Which mics, where to place them, which preamps, how? Sooner or later you'll reach the stage of "let's record the rehearsal and put it on YouTube," or "Tonight's concert is being recorded"... Record, record, record. It seems that lately all sorts of situations end up landing in the usual Pro Tools or Logic session. Whatever your band, solo project, work situation, etc., sooner or later you'll reach the stage of "let's record the rehearsal and put it on YouTube," or "Tonight's concert is being recorded," etc.
In other words, we're getting to a comic-strip panel in which recording isn't depicted as a mega studio with an SSL, a rack packed with preamps, you recording in the control room with your guitar, and of course the super couch behind you. That's less and less often the case. Nowadays, recording is more associated with your home and the studio you've been putting together, or the rehearsal space where you keep your gear, or some makeshift place where you're going to be recorded. We live at a time when recording studios are getting smaller and smaller, home studios are getting bigger and bigger, computers are increasingly the nerve center of recording, analog is no longer the only option, amp emulators want to sound like amps, the classic amplifiers are getting smaller and smaller, and so are the mics, preamps, compressors, etc. All this boils down to the fact that the tools we have at any given moment will help us reach our goal, but the most important thing is that the only tool that will surely get us safely to port is cultivating the best ears we can. Recording guitars is a niche within the art of music. It's an arduous, difficult task in which the technical side is placed at the service of the producer's musical feel, and a situation with many variables in the equation, which makes it very hard to get the expected result. That's why I'd like this article to feel like a dossier of concepts, impressions, tips, etc., that try to shed light on that murky moment of recording guitars. It tries to cover as many levels as possible, from "I'm going to find out what this guitar-recording thing is all about," through "Pro Tools is no mystery to me, but I'm not a guitarist and I have to record guitars," to "I've been recording my guitars skillfully for a while and I want to take it to the next level."
Basic concepts
The focus of this article is recording electric guitars. Recording acoustic or classical guitars would be another matter; although the instruments look alike, they don't have much in common. So we could make 3 conceptual divisions to organize the sound chain:
From the pick to the amplifier's speaker, or, if using an emulator, up to the output of that preamp/emulator.
Capturing the sound: That is, which mic to use, where to place it, which preamp to choose, etc. If we're playing through an emulator, they usually have menus that simulate the mic, its orientation relative to the speaker, etc.
Getting into the system: That is, the interface, the preamp (I've repeated preamp on purpose, since it sits between the two stages), converters, etc. And once inside the system, what to do with that recorded track, how to handle it, whether or not to double it, how to process it, etc. Considerations: as a checklist, I'd like to propose a series of important variables, which will set the guidelines for what we'll use and how:
What style of music are we going to record?, What kind of sound are we going to record? We'll develop the rest of the considerations based on these two questions.
Type of microphone
Let's consider the case where we're using an amplifier. If we use an emulator, as I said before, there would be a menu where we could choose which mic and where to place it. As for mics, and without this being a document about microphones, we should say which types may interest us:
Dynamic: Dynamic microphones are very directional, so they need to be very close to the source. The more centered on the cone, the more attack and mids we'll get, and the farther off center, the more bass will appear and the less attack. o Shure SM57, a historic reference, in short a standard. It has a very effective cardioid pattern, which greatly minimizes ambient noise, especially live. It has a characteristic brightness and makes it easy to get a clean sound, and its frequency response runs from 40 Hz to 15 kHz. o Sennheiser MD-421: it has a robust sound. It's somewhat smoother than the SM57, and especially suited to clean sounds, that is, to low-mid frequencies. Its response runs from 30 Hz to 17 kHz.
Condenser. Although condenser mics are very useful on many occasions, for electric guitars they're not usually the ideal scenario. They can be used to capture room sound where the room sounds especially good. For that, we need to be in a suitable space, and at the same time it's limited to cases where the amp doesn't share the room with another instrument. One mic that can be used to record electric guitars is the Neumann KM184, placed away from the source and combined with a dynamic mic, being careful about phase cancellation.
Ribbon. These mics, highly regarded in the '70s, were somewhat forgotten in the '80s, but they're now enjoying renewed fame. They're microphones geared toward a round, not at all harsh sound, adding a sweet, mellow color. The quintessential mic covering this spectrum is the Beyerdynamic M160. The key issue is where to place this mic: it shouldn't be treated like a dynamic, which must be right up against the source, nor should you go looking around the room for a spot as you would with a condenser mic. You have to find the intermediate position where the mic picks up all frequencies equally, since it tends to favor the lows.
I should mention that the type of mic is very important, as we've seen, but a factor that really needs to be considered is the type of speaker we use in our amplifier. We're always fretting over which preamp and which tubes we have, but much of the sound depends on the speaker and its response, especially when recording and deciding where to place the mic.
Preamp. The preamp is the color we're going to apply to what the microphone picks up. Beyond the style of music, where perhaps in styles like rock or metal the amplifier has a lot to say, the preamp is the most important thing, even more than the microphone. In other words, the preamp is what prepares the waveform before it enters the system. Preamps that can work for electric guitars include, for example:
• API 512: The classic preamp for electric guitars. Clean and crystal clear, it lets you play with the sound coming from the amp, taking it to extremes if you want. It lets the sound grow in a special way.
• API 312: Very similar to the previous one, perhaps a bit warmer; it has always given me a very efficient response. Also worth considering is API's EQ (550/554), but that's going further into the world of mixing.
• Neve / SSL/ etc. are safe bets, but with a price to keep in mind. Beyond that, I would like to mention the question of using a tube or a solid-state preamp. The warmth is different, but so is the response. In other words, we're back to the starting point: what style, what type of guitar sound (clean or dirty), etc. In short, we can use any preamp that performs efficiently with the mic. Inside the system.
Doubling, pedals, reamping
We've managed to play our track, and we've recorded it with the mic we wanted and run it through our favorite preamp. Once we have the track recorded, we need to consider what to do with it:
• Doubling: Often, and in certain styles such as rock or metal, the guitars need to feel present. That doesn't just mean pushing them to the max in the final mix; they need a certain body, and that's achieved by recording exactly the same thing several times. And copy-paste won't do; even copying and pasting and then delaying the new track by a few milliseconds isn't as effective as playing it again.
• Using modulation in the system. Often, when we play, we use delays, chorus, vibrato, etc., which have a timing factor. Unless you have a top-of-the-line vintage pedal, it's much better to let the system do it, since it will surely sync your effects to the song's tempo.
• Reamping: We're not always sure what final sound we'll need in the definitive mix, or the pedal you need just happens not to be available at the time. So sometimes we can record our guitar directly into the system, then send it back out, run it through the amp you didn't have that day and record it again with the definitive sound.
• The closer we get to the final sound when recording, the easier "life" will be in the mix. Often we record guitars and expect whoever mixes them to wave a magic wand and make them sound the way you imagined, but in reality, the closer it is to the final sound, the less likely it is that it won't end up sounding right. Which brings me to the next point:
Amplifier: the bigger the sound, the better? In most cases yes, though not always. To find out, we should try combining several amplifiers at once, with different types of mics, always minding the phase.
Conclusion
Within the brevity of an article, it's very difficult to go into detail on every aspect involved in recording electric guitars, since there are books and books on the subject. But the aim here is to give an enjoyable overview of the discipline. To sign off, I'd like to reiterate that your ears are the captains of the ship, and they're what should guide us safely to port.
