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In the video screen above is a 46sec trailer for a tutorial video on How To Record The Electric Guitar. The full 18 minute video is available to Dowload Here
Recording Techniques, Music Related, Articles All articles written by Tony Koretz unless otherwise stated.Keep checking back to this page, as articles pertaining to different recording techniques and studio help tips will be added here on a frequent basis. These articles are aimed at giving the DIY recordist, and project studio engineer some fresh ideas, and food for thought regarding different aspects of their studio tasks. Feedback is always welcome, and if deemed appropriate, may even find its way onto this page. So email us if you think you have something worthwhile to say or a help tip to add.
1. Experimental Studio Techniques for a unique sound As we all strive for a sound that uniquely identifies us, it is often a good idea to try and think outside the square a little, to come up with ideas that just might be what a particular song needs, to give it that edge when it comes to a recorded sound. Since there are many people these days either doing the recording themslves at home or in small project studios, I thought I would like to share with you a few ideas which you might find useful if you are a DIY recording engineer/producer with a decent bit of gear at your disposal and a disposition for experimenting. All the examples I use here are techniques I utilised on my "Kicking Cans" album which was entirely recorded , mixed and mastered at my project studio called Country Lane situated just out of Hamilton. So here I go , I'll shoot with a few now and save a few more for another day perhaps.
"The Chequered Flag" used a couple of interesting little tricks. A couple of people asked me how I got the lead guitar sound. Well it was Gibson SG into Peavey 5150 for the most part, but I used a little trick to fatten the lead sound. Here it is:I sent the original digital pre-recorded lead track off to a 2 track analog reel to reel tape machine. Recorded it there, and then sent it back to the digital medium, blending the original recording with the analog recording to really fatten it up. Because the tape does not stay in perfect time with the original, I had to chop up the new digital recording from the tape, into segments and match them with the original lead recording. Sounds complicated but it's pretty easy really and I used similar techniques with snare and kick drum recordings on a couple of songs too. It can really add warmth and substance to digital reordings. The second technique involves a short section near the end of the song where it sounds like everything is being sucked down a tube or something. Is it flanging or is it phasing?Well actually it's both, one following up on the other, and to get such a pronounced effect this was done on the final 2 track mix rather than on individual instruments.
Want to try and get something a little different from your acoustic guitar sound ?Here's something to try:Put a couple of nice mics on the guitar and record them to their own tracks, at the same time run a line from the guitar to a nice guitar amplifier with a little distortion or overdrive and record this to a seperate track . I did this on "And The Winds Blows", panning them to different parts of the mix and adding a nice plate reverb to the amped sound. It almost sounds like two guitars playing rythm, but it's only one.
Trying to create a sound that is identifiable as "Your" sound can be done in many different ways. How about layered harmonised guitars ?This works best if the parts are kept simple. Use a basic riff, add an octave part and maybe a third or a fifth to it as well. The timing has to be precise if you want it to sound like one big wall of the notes making up a chord. It makes the part sound huge if you get it right. I use this technique alot as part of my trademark sound.
Sometimes you want a particular piece of your drum kit to sound maybe a little bigger, or somehow slightly different. One way of doing this is to attach a sample to the drum in question, that plays at the same time as the original hit. I did this on "I Belong" with the snare drum, using a snare sample taken from the same snare drum, just a different hit and attaching it to each snare hit throughout the song. These have to be timed spot on or it sounds like two distinct hits, or like it's out of phase, but if done right the snare can sound pretty big and gnarly.
2. Recording The Acoustic Guitar Recording Techniques There has been much written in different magazines about how to record the acoustic guitar well. . There are some very good articles out there that are worth reading , and my aim here is not really to add anything new, but to give a bit of an outline on what I have found to work for me when recording and mixing acoustic guitars , so that the DIY recordists out there among you might find some useful tips that you can use to help improve the sound of your recordings , or at least give you some food for thought, and maybe some different ideas to try out. So here we go!It goes without saying really , but without wanting to just state the obvious , it is important to have a nice sounding guitar with good strings on to start with . If it is a cheap and nasty guitar or has dull dead strings on it you will never acheive a good sound no matter what you do . If it don't sound good in the room , it ain't gonna sound good on the record. Personally I prefer to record with a guitar that has strings on that have had between 1/2 hr and 5-6 hours playing. Brand new strings can be hard to keep in tune, and strings much older than 6 hrs start sounding a bit dull, though sometimes that may be the sound you are after. My favourite technique for capturing the guitar involves the use of two microphones placed about 30-40 cm from the guitar and recorded to two seperate tracks . Usually I place a large diaphram condenser mic (Rode NTK, NT1 , Neumann U87 etc) aimed at the position where the fretboard meets the body , and a small diaphram condenser mic (Rode NT3, Shure SM81 etc ) aimed at an area between the bridge and the sound hole. Different mics have different characteristics so it's hard to really generalise here, but mostly the neck mic will be a little bassier , and the bridge mic a littler stringier if you know what I mean. The two mics blended together should provide a really nice "average" picture of the guitar sound with a fullness from low to high that is just not there if you use only one microphone . However , it is important to keep both the mics the same distance from the guitar to keep them in phase. As an added precaution against phase problems , if your preamps/mixer have invert switches try different combinations of in/out till you find the one that sounds the best. Try to keep the guitarist the same distance and angle from the mics throughout the performance to keep the recording consistent. If you do decide to go for the one-mic-infront-of-the-sound hole method be prepared to have to roll off a fair bit of low end , as the response there is usually pretty bassy. Personally I always like to record with a little compression on both mics , not hard, but mybe a ratio of between 2-4. 1 with a moderate threshold. Acoustic guitars can have some quite vicious transients and the closer you are to the mics the more likely they are to cause problems , so you might want to consider using a limiter at the end of the chain to catch the unexpected peaks. Just as an aside try to get the performer to play with the headphones up "not too loud" , because unless they seal very well you can get leakage from other instruments getting onto the recording, particularly if a click track is being used, as there is nothing more frustrating than finding later on that you can't get rid of an annoying tambourine, snare hit or whatever. Mostly I prefer not to use line sounds from a guitars onboard pickup when recording , but sometimes it can work quite well for a slightly more electric/acoustic sound when used in combination with one or more mics. This might be helpful for instance if you record the same guitar several times over and don't want every track to sound the same. Maybe use two mics on one gutar part and a mic/line combination on the second guitar part. Once again watch out for phase problems , and you might also find a slight time alignment discrepancy between the mic and the line recordings. Slightly move one of the parts in relation to the other until you find the fullest sounding combination.
