Recording a Fender Strat

J

JayNine07

New member
Hey All!
I have a question on recording my 50th Anniversary American Made Fender Stratocaster. I’ve recorded in low end studios to high and studios and very rarely have gotten a tone that I dig from my strat.
I’ve recently started working in my own home studio with a modest set up, and need help getting powerful tones the Stratocaster is capable of. I’ve recorded with a wide variety of amps, from my Fender Deluxe, a Fender Twin, a Marshall JCM900, and a Mesa Lone Star, but only once has it ever come close to the kind of powerful sound I’m looking for.
I’m looking for that David Gilmore, Rory Gallagher, Mick Mars, Jimi Hendrix etc. “fat” sound coming from the Stratocaster, and have really mixed results in getting it. The only time I’ve ever been happy with the “thickness” or fullness if you will of the strat has actually been from one of the low end studios I recorded in, where I used my Strat running through the distorted channels of my Fender Deluxe which has lead me to believe that I, and the other producers, are missing out on some kind of eq, compression, or some thing else to give me that punch we can hear on the classic/modern records.
Now I’ve contemplated switching out pick ups, but I’m happy with the live sound and versatile features of my current set up, it’s recording is where the weakness comes in. Also, in researching some of the above players, I noticed that they seldom change out more than one pick up, so I don’t really know if that’s the end all solution to this issue!
Thank You!
 
I couldnt find that elusive fat sound either, People would say it sounded good but while I was playing a standard Strat I always wanted more. I guess that is why I am a Gibson fan. I guess it is all in the gain stages and signal processing. Good luck.
VP
 
First off, get the tone you want. Then capture it as accurately as possible.

When I think "fat" guitar, I think saturated power tubes. Find a low-wattage tube amp or use a power attenuator with a higher-wattage tube amp. Crank up the master volume, keep the preamp gain low, and use the attenuator to keep the final volume tolerable for your recording space. This recipe is simple and time-tested for big-balled guitar, no matter which brand, which pickup, or which particular amp. Crank up a tube amp to where the power tubes are working hard and you're most of the way to getting a fat tone.

Find a stomp box or rackmount EQ. Parametric would be nice, but most graphic EQ boxes for guitar are tailored to alter the important frequencies for guitar. Try it between your guitar and amp, try it in your effects loop, or even try it post-power amp if you're using an attenuator (not inline with the amplified signal...line out only!). Using a more sophisticated EQ than the treble/middle/bass found on most guitar amps is critical to tailoring your sound to your recording space, and to your ears.

Once you're satisfied with the sound you're getting the room, it's time to modify it slightly so that it sounds good to a microphone. When you stand in your recording space and jam, your EQ and distortion settings are set so that it sounds good to your ears in your room. But if you stick your ear right in front of your speaker, it's going to sound different. The distortion will be "gritty", and the definition will be altered. So you're going to want to lower your preamp gain to combat the gritty sound. Now nudge up the midrange frequencies so that the guitar will retain clarity and definition when mixed in with other instruments in the mix. Get as much of your distortion as possible from your power tubes, and only use the preamp tubes as a distortion/gain suppliment. It doesn't take much preamp gain to sound good in a mix.

Have a friend stick a mic in front of the amp and try different mic positions as you play and listen through your monitoring setup. At some position, at some distance, and at some angle relative to the speaker, you'll like the sound more than any other position/orientation/distance. I can't tell you what this position is, only your ear and your preferences can tell you. So experiment. Recruit a friend to assist you. Do your best to only listen to what the microphone hears, and not what the amp sounds like in the room.

And the biggest key to fat rhythm guitars is double tracking. Perform each rhythm part twice, record both takes. Pan one to the left and one to the right (doesn't have to be a hard pan of 100% L and 100% R, but pan them. The more you pan, the more exaggerated the "thickness" will be. 100% L/R isn't necessarily the "best". Experiment.). Try the same technique with leads, fills, whatever you feel needs "thickening". Don't copy/paste the same take, but record each one as a seperate performance. Play them as tight as possible, but remember that it's the subtle differences between each take that creates the impression of "thickness" when they're played simultaneously and panned apart in the stereo field.

