a sE Electronics VR1 and a SM57 so I grabbed one, but still haven't managed to get a sound I was happier with from that pair than the MD421/SM57. Haven't given up, though. But, if I never do better than a SM57 with a MD421, I can live with that - I'm very happy with the recorded tones I'm getting these days.
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
Ah, so I bet in practice your and my approaches actually yield VERY similar results. We just come at it from - forgive me! - approaches that are 180 degrees from each other. :)

I've tried a few other options - a pair of SM57s actually works very well as well, and I've heard amazing recordings with a sE Electronics VR1 and a SM57 so I grabbed one, but still haven't managed to get a sound I was happier with from that pair than the MD421/SM57. Haven't given up, though. But, if I never do better than a SM57 with a MD421, I can live with that - I'm very happy with the recorded tones I'm getting these days.
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I've also been happier with the pairing of the 57 and 421 as opposed to two 57s - which i did for years before finding a good deal on a near mint 421.

Last year I picked up a e906 which I have not tried in combinations yet. But it sounds great on it's own so looking forward to experimenting with that.
 
WRT the OOPs thing? Where you have an open backed cab/combo it is a well recognized technique to mic the rear of the speaker.

Dave.
 
One less talked about mic setup: close mic with the dynamic with the tone a bit darker and the drive just a bit cleaner than you are aiming for then play or replay a loop while walking around listening to the walls. I often find there is a spot where the reflections just add something special . Mic up that bit of wall (yes, facing the wall) with the Rode.

Nearby rooms will often also be a fantastic place to record the ambience of. Mixing in a little of these smaller sounding tracks with the close miced can create magic.
 
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