3. The Acoustic Guitar in the mix (part 1) Okay, you have captured a really nice acoustic guitar sound on your song, so now what ? Well , you need to get it to relate to the other elements in the mix , and how you treat it is going to depend on several factors, the main ones being : the type of music , and how many other elements such as instruments and vocals there are to have to get to fit together, to get a coherent song that glues together nicely. You would, for instance treat the guitar in a folksy acoustic tune differently than you would an acoustic rhythm guitar track in a full rock mix with keys electreic guitars etc. So we will look at two examples, and call one the folk mix and t'other the rock mix. Okay, so what are the different arrows in your quill that you can use to hit the target you're aiming at, a balanced sound field within a song. Well , you have at your disposal a few, they are : compression, equalisation, stereo positioning, volume and effects. Now I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I will just once again share some of the secrets that have worked for me. Hmm, I guess that means they won't be secrets any more will they!Anyway over the next two articles we'll have a bit of a look at each of them.
Compression As I mentioned in my last article, I usually use a bit of compression during the process of recording the guitar. Not a whole heap, but a subtle amount. Now personally I don't like to pile more on here unless I really have to. Sometimes a bit here, maybe a light use of limiting with a high threshold, or mild compression with a ratio of between 2. 5:1 and 5:1 can be used to enable you to raise the subjective volume level a bit ( or even a combination of the two), but as it is an acoustic instrument, I find if you hit it too hard you can lose the natural tone and dynamics, so it's kind of a last resort to me. So use discretion and try not to squash the life out of it.
4. The Lead Vocal: Tricks for the mix part 1 In this article I want to look at probably the most crucial element in the mix of a song:the lead vocal. After all, that is what most people listen to a song to hear. So if it doesn't sound good, it won't matter how good the instrumentation is, the song is as good as dead really. So, asuming you have recorded a killer lead vocal, let's look at ways to get it to sound great in the mix. There are a few tricks that I use regularly to make a vocal sound fat in the mix. One of these is cloning.
Track Cloning This is easy in the world of digital, because all you need to do is just copy the main track to another track. Well, usually two tracks actually. I often like to have a master track straight down the centre of the mix, a track panned left, and a track panned right. So what do I do with these cloned tracks? Well, for the track on the left I might use a small pitch shift of -8 to -12 cents of a semi-tone, and a short delay of 25 m/s or so, while the opposite track on the right will receive a pitch shift of +7 to +12 cents of a semitone, and a delay time of 50 m/s. You will probably want to set the delay so that it is 100% wet, and has no feedback at all. So, in other words, it is a "once only" very short repeat of the master track. The fader on the master track is kept up at a good level, and you bring up the other two faders evenly, until it makes the vocal sound nice and fat. It will still sound like it is panned to the centre, but with a nice spread to it. Depending on what else is in the mix, I might have the cloned tracks panned anywhere from between 10 o'clock on the left, 2o'clock on the right, to hard left-hard right. There is more processeing that can be done to these cloned tracks which we shall look at in more depth in the next article.
5. Compression Basics In this article I want to present a broad but brief overview on the use of compressors in the recording of sound, be it music, the human voice or general sound effects. The compressor is a great tool to have in your arsenal as a sound engineer, but it is one of those that can either make or break your audio recordings. Used right, it can greatly improve your tracks, used wrong it can ruin the audio and make it sound squashed and muffled. The human ear can detect sounds in a wide dynamic range - from a quiet whisper for example to a huge explosion. However, our recording and playback equipment has physical limitations which mean we have to squash or compress these sounds into a smaller dynamic range in order to reproduce them. So here I will just give you some tips to help you get started in the use of compressors and limiters in controlling your sound's dynamics.