So, the formula from my experience is:

- Power tubes being pushed into breakup
- Preamp tubes only being pushed enough to provide supplimental sensitivity/gain
- Graphic/Parametric EQ to tailor the response to your room and preferences
- More midrange frequencies than you might prefer when performing live to retain definition when mixed
- Mic positioned to capture the sweet spot that your ears prefer
- Double-tracked rhythm parts panned apart in the stereo field

I'm sure that there are 100 other factors that come into play, but these are the big ones IMO.
 
Less gain/distortion.

Small room.

Close mic the cabinet from the back. But stay away from tubes or transformer because they produce a ton of noise.

A lot of gilmour stuff wasn't a strat. Another Brick in the Wall solo is a les paul. I never thought of Mick Mars as a strat player. I love hendrix tone, but there are few examples of it where it sounds as good as I think it does, if you know what mean.

I disagree with "getting the sound you want" method. I get much better results when I optimize the sound for what I am trying to record. Too much distortion will make a really brootalz room tone record very wimpy. If I recording something clean and the amp is too loud, it sounds very shrill on the track.

But I am a dumbass. I can get the sound I am after without using 5 different $1000 amps. And I always used a 57 on amps until I bought this EV Raven, which is just about the same thing.
 
JayNine07 said:
......but I’m happy with the live sound......
Click to expand...

I assume this means you ARE getting that "phat" sound you want from the speaker cab, but not from the playback of the recordings? If so, then tweak the recording and playing back process. It isn't easy. You can love the sound from the guitar speakers but you have to do more than just stick a mic in front of it to get that same sound to come out of the monitors from your recording.

I'm trying to do this same thing, and it has taken me this long simply to get the right sound coming out of the guitar speaker. Closest I've come is recording a closed back cab, 1x10 or 1x12 Weber Michigan or Texas, with an SM7b on the grill midway between center cone and rim. And I have to crank the amp up loud to get it, louder than I can stand to hear it in the room. (the cab is in a small mic booth)

By the way, what I consider the single most important ingredient in getting my sound - after the guitar and pickups, that is - is a superb compressor in the guitar chain. I just got a CMATMODS Deluxe "Ross" Compressor and it is absolutely awesome for what I'm doing. I could not get my sound without it, no way. Having a Mesa amp helps.
 
I think what you're looking for is the sound of a big rig's power section saturation, on the Strat's neck pickup. It's not practical in a home studio to have a 100-watt Marshall cranked to the max but you can get it with a smaller tube amp

Tadpui's post is good, particularly about power tube saturation - but that doesn't mean you are going for a highly distorted sound from the preamp section. Also, Tadpui has great advice about mic placement. Quite often less distortion is better, as Cephus points out.

A power attentuator would probably serve you well. With an attenuator - like a Hot Plate or Weber Mass - you can crank your Deluxe's volume to get the power tubes working but cut the wattage going to your speakers.

As far as room sound goes, sometimes you just have to live with what you have. A live room with enough soft stuff in it to soften the harsh edges is best, and experiment with mic placement and overall amplifier volume, as the louder yout amp is, the more you will hear the amp's interaction with the room.

Good luck! :)
 
I think I've gotta agree with the person who said get an eq pedal or rackmount. You could spend thousands of dollars on all the top name TOOB AMPS and not get the tone you want. I didn't discover this until a few weeks ago, but I play with a strat, and a majority of my problems were solved once I ran it through an eq that I borrowed from someone. I will probably never play through an amp without one, even if I'm testing something out at the store or something.

To clarify, I was recording at a community college I attend, and they had a couple amps in the back room. I had tried playing through a fender super 210, but it had a broken mid knob, and eventually I gave up on it. I found an old solid state yamaha the school had(can't remember the model) and it had a parametric eq on it. It was by no means perfect, but it was certainly better. Also, Another Brick in The Wall Pt. 2 had its solo recorded direct-in as far as I know.

From what I've heard, the recommended idea is to have in your chain guitar>eq>dist/ov>eq>amp. I haven't tried the two eq thing yet since I only have one, though, so don't go spending a lot of money. Also the power attenuator.

Everything else afterwords is just eqing, mic placement, and compression. I'm by no means a professional, but I know the kind of tone I like, and I know your pain with trying to get that well known sound out of a strat.
 
Tadpui said:
First off, get the tone you want. Then capture it as accurately as possible.
Click to expand...

