How are we recording electric guitars these days?

Get that song on tape! Errr... disk?
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Re: How are we recording electric guitars these days?

Post by Dok » Thu Jul 30, 2020 8:39 am

With a Beyerdynamic M160 about 6-12" away from the speaker.
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Re: How are we recording electric guitars these days?

Post by cpeck » Thu Jul 30, 2020 3:58 pm

Lately with a Royer 121/Shure SM57 through an API 3124+. Kinda interested in the Neve 500 series tape sim. I’ve been doing demos with an HX Stomp and it’s pretty fun, but doesn’t sound “right” yet.

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Re: How are we recording electric guitars these days?

Post by MazzyJaster » Thu Jul 30, 2020 8:51 pm

Mostly Kemper when tracking and I grab the DI too, but I also use some amp sims, and I even incorporate VST effects via reamping. So basically I can go directly into the Kemper front-end via my pedalboard, or from the computer via SPDIF. I've even got a little amp inteface box that converts a line level signal into Hi-Z, so that I can send a software instrument through the pedal board and into the Kemper.

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Re: How are we recording electric guitars these days?

Post by UlricvonCatalyst » Thu Jul 30, 2020 11:55 pm

I've been working with my friend's band in his home studio out in the sticks, which gives us the luxury of being able to make as much noise as we like, so it's been amp sim out the back of his amp for tracking the drums, then mic'ing up a cabinet (sometimes combined with the amp output) for guitar overdubs.

The bass sounds so much better DI'd than anything I've been able to get out of the speaker cab that I just don't even bother any more.

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Re: How are we recording electric guitars these days?

Post by Steadyriot. » Fri Jul 31, 2020 12:16 am

For home demo's it's either straight into Garageband or Kemper into Garageband.
Full band songs is all Line 6 Helix into Logic.

We've done miced amps but it always falls short for the sound we're after.
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Re: How are we recording electric guitars these days?

Post by jorri » Fri Jul 31, 2020 5:09 am

I'm surprised there is such problems with micced bass. I'm not much a fan of amp sims still. A lot of my sounds are dirty.

But whilst it's the same process, it's like the opposite tonality. So ditch all the small dynamic mics that sound good on guitar. Ribbon, MD421 and large condensers + two at once. Usually offset not on the cone, more edge of cone. Something distant usually helps if it's a big room a producer recently used stereo room mics on a heavy bass sound I did.
Di usually part of the equation but by removing mids and highs of it, I don't think those frequencies can be as good from DI.
Even as much as using a guitar amp and crossover with the DI works great too.

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Re: How are we recording electric guitars these days?

Post by øøøøøøø » Fri Jul 31, 2020 9:35 am

I don't treat mic'ing bass amps drastically differently from mic'ing guitar amps.

With a good bass player and a good amp, it's not really that mysterious. Get a good mic and stick it somewhere in front of the speaker. Move it around a bit if you feel like it could sound better.

If it still doesn't sound right, change other things until it sounds like you want. But most of the time it will sound fine if the amp, player, and mic are all doing their jobs.

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Re: How are we recording electric guitars these days?

Post by burpgun » Fri Jul 31, 2020 7:18 pm

Since I plugged the Tech21 Blonde up thread for finally getting me a perfect lightly breaking up Deluxe sound, I highly recommend that company's VT Bass for your four string. I love mine, targeting something like a B15 sound. It's a super good pedal and is even a good distortion when playing through an amp.

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Re: How are we recording electric guitars these days?

Post by OffYourFace » Fri Jul 31, 2020 10:56 pm

I only do DI guitar these days and it's either clean or heavily effected with modulation and sometimes pitch shifting.

I plug into a custom Cable Factory 4 channel rack DI unit with Lundahl transformers.
From there it goes into an older Brent Averill 1272 two channel mic pre. I usually record in stereo with an old Ibanez CS9 stereo chorus pedal.
I also usually use a Seymour Duncan Vice Grip compressor pedal. If I want a chime-y clean guitar sound, I set the tone switch on the compressor to "High" (treble) and blend it in only 50%.

A friend's band has been using an older Yamaha guitar effect unit called the FX-770 and I've been really impressed. Just guitar straight in and then straight into their interface/DAW.

For Bass, I recently got the Geddy Lee Tech 21 Sansamp rack preamp. I think it sounds amazing. It has separate XLR outs for clean and distortion. It sounds like the perfect raging SVT straight in. If you want that sound, which I often do so the bass cuts through all the analog synths.

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Re: How are we recording electric guitars these days?

Post by fuzzjunkie » Mon Aug 03, 2020 1:23 pm

I do a hybrid approach. Tiny amps in the room when I can and direct through a hardware sim when I can’t. Often times I do both, so as Brad said above, I can react to the sound coming from the speaker. Sometimes I can only play a guitar part through a certain amp with a certain guitar because otherwise it just sounds “wrong.”

When I do that, the hardware sim is the same type as the amp, just the big brother. Vox AC-4 and Vox AC-30 for example. Then I choose whichever sounds better in the mix. Sometimes I mix a little of both together.

Bass goes direct through a tube UA preamp/compressor combo. I would like to try an Ampeg sim, but almost always happy with this setup.

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Re: How are we recording electric guitars these days?

Post by øøøøøøø » Mon Aug 03, 2020 1:43 pm

I feel we've reached that critical mass with amp simulators where the better ones are very often preferable to a poorly-recorded or mediocre amp.

But still seldom preferable to a well-recorded great amp.

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Re: How are we recording electric guitars these days?

Post by marqueemoon » Mon Aug 03, 2020 5:05 pm

I tried my relatively new to me Tech 21 Blonde through the DI on my Great River MP-2NV for the first time yesterday. Using a better DI was a definite game changer with that box. I think with better speaker emulation it would be good enough for most of what I do.

When my new interface gets here I think I’m going to try to get the IR loader plugin thing figured out.

I don’t want to give up on amps, but realistically nobody is really gonna want to put up with listening to me try and fail to nail the same part over and over.

Maybe I can use the Blonde as my monitor “amp” and take a split to get a clean DI track I can reamp later.

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Re: How are we recording electric guitars these days?

Post by fuzzjunkie » Mon Aug 03, 2020 7:20 pm

marqueemoon wrote:
Mon Aug 03, 2020 5:05 pm
I tried my relatively new to me Tech 21 Blonde through the DI on my Great River MP-2NV for the first time yesterday. Using a better DI was a definite game changer with that box. I think with better speaker emulation it would be good enough for most of what I do.

When my new interface gets here I think I’m going to try to get the IR loader plugin thing figured out.

I don’t want to give up on amps, but realistically nobody is really gonna want to put up with listening to me try and fail to nail the same part over and over.

Maybe I can use the Blonde as my monitor “amp” and take a split to get a clean DI track I can reamp later.
That Great River is a solid preamp and the DI is one of the better ones

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Re: How are we recording electric guitars these days?

Post by marqueemoon » Mon Aug 03, 2020 7:57 pm

fuzzjunkie wrote:
Mon Aug 03, 2020 7:20 pm
That Great River is a solid preamp and the DI is one of the better ones
I’ve had it almost 20 years. Absolutely love it. Great sounding and has a lot of useful features for less-than-pros like myself.

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Re: How are we recording electric guitars these days?

Post by marqueemoon » Tue Aug 18, 2020 7:16 pm

:fp:

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