Description Okay, so here we go. First up I will give you a quick outline on what a compressor or limiter does. Right oh, a Limiter abruptly cuts off the dynamics of the signal above a predefined threshold, while by contrast, a compressor gradually attenuates the signal above the predefined threshold. Often times the same device can be used as a compressor or a limiter, or it may have two sections, a compressor section and a limiter section. A compressor is generally used to control the dynamics within the normal program level of the material, while a limiter usually has it's threshold set above the average signal level, so that it just catches peaks that rise above those levels. With digital equipment this is often necessary to prevent "overs" or digital clipping if the level exceeds 0 db. While there are a number of different types of compressors and limiters available , either as hardware or software, most have some or all of the following adjustable features available for user control, though sometimes they are given different names.
Threshold The threshold control enables you to set a point above which the program material begins to have it's level reduced in amplitude. Therefore, any signal which exceeds the threshold point in it's volume will begin to be attenuated by an amount determined by the ratio control.
Ratio Once a signal exceeds the threshold ,the way the ratio control is set will determine how "Hard" the signal above the threshold is attenuated. For instance, a ratio of 1:1 would mean that no attenuation is occurring at all, at 2:1 the signal above the threshold will have it's gain reduced. At this ratio, for every decibel of signal gain that happens, only half a decibel of increased output will actually occur. Two decibels signal gain would result in one decibel of increased output, ten db gain would result in a 5 db increase etc. The higher the ratio , the harder the gain reduction. In practice, any ratio above 8:1 is in effect pretty close to being labelled as a limiter in my book, as not much extra signal gain will be output beyond the threshold at that setting.
Attack Control The attack control determines how quickly the compressor will react to signals that exceed the threshold. You might think that instant response would be ideal, but in practice a slight delay in time between the signal increase and the onset of compression often results in a more musical and less muffled sound. An example here would be say a kick drum, where you want to here the quick attack transient of the beater to give it the punch, before the resonance of the drum occurs, and the signal is squashed. Generally attack times are set somewhere between 0. 1 to 100milliseconds or so. With a limiter though, you generally want a very quick attack to catch the peaks before they slam into, and over your precious 0db digital recording levels and cause distortion, and maybe equipment damage.
Release Control The release control determines the amount of time it takes for the signal to return to it's normal gain once the material is safely below the threshold level again. Release can usually be set from times that are near instantaneous, to times of 5 secs or more.
Output or Gain Makeup Control When we compress or limit a signal, the result is an overall level output that is lower than the original program material, and we normally use this control to bring the level back up to, or beyond the original level, so long as we don't take it above the level where clipping occurs.
Setting the Controls So, having given a brief outline of what the controls do, I will now attempt to give you a few guidelines as to how to use them. There are many ways that compressors can be used for interesting and creative effects, but that is beyond the scope of this article. Remember it is titled "Compression Basics" so I will try to keep it that way here!
Compression Okay, begin with a ratio of between 3:1 and 6:1 for most natural sounding results, and gradually lower the threshold till you acheive the desired amount of gain reduction. Remember, the lower the threshold, the more the signal will be compressed. For voices and non percussive instruments try setting the attack time moderately fast, let's say at around 10 milliseconds, and the release at between 0. 5- 1 sec. If the attack time is too fast your, S's and T's will disappear, and dynamic distortion is also more likely to occur at fast attack times, particularly if coupled with a low threshold. If the attack is too slow, the S's and T's may actually stand out too much. If the release is too short the level will appear to fluctuate and pump, as the compression goes in and out, but if too long, pumping side affects will be noticeable when loud passages are followed by quieter ones. Percussive instruments can be treated by using a faster attack time, to catch the initial transients, or alternatively use of a slower attack time will let the transients through while catching the body of the sound.
Levelling When set up for levelling, a compressor will keep the overall sound at a more uniform level, while not affecting the short term peaks in the material. In order to acheive this, you would set the threshold relatively low (affecting more of the sound) , the attack time relatively slow, and the release time slow as well.
Peak Limiting To set up as a peak limiter use a high ratio (8:1 or more), a high threshold, and a fast attack and fast release time.
Programme Limiting If you desire only to limit the average signal level of the audio and not to catch the peaks then set the attack time at 20 ms or slower.
Makeup Gain Once you have done your compressing, use the output control to make the gain up so that you raise the signal level back up to, or beyond the unprocessed sound, just be careful not to push it beyond the clip level though.
Using a compressor and limiter together A very common thing to do is to place a compressor first in a signal chain to raise the overall level of the programme material, and follow it with a limiter set only to catch the peaks that the compressor misses, and thereby keep the level close to the zero decibel mark However, another way is to actually reverse this, and place a limiter first in the signal chain, and then compress the remaining material. This can often avoid holes being punched in the sound by the interaction of these two things, but hey, discussing that is again getting beyond the scope of this article.
6. The Acoustic Guitar in the Mix part 2 In a previous article on the Acoustic Guitar in the mix we looked at compression and equalisation. In this one we will look at panning, volume and the use of effects.