Seems simple, but how often do we forget that basic concept? Don't try and polish a turd after the fact; get it right to tape/HD to start, and it's easier to twist it around a little later.

Tadpui said:
When I think "fat" guitar, I think saturated power tubes.
Click to expand...

Not always. If you have a thin, buzzy tone, and your nice tube amp is cranked, you have a thin, buzzy, cranked tone. Strats are noisy, and sometimes thin sounding. So the first thing to do is make sure you have a Strat with a RWRP middle pickup. Then make sure your amp is capable of fat tones. Sorry to rain on people's parade, but Boggie tends to make an amp that's all preamp gain, and that high gain tone is often not as thick as some people (such as myself) would like. Stick with a basic Fender. You'll need a booster pedal if the Strat has weak or even average pickups. You could also use a moded pedal that has less than heavy metal type gain with scooped mids. Maybe a Distortion+ or a Keeley Blues Driver. Just something to hit the amp a little harder. And an amp that has a pretty full frequency response, which is why I say Fender, and not Boogie or Marshall. Hell, even a Peavey Classic 50 or an Ampeg Reverbrocket will get that tone you want. With a boost or a drive pedal, and a compressor, you're 3/4 of the way home.

Tadpui said:
Find a low-wattage tube amp or use a power attenuator with a higher-wattage tube amp. Crank up the master volume, keep the preamp gain low, and use the attenuator to keep the final volume tolerable for your recording space. This recipe is simple and time-tested for big-balled guitar, no matter which brand, which pickup, or which particular amp. Crank up a tube amp to where the power tubes are working hard and you're most of the way to getting a fat tone.
Click to expand...

Using a power attenuator is just plain wrong. They alter the tone, and always thin it out which is counter productive to what the OP is after. Don't do it. And don't do the Master full/Preamp low. I hope that's a typo, since that's a recipe for clean tone, and attenuated it will just sound like a tiny watt amp with lots of headroom. This is Olive Oyl tone, when he wants Bluto tone. Hey, for some Jazz elevator muzak it'll sound great. But not for that 'phat' tone.

cephus said:
Less gain/distortion.
Click to expand...

Yep. Most high-gain amps and pedals thin things out and/or scoop mids, which is not what you want. Hit the amp a little harder, like I said earlier. You'll notice it on playback.

soundchaser59 said:
By the way, what I consider the single most important ingredient in getting my sound - after the guitar and pickups, that is - is a superb compressor in the guitar chain. I just got a CMATMODS Deluxe "Ross" Compressor and it is absolutely awesome for what I'm doing. I could not get my sound without it, no way. Having a Mesa amp helps.
Click to expand...

Other than having a Boogie, this is another piece of advice that is 100% on the money. Geez, I mean Boogie has a sound, and thousands of people like it. But it isn't a warm, fat sound. At least not the exact sound I want, and the sound I think the OP wants, which is why I bother to add my 2¢. It just seems we are after the same thing, and I can save someone years of chasing their tail. I don't mean to offend the Boogie Brigade, but it just seems like it's the metal guys who use them, and not the older blues cats. He's not trying to sound like John Petrucci.

clntgn said:
From what I've heard, the recommended idea is to have in your chain guitar>eq>dist/ov>eq>amp. I haven't tried the two eq thing yet since I only have one, though, so don't go spending a lot of money. Also the power attenuator.

Everything else afterwords is just eqing, mic placement, and compression. I'm by no means a professional, but I know the kind of tone I like, and I know your pain with trying to get that well known sound out of a strat.
Click to expand...

Yep. Except the attenuator.

Now, with a Strat with a RWRP middle pickup, a compressor, a subtle overdrive pedal, going into a good full range tube amp cranked up, you have to mic it. Go to the edge of the speaker, and not the center of the cone. The Mexican SM57's or the Sennheiser e609 will have a mid hump, which may work. But now add a ribbon way back in the room, and get the room sound.

Tadpui said:
And the biggest key to fat rhythm guitars is double tracking...........
Click to expand...

You're done! Your 'phat' tone awaits you on playback. Try it and pass the ketchup for that foot in my mouth if this hasn't gotten you miles closer (if not bang on) to the tone you want.
 
Sorry but I totally disagree with you ramjam.

