NEWBIE - Equipment Recommendations - Recording Electric Guitar Cabs

T

Timur

New member
Hello!!! I'm new (again) to home recording and need some advice / recommendations.......

Here is my situation:
I want to start recording electric guitar cabinets / tube amplifiers. This will be for hobby, but would like the ability to achieve professional quality sound bites
My budget is $2500 - $3000 with NO RABBIT HOLES (I know all about rabbit holes.......)
looking for a system I can travel with to record

Equipment I own:
Beyerdynamic DT770 headphones
Dell (windows PC) Latitude 5550 with Ultra 7 vPro processor (thunderbolt equipped)
SM57
SM58
direct box
(I have cables, mic stands, etc)

Interface:
I'm considering the RME Babyface Pro FS or RME UCX II. The UCX is advertised to have better mic pre's - I would prefer to matching quality with preamp and microphone

Microphones:
I'm considering the Beyerdynamic M160 or the Royer R121 to pair with the SM57

DAW:
I have past experience with Magix Samplitude, although I do not think this product is a popular option today
need recommendation here....

Room treatment:
My area is multipurpose shop, office, music room, etc - I really just plan on covering the cab and mic with heavy blanket when recording. Will this suffice?

Outboard equipment:
Anything needed here?

Thanks!! Really looking forward to your input!!
 
I have a good mic collection - I do have an M160, but it rarely comes out into the light. Nice but the royer is way too expensive for the use it would get.
Forgive me - but throw money at things you discover limit your creativity and quality. If you have poor to average acoustics, forget hearing any advantages posh mics provide. Like buying a Range Rover and insisting on using the cheap worn out tyres you have laying around. Worse if the only journey it makes is to the local shop and then back home.

You are also looking at expensive interfaces, yet have nothing in terms of monitors to listen to? The headphones are great for some things. Trouble is, mixing on headphones is a skill best learned by comparing them with the sound on speakers, and you don't have any.

Before you waste ANY money, get a system that works. Some small powered speakers, a modest interface - plenty around, even the behringer offerings are actually very good sounding. Few now are less than good. The very good ones need very good everything to match.

Will you want to record more than two sources at the same time? If so, it means 4 or more inputs - more than two happens all the time. Stereo synths, or stereo processors - very common.

I would buy a couple of dynamics, and then a modest mid price condenser - Rode NT1 mics have been around a long time and are easy to find second hand. A modest interface. A pair of speakers and your headphones. DAW wise - download two or three of the favourites when you can dedicate time to trials - cut down or time limited versions. Install them. See how easy it is without resorting to youtube - to record from your mics and play back sound. How simple adding effects and processing is. Then record a simple song. Usually one will jump out. There are no bad ones, but there are lots that people don't like. I have used cubase for 30 years. Is it the best? Probably not, but it is the one I know inside out and am fast and productive on. Every now and then I try others, but go back quickly. It suits me. Reason and others get good mentions - but they're just different.

Once you are making music - then is the time to see where you are being held back. It will NOT be mics. It will be the hassle of recording in a shared space. Throwing duvets (excellently useful audio tools) over amps and stuff sucks creativity so fast. Expensive interfaces and mics are a total waste of money. I have dozens of posh and expensive mics as I am a bit of a collector, but I return to everyday mics so often. AKG 414s I really like, and they get the most use, as do SM58s. Pretty much I can record anything with those two. I have I think 5 ribbons. I am dreadfully clumsy, so they stay in the store unless really required. Same with the expensive German mics, and other 'posh' mics.

I have two pristine 414s, and one with dents and dings. That never gets put away.

Get set up with the basic stuff. 57's and 58's are never money wasted. Even a cheap interface always comes in handy when you also have expensive ones - they're not wasted. I can almost guarantee that in a space with imperfect acoustics, these sophisticated and expensive interfaces sound almost the same. I have a presonus in one rack, but I bought a £40 unbranded one to use in theatres with a macbook. For three weeks in my studio, all the sound was being routed through it without me knowing. Nothing jumped out and said 'Warning Will Robinson". I forgot I swapped it with the Presonus to do a test. I never noticed!

When you suddenly say - I wish that mic was just a little warmer, or more detailed on that expensive acoustic guitar - then is the time to add a better product. We all waste money in this way. In a multi-purpose space. Acoustic products help - so maybe movable acoustic panels, or quieter aircon, or seals on doors to stop leakage - sensible stuff like that - will be better to spend money on.
 
+1 on Rob's comments. If you haven't done recording like this before, you should walk before you run. You say you want professional sounding sound bites (not exactly sure what you mean here), but a LOT of professional guitar recordings were made with just an SM57. On the other hand, Eddie Kramer often used the M160 and a U67 to mic up Hendrix's amps in the studio. A lot will depend on your amp and room. Throwing blankets over the whole shebang will take most of the room out of the sound, especially if the mic is an inch from the speaker. But you might get a "flat" sounding recording, and room sound is often part of that "professional" sound. In the end, your playing will be 100 times more important than the mic and preamps.

I am a bit confused with your math. You give a budget of $2500 - 3000. You'll blow that out of the water with the RME UFX II and a Royer ($1700 for the RME, $1500 for the Royer). A Babyface and the M160 will run you about $2000.

Unless you have an outstanding monitoring system, I seriously doubt that you'll hear the difference between the mic pres on the RME vs a Motu M4, SSL 2 or an Audient ID24. Most interfaces today are going to be flat to 30 or 40kHz. You might see a 1dB drop in the 20Hz range, but unless you're recording pipe organs, there's very little actual energy down there (lowest fundamental of a piano is 27!) In practice, most times you will see a HiPass or low shelf at 50 to 100Hz on mixes.