Panning The position in the stereo field for your acoustic guitar, should vary depending on the style of music, the number of instruments and the prominence you want it to have. In a heavily crowded mix you will probably want the guitar to occupy a narrow space, so that it can cut through without interferring with the other instruments or vocals. Perhaps pan it at around 9-10 o'clock on the left, or alternatively 2-3 o'clock on the right hand side. Sometimes I like to pan two mics one hardish left, and one hardish right for a nice stereo spread of the guitar, but this is not such a good idea if you have other guitars or instruments in the same sonic range in the mix, as it can tend to muddy things up too much, and make for less clarity. Remember it is important that every instrument occupies it's own space without treading on the toes of the others. Hmm, since when did instruments have toes? Oh well, you know what I mean! You could though, experiment with the two panned mics theory, but have them panned more closely together, but with still a little spread to give a fatter sound. If one mic is louder than the other, the sound will tend to pull towards that mic in the stereo image, but it will still sound wider than if there was no panning between them. If one mic has a bassier sound than the other, you can use the volumes to control the overall tone that the listener picks up when hearing a combination of the two mics. Try to avoid hard panning any instrument to one side, unless you have a very good reason to do so. It's generally best to retain some of each instrument's sound in both speakers. On the other hand, unless it is a lead instrument, avoid placing the guitar in the centre as well, because this will tend to interfere with any lead instrument or vocal.
Volume We have already discussed volume a bit here, but I would just like to add that the perceived volume will be shaped not only by the level of the fader, but by the interaction of all these factors: equalisation, compression, panning and the level of effects such as reverb and delays, which is the next thing I will touch on here. If you find you are having to bring the fader right up to get the guitar heard in the mix, try looking at these other factors to see why that is.
The Use of Effects There are a number of different special effects that can be added to guitar sounds, but I will mainly just deal briefly here with reverbs, delays and chorus effects.
Reverb Reverb would be the most commonly used effect. There are plenty of different reverb types available that you can use on acoustic guitar. I usually like to go for a combination of two reverbs, or a reverb and delay combination. There are no hard and fast rules. Really it all depends on the song inquestion as to how much reverb and what type of reverb to use. Maybe start with a shortish reverb with a bout 1. 2secs or so, with just a little in the mix and then add a plate or large hall reverb with a time of between 2. 5 and 3secs to thicken and smoothen the sound up a bit. Don't overdo the amount of reverb as the guitar will sound too far away and indistinct. You can even try panning the reverb a bit away from the main guitar sound if you want.
Delay A delay timed to the track can work really nicely, especially on a lead acoustic part in combination with a good reverb. Timing the delay to the track is important for it to sound smooth but unobtrusive. Avoid too much delay feedback though and don't overdo the amount of the overall effect as once again it will tend to make the guitar sound too far away in the mix. I almost always pan my delays some distance away from the main guitar sound, particularly if there is a heavy reverb, and this helps create a sense of space without the wash that can occur otherwise.
Chorus The subtle use of chorusing effects can help make the guitar sound as if its doubled, or even kind of simulate a pseudo 12 string sound when applied to a 6 string guitar. For a doubled chorusy sound, keep the speed fairly quick, heaps of depth but little feedback. For a 12 string effect slow the speed down a tad, use a bit less depth and a bit more pitch feedback. Once again don't overdo the overall chorus effect if you want the guitar to still sound natural.
It has taken me a while to get to part two of the lead vocal mix tricks, but finally here it is. In this the second article, I want to concentrate on equalisation, compression and panning. Every voice is different, and depending too, on the style of music, and the density of the mix, you will have to treat each voice accordingly. But there are some general principles that can give you starting points to work with at least. So let us begin.
Equalisation : Equalising can be done either pre or post compression, and will give different results depending on which order it is done. If you EQ before compressing , any frequencies that you add a boost to, are likely to get squashed, while the frequencies that are below the compressor's threshold, will be left untouched and may appear to be louder than the squashed frequencies. Generally I find it is best to add compression first, and then have the equaliser follow the compressor in the signal chain. That way the compressor works on the whole frequency spectrum, and will not be affected by the equaliation that follows. Infact, if you have compressed the vocal fairly hard, sometimes it can muffle the sound a bit, and equalisation can restore some of the sparkle to the sound. An exciter or enhancer can also be used in this way. To get the vocal to sit nicely and clearly in a mix, you want it to occupy a frequency range that has it's peaks in a different range than the other instruments that occupy the same space in the stereo field. For example the lead vocal is most often placed up the middle, between the speakers at around 12 o'clock. If you have another instrument placed at the same place in the stereo field, and occupying the same frequency range, you can get conflict. For instance, a hihat may fight with the crispness of the vocals T's, S's and word endings, or an acoustic guitar may fight with the voice over most of the frequencies, because they both cover a similar range naturally. Also male and female voices generally require different treatment. Female voices often require a bit of a boost at around 200-300 hz, whereas sometimes a male voice may need a slight cut in this range or below. A nasally sounding voice can be improved with a cut between 500 and 1000hz. Most voices can use a slight boost between 2 -3 khz to bring out the mid range. Usually male voices benefit from a boost above 7 khz, while female voices may need a cut in that range. If sibilance is a problem, use a de-esser rather than trying to cut with EQ. Some voices can really bite between 3-5 khz, and may sound better with a cut honed into the right frequency in that area.