An attenuator does alter your tone, but not as much as you're letting on. I use a THD HotPlate and I retain the tone that I love from my amp. Not sure what you've done with attenuators that you've used, but maybe you've done something wrong with your setup if it's totally ruined your tone.

And it wasn't a typo about low preamp gain, high power amp gain. You can get a lot of saturation solely from your power tubes. Then add preamp gain to taste. It's not difficult, and it's a proven and time-tested method for getting good tone. I don't use more than a little preamp gain, while keeping my master and channel volumes near top volume. All your preamp tubes buy you is sensitivity and, when turned up too high, buzzy fizzy tone. So just use enough preamp gain to get the sensitivity you want. A good overdrive pedal is a good addition like TelePaul suggested as well. I love my TS9 for adding more smooth gain to my preamp instead of the ECC83s.

Hell, I can put my amp on its clean channel and turn up the channel volume and master volume to get a raging distortion. No preamp gain at all, only power tube distortion.

And Mesa/Boogie has a lot of different amps. Most of them are pretty thick sounding. AGain, not sure what you've tried or what combination of gain staging you've tried, but there are some truly crushing heavy tones, some very warm and fat crunch tones, and some very fat clean tones that Mesas can produce. There are more to Mesa's line of amps than the rectifier series. And even the rectifier series can produce a variety of good, thick tones.
 
Look, forget the EQ in the signal chain, or any other signal processing, and forget about the Les Paul/other HB guitar stuff.

If you're looking for a Strat sound you have to start with a Strat or a reasonable facsimile thereof. GergL is just shaking the tree for idiots and one or two usually fall out. :D

If there is a certain type of Strat sound you're looking for you need to research the artists whose sound you wish to emulate, and see what kind of gear they were using and how they were using it.

If you want to get that really fat Strat sound you'll likely need a stagger pickup set - these pickups have the polepieces for the middle strings raised higher than the polepieces for the upper and lower strings. Also the pickups should be slightly overwound compared to, say, vintage-sounding pickups which are very sweet-sounding but don't have a lot of balls.

Aside from that, the rest is in the amp. A tube amp with the power section being pushed moderately and not too muchg preamp gain - just as Tadpui described - is the ticket here. This is where power attenuators come in. Yes, they can alter the tone. The best of 'em offer tone controls to mitigate that - check out http://www.tedweber.com for their latest Mass attenuators.

If you can get the tone from the guitar and amp, then everything else about mics, mic placement, room treatment, etc., is just about a better way to capture that sound. Capture the sound first, worry about the details second.
 
Tadpui said:
Sorry but I totally disagree with you ramjam.
Click to expand...
Hey, I disagree with myself sometimes, and I've changed my mind a full 180 degrees. More than once. But not here, and not now.

Tadpui said:
........maybe you've done something wrong with your setup if it's totally ruined your tone.
Click to expand...

I doubt that. And I wouldn't say it's ruined my tone, but it always thins it out, and makes it less than what I'm after. And that started when I was using Power Soaks when they were a new product. No one disagrees attenuators change the tone, but who will stand up and say they make the tone better? I didn't think so. And adding EQ controls admits they change the tone, and never for the better, or you'd have your hand up right about now. Have I tried every attenuator? No. I gave up, and I have no interest in trying again. I really want them to work, so I've tried Power Brakes, Hot Plates, etc. But if you understand speaker theory, you know why hitting a 100-watt 4 x 12" cabinet with three or 5-watts of power always loses mids and low end (HINT: the speaker isn't working hard enough). And that's where the 'phat' lives. Until they figure out how to break the laws of physics, attenuators will always make me cringe. I won't say they 'suck' because you might like that tone. And I don't mean that as a backhanded compliment either. There's lots of guitar tones out there that I don't like (are you reading this, Jack White? Dan Auerbach?), but who the Hell am I? Some people like that tone, and some people making that tone sell tons of records. So obviously my tastes aren't the end-all be-all. But if you asking how to get a 'phat' Strat tone like some old school rockers or blues-rock guys, you bet your ass I'll have opinions. And you'll get opinions that aren't rehashed ideas I stole from web sites like this, but haven't tried out myself. They'll be opinions that have been tried over and over again during the last thirty years! Not ten years. Not twenty years. Thirty years. That also why I doubt I'm using any piece of gear 'wrong'.