You mention recording electric guitar cabs, and then mention remote recordings. How many mics are you planning? Is this just so you can record at a buddy's house or are you trying to record a full band in a club? That would have a bearing on what equipment I would be exploring.

Just to throw a bit more into the equation, a LOT of recording guitarists are leaving the amp and mics in the closet and going direct through sims (Fractal, Kemper, Strymon, Helix, Amplitude). If you're "gunslinger" doing work for hire, having a hundred amp models with 100 different speaker cabs at your disposal gives you a lot of options.
 
Oh yeah, for a current DAW, I always recommend Reaper. It's not expensive, you don't have to deal with the "annual subscription" crap, has a HUGE support network of users, and is kept current. Updates are free for two versions (current on 7.4, and you're to V8.99). It comes with a bunch of native plugins, and will run pretty much any VST/VST3 commercial plugins like Waves, FabFilter or Izotope.
 
Timur said:
Hello!!! I'm new (again) to home recording and need some advice / recommendations......

Microphones:
I'm considering the Beyerdynamic M160 or the Royer R121 to pair with the SM57
Click to expand...
I would skip the microphones.
Timur said:
DAW:
I have past experience with Magix Samplitude, although I do not think this product is a popular option today
need recommendation here....
Click to expand...
Magix was/is too complicated IMO - Reaper is inexpensive and does the trick - there are others like Cubase which isn’t too expensive and not much a learning curve.

Timur said:
Room treatment:
My area is multipurpose shop, office, music room, etc - I really just plan on covering the cab and mic with heavy blanket when recording. Will this suffice?

Outboard equipment:
Anything needed here?
Click to expand...
I would go with Helix Native (Which is software based on the Helix itself) or just go with one of the modelers - there are so many that are great - I prefer the Helix - it has amps- cabs - effercts - and tweaking gear all in one easy to use package.
Timur said:
Thanks!! Really looking forward to your input!!
Click to expand...
Considering you want to be mobile - the software is the way to go - although - are you recording vocals or anything else? You could buy a used MacBook Pro M3 Pro and use Logic - which contains basically everything you would want to use - then get a UA Apollo Twin - and be done - Monitoriing on Headphone - deciding later how elaborate you want to get.
 
Another vote for Reaper - it has a very active user community and active support, it's pretty cheap, and it's extremely customizable.

As far as mics... I mostly record guitars with a SM57 and a MD421, but honestly, my advice here is always two-fold:

1) If you can't get at least a "pretty good" guitar sound with a single SM57 (multitracking as appropriate for rhythm guitars, likely single-tracking for leads), then adding a second mic is going to just open a nightmarish can of worms. Get the fundamentals down here before adding complexity.
2) I've tried a bunch of options and like the pair I've settled on... but, honestly, I'd say a solid 90% of the improvement of any two mic setup comes from simply having a second mic, period, and what that mic is matters a lot less than you might think. A pair of SM57s gets you surprisingly close to "SM57 + $2k mic" territory, and a SM58 is really just a 57 with a different screen. If you're confident in your abilities to get great sounds with a single SM57, maybe just start adding in the 58 as your second mic before going nuts on additional mics.

If this is new to you, my usual starting point is take the "main" mic (for me, a SM57), and get it to sound as good as possible on its own... then, take your second mic, solo it, get it on the cab, and move it around a bit to get a sound that you figure will probably compliment your main mic. Then, on your preamp or interface, try to approximately level match the two mics, and then reverse phase on your second mic. Then, fine tune it to get the combination to sound as ungodly bad and fizzy and generally shitty as possible... and then when you return the second mic in phase, the pair ought to sound pretty great together.
 
Thanks for all the insight - it's pretty clear I'm not ready to jump into this but will keep researching.
 
Timur said:
Thanks for all the insight - it's pretty clear I'm not ready to jump into this but will keep researching.
Click to expand...
Wrong! DO jump in! The ONLY way to do this is "to do it". For recording guitar cabs all you need is a mic (a 57 is fine but there are zillions of dynamics at a third the price than will serve) an interface and a DAW.
I of course agree with Rob A, he da man! I would put in one note of caution? I agree that you do not need to spend a fortune on an interface but I would avoid the very low end Behingers. I had a UMC204HD and it was er, "OK" but the converters get a bit nasty at 6dB under 0dBFS and the line output is stupidly low and causes level interface issues with some devices.

I shall as ever strongly suggest the MOTU M4. You will not need another interface until you need a lot more tracks.

Reaper is great but if you have Samplitude or some experience of it you will not go wrong, very powerful editor. If you can find it the totally free Samplitude Pro 2 Silver is excellent. Limited to 8 tracks but more than enough for many purposes.

Speakers? Yes, get some!

Also Google <recording electric guitar sound on sound Aug 07>

Dave.
 
Perfection usually gets in the way of improvement. Lock in on a decent interface ($100). most of the named brands will work. A Presonus USB, which is a fine entry level interface will do the trick. Just pick one with a couple of inputs and make sure it has phantom power. You will always be able to use it later, but I agree with Dave on one point. You have to start to get to the end of your journey.

You should have enough information. Don't over spend so when you want to upgrade, you won't feel compelled to stay with something that won't work. Once you know/understand what you want, you can always upgrade.

Growth is really the primary objective, you will probably never get to your destination. But that is OK, because learning and getting better is why people get into this endevour.
 
Yeah, it's one of those shitty truisms that has the even worse misfortunate of actually being right - in order to get good at something, you have to be pretty comfortable being very BAD at it for a while.

Grab that SM57 and a mic stand, and get to work! And, if I can offer one final suggestion... a really bright flashlight, like a REALLY bright one, is a godsend when it comes to trying to figure out just where on the speaker your mic is pointed, through the grill.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top