Compression: I like to compress when tracking, and hopefully have a well controlled recording that needs only minmal compression during mixing. Sometimes you can still end up with some out of control dynamics that need further taming though. This can be done with compression, or if you have recorded to a digital medium you can even use the scissors in you program to cut the audio into sections and treat these with dynamics control individually , by bringing the volume of these passages up or down to match the rest. It's time consuming, but often works better than using heavy compression. Many times I use this method combined with a small amount of compression to get acceptable results. See the article on compression basics for a more indepth look at the use of compression. Try and avoid heavy peak limiting if at all possible, because this can really mess with the tone and dynamics of the sound.
Panning: Panning is a very effective way of getting a nicely balanced mix. Put your guitars and keyboards into a different space than your lead vocal to give them separation. If your lead vocal is up the centre of the mix, as it most often is, it's good to have your hihats a bit off to oneside if you can. Bass, kick and snare drum though usually occupying the same area of the mix, don't generally interfere too much with a vocal. Panning your reverbs and delays used on the voice slightly away from the centre, can be used to create some cool effects and help keep some clarity as well.
Conclussion: Usually the main vocal is what sells a song, so it is important that it comes out clearly, and is somewhat "in your face" without being annoying. So, do what you can to keep the clarity of the voice, but try not to get it to stick out like a sore thumb, or sound unnatural through over-boosting some frequencies, or compreesing it too hard so as to lose all dynamics. Well there you go. Hope this will be of some help to you in nailling some killer vocal traks in your music. (c) March 2005
Check out the tutorial video download further up the page "How To Record The Electric Guitar"
11. Recording an Amped Electric Guitar
Tone and tuning Before I begin to talk about the actual micing of a guitar amp, I want to deal with some basics. First up, it's important to use a nice sounding guitar, with strings in primo condition. No matter what you do with it, an axe with dead strings, or a poor quality one, will just not sound good. Poor intonation will result from using old strings. It's not a bad idea to check the intonation with a tuner in different hand positions before you start, and if you get wildly differing results at the various fret positions, then get it attended to. Make sure that you check the tuning before you begin, as even a slightly off-tune guitar can make it very hard to fit with the other instruments. Next make sure you have a nice sounding amp as well. Your tiny practice amp is unlikely to produce a killer recorded sound, but on the other hand a 200 watt behemoth may prove difficult to get a really good sound without cranking it off the richter scale, and blowing the walls off the room! And speaking of rooms; make sure you are using a fairly decent sounding one to record in, and if need be, add some padding, or other objects round the place, to get it sounding right. I won't go more into that here, as it's another subject altogether. But experiment with things like: whether the amp sounds best: placed next to a wall, or in the middle of a room. If placed in a corner you may get an unwanted "boominess" from it. Now one thing to note here on amp settings, is that what sounds good to your ears while playing on stage, may not sound good when recorded. Be prepared to fiddle with knobs on the amp, to get the right sound for the room, and the chosen microphones. Commonly, you may need to remove a bit of the bottom end, and boost the mids, and maybe the highs a bit.
Playing technique One thing that makes me cringe, is a poor tone, or poor tuning due to a bad playing technique. If you are not Joe Satriani, Dave Gilmour or Ritchie Blackmore, then take a listen to guys like them. Their bends are sweet and pitched beautifully. Make sure your's are too! They use a nice vibrato on long held notes. If you can, make sure you develop a nice one too. Be it fast, or be it slow- vibrato's the way to go!. Talking lead guitar here. Make sure your slides are smooth and accurate, and your notes are picked cleanly and clearly. Never sacrifice clarity for speed. Better to play within your ability, than to end up with a messy sound because you are trying to go beyond your capabilities. And speaking of a messy sound, if you are using distortion or overdrive on your rhythm tracks, listen carefully what notes in a chord sound best without setting off unwanted, clashing harmonics. If you strum a full barre chord on a heavily overdriven guitar, it might sound bad, whereas if you hit just two or three srtrings of the same chord, the result may be much more pleasing to the ear. It is vitally important that you listen carefully to the tone as you play. Try to develop a good ear for it. For me the secret of good playing is captured in: Tone, feel and melody. These are the things you as a guitarist can do to help get a great sound. Now for the recording engineer, who may or may not be the same person as the player, here are a few tips.
The Use of Effects Should you record with effects or add them later? Well, I use both methods depending on the song, the effect and what I am trying to acheive. For rhythm playing, I often record with a bit of reverb from my outboard effects unit, sent into the amp's effects loop. Don't overdo it, because you can always add more later, but you can't take it away. Sometimes I record with a totally dry signal. One thing I never do, is record using an amp's built-in reverb, as they usually aren't that great sounding. With lead guitar, I always record using effects. The reason being, is that I use the effects to shape the way I play, and usually have a certain effect in mind from the outset. Two things to note here though, are don't overdue the amount of reverb or delay, as it can washout the sound and make it hard to mix in later, and try to set any delay times to match the tempo of the song. I won't go into effects types here as that's not the aim of this article.