Tadpui said:
You can get a lot of saturation solely from your power tubes. Then add preamp gain to taste.
Click to expand...

You're gonna have to go over that one slowly, and use words consisting of two syllables or less. Let me say this, and this isn't my idea; it is stolen from any RCA receiving Tube Manual. A pair of 6L6's need 72VAC Grid-to-Grid to achieve full output power, with the stated parameters pertaining to Plate voltage, Screen Grid voltage, Plate loading, etc. If you exceed that voltage, the power tubes are not operated in the linear portion of the load line, and distortion results. How do you saturate the output tubes with a pissy amount of preamp voltage? How do you exceed the current rating of the output transformer, and saturate the core, without driving the output tubes? I suppose you could bias the output tubes to maybe 100mA at idle, and use an OPT rated for 80mA per side. So now any input causes saturation. But my understanding is that you need driving voltage to force the output tubes into saturation, and the current (if it exceeds the transformer rating) will then cause the OPT to saturate. This is why output transformers are treated as a magic ingredient; they are! It's simple (at least to me); when a transformer's primary winding is overloaded from excessive applied voltage, the core flux will reach saturation levels during peak moments of the AC sinewave cycle. When this happens, the voltage induced in the secondary winding will no longer match the wave-shape of the voltage powering the primary. In other words, the overloaded transformer will distort the waveshape from primary to secondary windings, creating harmonics in the secondary winding. Beautiful, lovely, even sexy harmonics. Guitar players know they like that distortion. That's why when you buy that old High School PA and use it as a guitar amplifier, it lacks something. And that something is preamp voltage. I mean, they're probably also running the primary impedance really high for less distortion, but that's another story. The point here is you need preamp voltage to drive the output tubes, and you need to drive the output tubes to drive the output transformer. I don't believe for a second you can have a low voltage preamp and get 'saturation' from the power tubes alone. You'll have to convince me. Put a 12AX7 as the phase inverter in your Twin Reverb, and listen to the extra distortion. That's all the evidence I need.

Tadpui said:
I love my TS9 for adding more smooth gain to my preamp instead of the ECC83s.
Click to expand...
Smooth, yes. Full, with a 'phat' bottom end? Not in this lifetime. A tone with mid-hump and top end? Hell, yeah. But again, who am I? You know it cuts through the mix well, and has sold a lot of records. But it ain't Beano tone.

You know, this is silly. Why argue like school children? How you get your tone is personal, and ditto how I get mine. If someone wants to know how to get a tone that I think is similar to the tone I'm always chasing, I'll add my 2¢. Just remember what you paid for this opinion. But humor me, and try what I suggest. A wooden nickle says you won't hate it.




P.S. I still don't like Boogie.
 
only observation I have is that if the OP likes his sound live but not recorded ..... then the problem is not the Strat, the problem is not getting a good accurate recording of his live sound. A different guitar is unlikely to change that.
 
On my amp, I have 3 gain stages. The first stage is the channel gain. The second is the channel volume. And the third is the master volume. I can crank the channel volume and the master volume and get a lot of distortion. I keep my preamp gain at about 10:00. Where the extra gain comes from that drives my power tubes without getting the fizzy distortion of preamp tubes I don't know. Elves. Flux capacitors. I dunno.

I like both Jack White's and Dan Aurbach's tone. If you don't describe the main riff to "Have Love Will Travel" as fat, then I don't know what is. And that's a very similar tone to what I get on my amp's clean channel with the channel volume and master volume cranked. It's a very different tone than what I get with the channel gain cranked and either the channel volume or master volume anywhere other than past 2:00 or 3:00.

Am I driving/overdriving my preamp tubes with my channel gain down low? Or when I use the clean channel, which doesn't have a gain but does have volume?

I don't get more distortion when I turn the channel volume up but leave the master volume down. But I do get more distortion when I turn the gain up and do anything at all with the channel volume or master volume. And it's not thick distortion, it's thin, harsh, fizzy distortion. So the overdrive has to be coming from the preamp tubes. Where else would it be coming from in this case? And I can say, without question, that the tone with the preamp gain up high and the master or channel volume down low. Every tube amp I've ever played through is the same in this respect.
 
I have absolutely no problem getting a variety of nice tones from my strat. Here's how I do it...

1) Plug guitar into amp

2) ...um...that's it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top