Recording guitar effects

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Projbalance

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Just wondering how many of you prefer recording your guitar effects tracks in the room vs. those of you who prefer to do post.
 
Projbalance said:
Just wondering how many of you prefer recording your guitar effects tracks in the room vs. those of you who prefer to do post.
The only effect I would track is distortion. Everything else is added post. Except maybe wah-wah. That almost always has to be recorded to sound right to me.
 
Old school says post, but lately I've done alotta recording of a more "finished" guitar sound.
 
DigitalSmigital said:
Old school says post, but lately I've done alotta recording of a more "finished" guitar sound.
Me too, but not reverb.... I have been messing with my effects processor, and finding really cool tones. When i find one I like, I take the reverb out if it and see what happens when I track it that way. Some good, some bad. But you should always track without reverb, so that you don't over-do it when you do your final mix...
 
It totally depends. When I need a stereo effect, I go post (most of the time; I also love me a good a/b/y box!). Other than that, I really like tracking with effects. Especially with a room mic, the effect ends up sounding so rich and natural.

It also depends if your effects are nice outboard units or plugins. The former wouldn't bother me for post effects, the latter very well might.
 
depends on the quality of the effects you have and the type of room situation your faced with. If all you have is a 57 and a boss dist, save up some money and get some post rec. applications together. However, if your room has a good enough sound in relation to your instrument (amp and effects included) track it till the people living under you calls the cops. Not enough people utilize the room mic tech., why is that? I've got an sm-81, and some 414's ready to go every day for that specific purpose. Let us all mourne the old-school.
 
I try to keep all effects to a minimum while recording, they can always be added later if I decide I want them. If you record an effect then change your mind you are stuck with the choice of keeping a bad track or redoing it. For some reason (you will have to ask someone else why) recorders seem more sensitive to effects than do our ears, things like reverb and distortion will be more obvious on a recording than when you listen to the live performance, so keep things as clean as you can stand it while recording. I've recorded some guitarists who are great on stage and want to use all their pedals in the studio, sometimes it works, sometimes it don't. Maybe it's my gear or maybe it's them, either way certain effects just don't seem to want to be recorded and are better when added later.
 
When I played in a rock band I pretty much recorded dry and added effects later. The only exception I can think of was an Edge-type timed delay that was printed to the track.

Now I'm doing more solo electric guitar ambient stuff where the delay in particular - as well as a few time-based effects - is an integral part of the "sound." And since I'm doing that, I'm recording in stereo. Also, I couldn't record the part without the effects (at least not without the timed delay). Due to the fact that I have a simple, cheap 8-track, I've pretty much tracked with all effects except reverb. In a perfect world I wonder if I should record dry and add effects later (or at least split my signal and record one dry track as you would do for reamping) though I'd need to monitor with effects....
 
I usually do the effects beforehand. I'll record it special for the effect.

Depends, sometimes I do it post.

But there is a certain sound you get when running stompboxes inline to an amp you cannot get via adding effects post recording. If I need that sound I will go for it.

Myself it just makes mixing that much easier.

Also, with effects inline you often get a better or more appropriate performance.
 
I usually record both. DI and amplified on 2 channels, and split the signal and monitor FX on another set of channels which gets recorded too, because a lot of time my guitarists may feed off the FX they're hearing, and it influences how they play, and it may be hard to replicate with FX in post, so I have those tracks to work with too. Sometimes I drop the Pre FX in favor of Post, it all depends on the song, and the tone we're trying to achieve. The only thing I don't record is the reverb (Except the amplifier's reverb). Reverb can always be dialed back in at the end of the day.
 
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