Microphone placement I have tried all manor of mic arrangements when recording a guitar amp, but instead of going through all the possibilities, I will just give you my favourite configuration. It's easy to set up and it always works. It's a three mic technique. First, I place two dynamic microphones at 90 degrees to each other, aimed at the center of a speaker, close to the grille of the amp. These mics therefore, are 45 degrees from the center of the cone but aiming at the cone's body. They pic up the highs from the center, without so much harshness, and also get the bottom end without so much boominess, as if the were placed straight on, at right angles to the cone and aimed the outer edge. Being at 90 degrees to each other, means they are less likely to create phasing problems. So if you imagine a triangle, the two mics would meet at the tip of one side of the triangle, and that tip would be at the center of the speaker cone. As for mic choices, I always use one Shure sm57, and one mic with different characteristics. Experiment here. I most often choose a Peavey PVM580i as the second mic. The sm57 has a high mid range peak, while the PVM accentuates the lower mid range more. The third microphone I use, is a large diaphram condensor mic, placed out in the room usually 6-10 feet (2-3 metres) away, at the amp height, and facing it. This gives a more airy room sound, and also has a broad spectrum frequency response. You can play around with the mic balances later, at mixdown, if you have recorded them all to seperate tracks. I can always get a good sound using this method. It is much less hit and miss than other methods I have used. Well there you go. Hope this helps you to acheive good results at your place. Cheers for now.
Got a few problems to Iron out in your mixes? Well you have come to the right place : " Tone's She'll be right mate, just give em earplugs" school of audio engineering, where we think the problem is all in the minds of the listener.
Nah seriously, no one wants their mixes to be substandard, so here are a few tips I hope will help to give them a bit of a hand up. Firstly, it's best if you don't have any flaws that need fixing by the time you get to the mixing and then mastering phase of your project. Avoid the "fix in the mix" attitude. A well recorded song is always going to sound better than a poorly recorded song, no matter how many "fixes" that you attempt to apply later. So try to use good quality equipment, good technique and good settings etc when you record. Aim to capture the full range of frequencies of a voice or instrument, as it is easier to attenuate them later than to try to add what is not there. Following that, if any problems do emerge, try to fix them on a track by track basis, rather than attempting to fix them once you have a 2-track mix. The earlier you can deal with things that are potential difficulties the better. I will have a bit of a run through a few of the potential hazards that might trip up all you well-meaning engineers.
DC Offset Cheap soundcards or recorder inputs often add a DC voltage offset to a recorded sound. This is at 0 Hz, which we can't actually hear, but it offsets the wave so that it is centered above the zero line. This means you have less headroom before clipping occurs. Check out your tracks, and if they look like the wave is not centered around the zero, then you need to filter it. Or if when you were recording, the meters were reading even when you were not sending them any signal, that may be a giveaway. Most recording programmes have a function called something like "remove DC offset". Use it if the problem is evident. But do it prior to any compression or EQing. It should get rid of any offset.
Hums and Buzzes It is very easy to get hums and buzzes in your audio, especially from things like guitar amps. Try to avoid them during the recording process. Check your cables, experiment with different proximities and angles of the guitar in relation to the amp. Use balanced cables where possible, and avoid long runs of unbalanced cables. Also try to avoid having power cables and transformers near audio cables. Keep them at least a foot (30 cm) apart, and if they must cross, try to do it at right anges, and better still sit the power cable on something above the audio cables so they don't touch. Hums can be dealt with by some programmes and plugins such as The Waves X-Hum, but it is very difficult to remove buzzes from a recording.
Hiss and white Noise Hiss is often a result of incorrect gain settings when recording. Maybe you had too small a signal, and the gain set too high. Perhaps you just have a noisy piece of equipment. Whatever the cause, use your denoiser, dehisser or noise removal plugin, or programme function before you compress or otherwise tamper with the audio. If you compress before you use noise removal, you will likely be boosting the noise along with the signal, but if you remove the noise first, the compressor won't find any noise to boost! Higher settings on these programmes or gadgets often seriously mess with the signal and change the tone considerably. Try to avoid using them if at all possible, try mild settings first
Clicks and crackles These problems can be a real bane of digital recordings at times. Some suggestions I can offer in avoiding them are as follows: Defragment your hard drives to ensure the computer runs fast enough to keep up with the demands. Adjust your programme's buffers to avoid clicks Use the latest drivers for your software Use crossfades at edit points Avoid clipping any equipments inputs while recording If you are unfortunate enough to get clicks in your mixes, use your programme's or plugin declicker, but try to get as close to the area of the waveform as possible by cutting the region either side of the problem area, and selecting just that small area of the region for processing. Sometimes you can manually remove clicks by re-drawing a wave, with the pencil tool supplied in the software.
