Recording Tips, Tricks, And Maybe Lesser Known Information

[Steadyriot.]

We've done vocals with a guy holding a blanket like this:


which have come out great (even though the room was shit) but that's kinda a last resort or a "this is only a demo" kind of thing.
As others have said some acoustic treatment to your room would be great (not only for recording but also for mixing).
Problem with this would be budget; acoustic treatment can get expensive. Though I have seen panels go for pretty cheap on Aliexpress. Curious about the quality of those..

rdavidr did a few pretty good videos on the acoustic treatment of his own (drum) studio and just released a video on setting up an at home (drum) studio too.
It's not fully guitar related but the concept stays pretty much the same.

The band Dorje also did a pretty good fly by of their diy recording.
If you can stand listening to Rob Chapman jabber on for a while the video has some great insights in at home guitar recording like the "igloo" of blankets they build around their guitar cab to as has been said earlier "take the room out of the room".

As for my own band; we've been recording a few demo songs lately and all our guitars and bass sounds are straight into an amp sim. Ofcourse this isn't much fun for us gear heads but it yet again takes the room and mic-ing etc. out of the equation. Good enough for a demo (and the amps in Logic don't sound all that bad either!).
Reamping and recording via DI is in the same realm and really worth trying out. You can really tweak all the settings (mic placement, amp in the room, twiddle knobs) without having to play the part over and over again yourself. You have a computer; let it do the grunt work.


Good luck! Hope it helps.

[Shadoweclipse13]

1) Considering smaller spaces (apartments, etc.), is it a bad idea to run a recording device (digital, not tape) off the same power strip (or wall outlet) your guitar amp is plugged into? I'm wondering about extra noise, etc.

Running gear into more than one power outlet is actually the classic way to create the pre-conditions for a hum-producing ground loop. So if your amp is plugged into one outlet and your pedal board or mixer etc into another, their different ground points may be at slightly different ground potentials (ie not exactly 0 volts), which would create a potential difference between those points. When you connect the output of your pedal board / mixer to your amp, the ground line in that connection completes the loop that also runs between the ground points in the wall, which is then a circuit for current to flow between the different ground potentials in the ground wires, which is what is heard as hum.

So you are actually usually better off going into one outlet ... at least as far as ground loop hum is concerned.

Interesting. That's pretty cool information actually. I swear I should've been a scientist

[Shadoweclipse13]

We've done vocals with a guy holding a blanket like this:


which have come out great (even though the room was shit) but that's kinda a last resort or a "this is only a demo" kind of thing.
As others have said some acoustic treatment to your room would be great (not only for recording but also for mixing).
Problem with this would be budget; acoustic treatment can get expensive. Though I have seen panels go for pretty cheap on Aliexpress. Curious about the quality of those..

I've wondered the same. There's some decent stuff on there sometimes, but I would bet cheap acoustic foam would be carcinogenic

rdavidr did a few pretty good videos on the acoustic treatment of his own (drum) studio and just released a video on setting up an at home (drum) studio too.
It's not fully guitar related but the concept stays pretty much the same.

I've seen that before (I think from someone on here who posted it)! That's a great video. Definitely gave me some ideas.

The band Dorje also did a pretty good fly by of their diy recording.
If you can stand listening to Rob Chapman jabber on for a while the video has some great insights in at home guitar recording like the "igloo" of blankets they build around their guitar cab to as has been said earlier "take the room out of the room".

I normally can't stand Rob Chapman, but at least in this case it's not a typical guitar-wankery type video like he normally does. I'll have to watch the rest when I get home today.

As for my own band; we've been recording a few demo songs lately and all our guitars and bass sounds are straight into an amp sim. Ofcourse this isn't much fun for us gear heads but it yet again takes the room and mic-ing etc. out of the equation. Good enough for a demo (and the amps in Logic don't sound all that bad either!).
Reamping and recording via DI is in the same realm and really worth trying out. You can really tweak all the settings (mic placement, amp in the room, twiddle knobs) without having to play the part over and over again yourself. You have a computer; let it do the grunt work.

I'm down for trying out DI and re-amping, but recording straight in won't likely be my thing. I really want to just do some acoustic treatment, but renting an apartment as opposed to owning will make that difficult. Making panels that do little damage and are able to be taken with, wouldn't likely do a whole lot of good acoustically. I've got tons of blankets that I can try out for now. The scientific mind in me will probably record with bare walls, then blankets, just to hear a difference in my exact space, you know? Seeing that kind of difference is fun to me Thanks for all the suggestions dude!

[Maggieo]

We did the hold the blanket or quilt thing at basketball games for in-game interviews. Just enough of the room got through, but you could still understand the interviewee.

[somanytoys]

All of this stemmed from an idea I had for a small space. Here's my amp corner at the moment:

That is a disgustingly neat and organized pile of goodies. You are a sick, sick person.

(of course that means that I wish I could keep mine all nice like that. Even just some of it. Ain't hapnin')

[Shadoweclipse13]

All of this stemmed from an idea I had for a small space. Here's my amp corner at the moment:

That is a disgustingly neat and organized pile of goodies. You are a sick, sick person.

(of course that means that I wish I could keep mine all nice like that. Even just some of it. Ain't hapnin')

I do enjoy neat and organized, but my trick for what you're seeing here is that my pedal is in pieces (not wired up with signal cables or power), and all my cables are put away too. For me to play, it takes like 20 minutes to get everything ready. Once I make a final decision on a pedal or two for my board, I want to leave things plugged in so I can just play, and that might be as clean.

[jorri]

I think I'm finally to the point where I'm able and want to start recording my stuff (at home, for fun), but I had an idea for a desk/recording station and am not sure about a few things...

1) Considering smaller spaces (apartments, etc.), is it a bad idea to run a recording device (digital, not tape) off the same power strip (or wall outlet) your guitar amp is plugged into? I'm wondering about extra noise, etc.

2) Does close physical proximity between a mic'ed amp and recording device (again, digital) matter (extra noise, etc.)?

quite a lot of recording devices arent grounded for a start. Way around that is plug an unused input from an amp into and unused input on the recorder to connect the grounds. But as for my laptop, its power supply is just too noisy i must unplug it, the laptop it self is fine and totally depends on the device.

[Shadoweclipse13]

I think I'm finally to the point where I'm able and want to start recording my stuff (at home, for fun), but I had an idea for a desk/recording station and am not sure about a few things...

1) Considering smaller spaces (apartments, etc.), is it a bad idea to run a recording device (digital, not tape) off the same power strip (or wall outlet) your guitar amp is plugged into? I'm wondering about extra noise, etc.

2) Does close physical proximity between a mic'ed amp and recording device (again, digital) matter (extra noise, etc.)?

quite a lot of recording devices arent grounded for a start. Way around that is plug an unused input from an amp into and unused input on the recorder to connect the grounds. But as for my laptop, its power supply is just too noisy i must unplug it, the laptop it self is fine and totally depends on the device.

Very interesting. That's a neat trick too!!

[jorri]

I think I'm finally to the point where I'm able and want to start recording my stuff (at home, for fun), but I had an idea for a desk/recording station and am not sure about a few things...

1) Considering smaller spaces (apartments, etc.), is it a bad idea to run a recording device (digital, not tape) off the same power strip (or wall outlet) your guitar amp is plugged into? I'm wondering about extra noise, etc.

2) Does close physical proximity between a mic'ed amp and recording device (again, digital) matter (extra noise, etc.)?

quite a lot of recording devices arent grounded for a start. Way around that is plug an unused input from an amp into and unused input on the recorder to connect the grounds. But as for my laptop, its power supply is just too noisy i must unplug it, the laptop it self is fine and totally depends on the device.

Very interesting. That's a neat trick too!!

Eventually i got a studiospares mic pre on cheap though, as they are grounded. As long as one thing is grounded, that's also a solution.
But before that i found an old fender practice amp from my attic, I took with me for a location cello and vocal recording, especially to do this with when i wasn't doing anything electric!