Using a de-esser Here is a useful tip I discovered a while back. Sometimes I found it hard to get enough headroom in my vocal recordings to cut through a mix. There would often be short unexpected transient peaks that would shoot way above the rest of the signal, and into the red zone. Now, I could have used a compressor or a brick wall limiter to squash these hard, but I discovered that they are often just centered around one frequency band, and most likely in the 6-8 khz range where the sibilance of an "S" sound resides. By using a de-esser, I not only made the "S" sounds less harsh, and more pleasing to tythe ear, but I found I now had much less problem with the transient peaks, and was able to boost the level of the vocals up more before clipping occurred. Kind of like killing two birds with one stone. This technique is not only limited to vocals either, but frequency dependent compression using a side chain or a de-esser can also be applied the same way to such instruments as an acoustic guitar.
Well I hope these tips are of some use to you in the mix or master process, I am getting RSI from typing, so I might call it a day for now. Catch you in the next article.
Maybe you are content to just bash out a few power chords with attitude on your Gibson Les Paul (or look-a-like copy), having mastered your A,C,G's, or perhaps you are happy to strum a few party tunes in open chords on an acoustic guitar. But what if that is just not enough? What if you dream of the glory days of the mighty guitar solo, and want to emulate your heroes? Let's face it: how many of us are still in love with geat guitar solos? So what makes a great guitar solo? Well I have thought of a few ideas that I feel help make up the great solos. Firstly, to me it is all about getting your guitar to tell a story. When there are vocals happening, they are telling a story, and people listen to the words to pick up on the tale being told. So, when the vocals stop and the guitarist takes over, the guitar should have it's own story to tell. Take the listener on a journey somewhere through the notes you play. No matter how fast you play, or how stylish you look, you will lose the listener pretty quickly if they don't sense a pattern, or feel that the instrumentalist is taking them somewhere. Use the guitar to create a mood. To do that, chose the right scale or mode to acheive the type of mood you want to create. And what you don't play is as important as what you do play. Leave breathing spaces, and don't try to cram in too much. Pink Floyd guitarist Dave Gilmour was a master at this. Never overplaying, he seemed to have such a brilliant knack of finding just the right notes to tell a mesmerising story in each solo. You would not say he had lightning fingers, or space race chops, but solos like the two in "Comfortably Numb" or those in "Another Brick in the wall pt 2" and "Time" will go down as some of the most loved ever. And what feel! Some elastic stretching string bends were trade marks. Which brings me to a point here: Bends are great, but practice until you can get them precisely in tune, because a string bent too flat, or too sharp is not a nice sound for your average listener to hear. But a slow or fast bend done right, is an asset to any solo. Also, try to develop a nice vibrato to use when holding long notes. And then, if you get really good at it, you might want to try adding a vibrato at the top of some of your string bends before releasing the string. Some guitarists have a really quick vibrato, some do it slowly. Brian May is a great player to watch for studying vibrato.
Get familiar with scales and modes, and try to learn to play them in different positions. Also, learn the notes on the fretboard on every string, so that you can consciously think of which notes will fit the chord structure and rhythm underneath. It can sound great to play a scale on a single string, hammering and pulling-off, on the way up or down the neck. But you need to know the notes to play, or it will not sound good at all. So memorize the neck and each string's notes. Speaking of hammers and pulls; put them to good use in a solo, but try also to use picked notes and some long held notes, with bends or vibrato for effect and variation. When hammering and pulling, it is important (as with picking) that each note is distinctly heard, and not a slurred mix of notes that are indistinguishable to the listener. Aim to finish each phrase on a root note, or a nice harmony. The last note of the solo may be the most memorable, so make it sweet to lead back out to the next verse, or whatever is to follow. The main points for me with soloing are these: a) Don't overplay. Remember most listeners are not other guitarists impressed by speed and glamour, but rather, Joe ( or Jane) Public who want to hear melody. b) Be precise in all you do. Slow it down if that is what it takes to make every note clearly heard. c) Think melody, story, journey to some destination musically. c) Get your tone right and your pitching right. d) Use effects that compliment the song. Correct delay and reverb times etc, and don't overdo them. A nice guitar and amp with good tonal settings is a great start to a good overall sound. e) Be confident and energetic, or slow, moody and brooding . Think about what the song needs, and then play accordingly. Don't try to fit every trick in your bag into each solo.
Well I hope this has been some help to you. A good idea is to listen closely to some of the best guitarists, and classic solos, and try to figure out for yourself what it was that made them so good. And if all else fails, get an electric drill and play your solos with that. Or grab a violin bow, use your teeth or buy a plastic guitar with juke box music programmed into it. But whatever you do: Have fun..
If you have followed my seies of articles on guitar recording techniques, hopefully you have captured some killer electric guitar tracks, and now you want to fit them into your song at mix down. Well, to make it all gel you need to get them to relate to all the elements in the mix, and how you treat it them is going to depend on the type of music, how many other elements such as instruments and vocals there are to have to blend in with, and whether they are lead parts or rhythm tracks. Often times I have two rhythm guitar parts each recorded with three microphones, a lead guitar part also recorded using three microphones, and maybe a harmony guitar recorded the same way, and all on seperate tracks. Thats twelve tracks to find a home for! So what is on the palette we have to work with to paint this musical picture? Follow me and I will show you.
Compression
Sometimes a little subtle use of a compressor can help bring a guitar to the fore front of a mix. This is an especially helpful tool wheen used on a lead guitar that is getting a bit lost. Choosing the right ratio is important here. You may decide to go for a light ratio such as 2.5:1 and a lowish threshold, maybe set to kick in at 60-70 per cent of the volume, or a higher ratio of maybe 8:1 and a high threhold of 80-90 percent so it acts more like a limiter for peaks. You can then use your makeup gain to bring the level up a bit to compensate for any loss in overall volume. As with anything, let your ears be the final judge. Listen out for degradation of the sound such as a muffling or pumping and adjust as necessary. The attack time may be the parameter to adjust here. You might think that instant response would be ideal, but in practice a slight delay in time between the signal increase and the onset of compression often results in a more musical and less muffled sound. If you get distortion in the audio...back off on the attack time a little, or set the threshold higher, and the ratio lower. If your audio starts sounding muffled, then slow down the attack time and lower the ratio to let some of the transients pass through before the "squashing" occurs. Set your release time to acheive a smooth result without pumping affects unless you think they are desireable.<p>
Equalisation
I usually roll off or cut the very low frequences from the guitar so they don't interfere with the bass instruments. In a rock mix I may take everything out below 80 or 90 hz on a rhythm track, and below 150 hz on a lead track. Then we get to the overall equalisation to get the guitar to find it's place in the frequency cluttered world of the mix. Personally if I have to boost any frequency by more than 5-6 db I start looking for answers elsewhere. Infact, I prefer to use subtractive EQ rather than boosting where possible.By this I mean if the guitar is getting buried in the mix, I look for a frequency to cut by a small amount in one or more of the other instruments, to create a nice hole for the guitar to punch through. I think a slight boost at a specific frequency for one instrument, with a corresponding small cut at around the same frequency in another instrument occupying the same range, often works better than cranking the heck out of the EQ to get it to "poke out" in a cluttered mix. Having said that I often add a boost to an electric guitar somewhere between 2 khz and 4 khz to get a bit more bite. Maybe a little boost a bit higher as well between 5-6 khz might work too. If the guitar sounds muddy, look to knock a tad off in the 200-400 hz range. The setting of equalisation is always going to have to be tailored to suit all the elements present in a mix.
Panning and the stereo Field
Where you sit your guitars in the mix can play a really large part in how big or small they will sound in the end. Often I have two electric guitar rhythm tracks and will pan them left and right. I might have a bit of space between the the two close mics I usually have on a cabinet. Maybe one mic at 7 o'clock and one at 8 o'clock for one amp, and with any room mic panned hard to the right. On the other amp I might pan the mics at 4 o'clock and 5 o'clock, with the room mic panned hard left. This technique gives a huge wall of guitar sound. It may not work so well if you have keyboards and an acoustic guitar to fit in with. In that case you may need to have one of the rhythm tracks turned down in volume considerably, and panned closer in the spectrum to the other track so it is only there to add a hint of extra body.
With a lead guitar I usually avoid spreading the mics far apart in the stereo field unless I have a good reason to do otherwise, so I place them together at the center, or only a little way off center at 10 o'clock or 2 o'clock, with any room mic perhaps panned a few degrees away from them.You may choose not to use the room mic at all . This should bring the lead to the fore front, and help it bite through without getting mushed into the rhythm tracks. Generally you don't want a wall of sound in a lead guitar, but more for it to cut through the other instruments. If you have recorded directly through an effects box with no amp mics used at all, then still follow these basic panning ideas: Seperate the keyboards to one side of the mix and your guitar to the other side, maybe not hard-panned but partially to one side. Seperate any acoustic guitar from the electric guitar in the same way to avoid clutter. The main point to remember is to try and give each instrument it's own bit of air space.
Using Effects
You may have recorded with effects on the guitar from the beginning, or maybe you have a dry sound recorded and want to add some effects now. Reverbs can be used to help blend a guitar into a mix. Maybe start with a shortish reverb with a bout 1.2secs or so, with just a little in the mix and then add a plate or large hall reverb to thicken and smoothen the sound up a bit. Don't overdo the amount of reverb as the guitar will sound too far away and indistinct. You can even try panning the reverb a bit away from the main guitar sound if you want. A delay timed to the track can work really nicely, especially on a lead guitar part in combination with a good reverb. Timing the delay to the track is important for it to sound smooth but unobtrusive. The delay can be panned a bit away from the main track for effect as well as to keep it from becoming a mush of sound. There are numerous other effects you can use, and I won't go into them here. Experiment a bit and you may find some good combinations. The use of amp and speaker modelling can add colour to your tracks if you want to change the character of what you have captured. There are some pretty good ones around available as plugins or in outboard units.
Conclusion
This is just a brief overview on mixing with regards to electric guitar. It is largely a matter of experimenting, and there are many other ideas to try out besides these, but hopefully I have armed you with enough ammo to have a good shot at firing out a good mix. We should all be learning as we go, and our mixes should improve the more we do it. I hope this all helps give you a few clues on the tools you have at your disposal...now go grab a fader, twist a knob, or throttle a mouse and see what you can come up with!!
